|  Ancient Galaxy Is Most Distant Ever Found  | Astronomers have spotted the farthest-flung galaxy in the known universe. The discovery team used an infrared spectrograph at the Keck Observatory in Hawaii to detect EGSY8p7's "Lyman-alpha emission line" — basically, hydrogen gas heated up by ultraviolet radiation streaming from the galaxy's newborn stars. Seeing a Lyman-alpha line at such a great distance came as a surprise to the researchers.
| Read More » Miscarriage: Facts, Myths and Mysteries When Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg shared on his social-networking site that he and his wife, Priscilla Chan, are expecting a baby girl, the father-to-be also revealed some more sobering news: The couple had three miscarriages during the several years they tried to conceive. "It's a lonely experience," Zuckerberg wrote. Recent research shows that Zuckerberg isn't the only person who has worried about feeling blamed for a miscarriage. Read More » New York City Outbreak: What Is Legionnaire's Disease? At least seven people in New York City have died and 86 have been infected in an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease. In addition, most people who do get Legionnaires' can be treated with antibiotics. From its source to its treatment, here are some of the most important things to know about the disease and the current outbreak. Read More » Opuntia or Ogmios? New Exoplanet Names To Be Announced Next Week  | The votes are in! Thirty-two exoplanets will get new names that were chosen in an open vote by the general public. The "Name the Exoworlds" campaign, created by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), gave the public the opportunity to vote on new names for stars and planets in 20 exoplanet systems. "This is another attempt by the union to engage the public in the activities of the union," said Piero Benvenuti, IAU's assistant general secretary, in a media briefing on Monday (Aug. 3).
| Read More » Moon Crosses Earth's Face in Amazing Million-Mile Video  | The Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) studies the solar wind and snaps vivid shots of Earth's surface from its position about 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) from the planet. Recently, the moon entered DSCOVR's field of view, and the spacecraft caught the amazing lunar transit on time-lapse video. "It's surprising how much brighter Earth is than the moon," Adam Szabo, DSCOVR project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said in a statement.
| Read More » No Tusks: Ancient Walrus Cousin Looked More Like a Sea Lion  | About 10 million years ago, a distant cousin of the modern walrus snapped at fish as it swam near the shore of what is now modern Japan, a new study finds.
| Read More » Rosetta 1 Year Later: Historic Comet Mission Still Intrigues  | One year ago today, a spacecraft slipped into orbit around a comet for the first time ever.
| Read More » Ancient Reptiles Attacked with Giant Fangs  | Ancient mammal-like reptiles that once grazed across the globe may have possessed many of the fighting tactics seen in modern herbivores, including head butting and attacks with giant fangs, researchers say. The new finding comes from an analysis of two such bizarre anomodonts, both the size of large dogs: Tiarajudens eccentricus and Anomocephalus africanus. Vertebrate paleontologist Juan Carlos Cisneros at the Federal University of Piauí in Teresina, Brazil, and his colleagues recently discovered Tiarajudens eccentricus, an odd saber-toothed anomodont that once dined on leaves and stems amidst the dunes, ponds and streams of ancient Brazil.
| Read More » Planet Earth Shines in Weather Satellite's 1st Photo from Space  | Africa looked awash in splotches of dusty pink, vibrant green and a swirl of white clouds in an image snapped Tuesday (Aug. 4) by Europe's newest weather satellite, according to an announcement from the European Space Agency (ESA). After ESA scientists spent 11 days configuring the satellite, they handed its controls over to the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) on July 26. EUMETSAT researchers immediately got to work, and had the satellite take its first picture Tuesday using its SEVIRI imager.
| Read More » Dancing Peacock Spider Is a Web Sensation  | If you don't think spiders are super-cute, then you've probably never seen Maratus personatus perform its very elaborate, oh-so-adorable mating dance. The males of this newly described species of peacock spider get seriously groovy when wooing lady spiders, and, luckily for arachnophiles, one biologist thinks their dance moves are worthy of recording (and then setting to funky music). Jürgen Otto, a mite biologist and peacock spider enthusiast at the Australian Department of Agriculture in Sydney, maintains a YouTube channel devoted to sharing the mating dances of these spiders in a way that even arachnophobes can appreciate.
| Read More » Fly catcher robot to speed up insights into Alzheimer's By Ben Gruber PALO ALTO, California - Stanford University researchers are using the most sophisticated fly catcher in the world with the potential to speed up the rate of scientific insight into diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Utilizing robotics, computer vision, and high speed cameras along with a powerful suit of sensors, this robot can handle and study fruit flies with unprecedented speed and accuracy. Fruit flies and humans share more than 50 percent of the genes known to affect human disease, making them crucial to genetic research. "Historically the fruit fly has been an important model for the study of various biological processes and has led to important discoveries initially in genetics but then in other fields as well," said Mark Schnitzer, a professor of biology and applied physics at Stanford University. Read More » NASA extends contract with Russia for rides to Space Station By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - NASA extended its contract with Russia to fly astronauts to the International Space Station due to budget cuts that have delayed commercial U.S. alternatives, the U.S. space agency said on Wednesday. Extending the contract through 2017 will cost the United States about $490 million, NASA chief Charles Bolden wrote in a letter to Congress. The deal for U.S. taxpayers to pay Moscow more than $80 million per seat on a Soyuz rocket comes at a time when Washington is ratcheting up sanctions against Russia in response to its actions in Ukraine. Read More » Frogs from Hell: Their Venomous Head Spikes Could Kill You  | In the wilds of Brazil, researchers have discovered frogs with venomous spikes on their heads. Most amphibians, such as frogs, newts and salamanders, concentrate or secrete poisons in skin glands to ward off predators. Frogs include some of the most toxic animals on Earth — for instance, the 2-inch-long (5-centimeter) golden poison dart frog has enough toxin to kill 10 grown men, and the indigenous Emberá people of Colombia have used its poison for centuries in blowgun darts.
| Read More » Nichelle Nichols, Star Trek's 'Uhura,' Will Fly on NASA's SOFIA Observatory  | While it's not quite beaming up to a spacecraft, a "Star Trek" celebrity plans to take part in a special NASA flight to observe the universe. Nichelle Nichols, best known for playing Lt. Nyota Uhura on "Star Trek: The Original Series," will join the crew of the SOFIA (Stratospheric Infrared Observatory) aircraft on Sept. 17, the star announced July 31. "I am honored to say that I will be among the first non-essential personnel to experience NASA's newest telescope: SOFIA," Nichols wrote on StarPower, a website celebrities use to raise money for charities.
| Read More » Drones in Space! NASA's Wild Idea to Explore Mars (Video)  | A team of NASA engineers wants to put drones on Mars. Now, the Swamp Works team at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida is developing a dronelike robot that works in dark, low- or no-atmosphere environments, and can recharge itself by returning to its lander mothership. "This is a prospecting robot," Rob Mueller, senior technologist for advanced projects at Swamp Works, said in a statement.
| Read More » Fly Over Ceres' Mysterious Mountain and Bright Spots in Incredible Video  | With or without 3D glasses, a newly released video tour of Ceres offers a new perspective on the dwarf planet's dramatic and diverse surface. "This mountain is among the tallest features we've seen on Ceres to date," Dawn science team member Paul Schenk, a geologist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, said in a statement.
| Read More » Warning for Nepal: April Earthquake Didn't Unleash All Its Energy  | The devastating earthquake that struck Nepal in April released only a fraction of the energy still trapped in the underlying fault, meaning the area has the potential to host another large earthquake in the future, researchers say. "The Main Himalayan Thrust is a fault that has produced large earthquakes every century or so," said study lead author Jean-Philippe Avouac, a geophysicist at the University of Cambridge in England. "Nepal lost two kings to these quakes, one in 1255, another in 1344.
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