|  Tianjin Explosions Seen from Space (Photo)  | Smoke from two massive explosions that rocked the Chinese port city of Tianjin on Wednesday (Aug. 12) floated east over the Bohai Sea before heading south toward the Shangdong Peninsula, NASA satellite images reveal. The images, captured yesterday (Aug. 13) at 2:30 p.m. local time in Tianjin, show a dark plume snaking across the sky over the blue waters of one of the world's busiest seaways. The source of the smoke was likely the industrial fires that burned after the explosions that took place at a warehouse near the city's port that was reportedly storing "dangerous and chemical goods," according to a BBC News report.
| Read More » Elysium Space Gets Into the Moon Burial Business  | San Francisco-based Elysium Space announced Wednesday (Aug. 12) that it has signed a contract with Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic Technology to deliver people's ashes to the surface of the moon aboard Astrobotic's Griffin lander. Another space burial company, Houston-based Celestis, also plans to fly cremated remains to the moon using Griffin (and using the lunar lander being developed by another company, Moon Express, as well). Celestis' moon burial options start at $12,500, while Elysium Space's "Lunar Memorial" service costs $11,950 (though the first 50 participants will receive a special rate of $9,950).
| Read More » Electrifying Photo Takes Internet by Storm: Why Rainbow Lightning Is So Rare A real-estate agent and storm chaser captured a snapshot of a lifetime on Aug. 9, when he photographed a rare duo — an eerie flash of lightning framed by a glorious rainbow — in Tucson, Arizona. The electrifying image took social media by storm: As of Aug. 14, Greg McCown's photo had garnered more than 1,000 Facebook likes and more than 3,600 retweets. Although 100 lighting bolts strike the Earth every second, the chances of them flashing near a rainbow are slim, said Randall Cerveny, a professor of meteorology at Arizona State University in Tucson. Read More » Plankton Graveyards Revealed in First Digital Map of Seafloor  | Published Aug. 9 in the journal Geology, the interactive map is available online. The last version of the map was hand drawn in the 1970s, according to the University of Sydney. "The old map suggests much of the Southern Ocean around Australia is mainly covered by clay blown off the continent, whereas our map shows this area is actually a complex patchwork of microfossil remains," study author Adriana Dutkiewicz, a sedimentologist at the University of Sydney, said in a statement.
| Read More » 26-Year-Old 'Corduroy' Crowned World's Oldest Living Cat  | Twenty-six-year-old Corduroy, a handsome male kitty from the United States, was crowned the oldest living domestic cat this week by Guinness World Records. Corduroy's title replaces another venerable cat in the record book, Tiffany Two, who died recently at the ripe old age of 27 years, 2 months and 20 days. Corduroy's age may not seem that impressive to long-living humans, but the cat's 26 years are notable for a domestic kitty.
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