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Monday 27 January 2014

Andromeda is headed our way at around 120km/second

Andromeda is headed our way at around 120km/second and is predicted to collide with the Milky Way galaxy in three or four billion years. The result, if anybody is around to see it, will be beautiful. As there's so much empty space and such large distances between stars, the two galaxies will pass through each other first and it's very unlikely any stars will collide, but dust and clouds will, meaning the rate of star creation will be greatly boosted and supernovae will become more common.

This is the first footage ever captured of a deep-sea squid battling an owlfish

This is the first footage ever captured of a deep-sea squid battling an owlfish - and it's mind blowing. Collected by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, the video shows a black-eyed squid snaring an owlfish with its two hook-tipped tentacles and using its sharp beak to gnaw away at the owlfish's spinal cord, rotating it like a cob of corn until it severs the cord, rendering the owlfish helpless and ready to be eaten.

Would you like to become a diamond?

Would you like to become a diamond? A Swiss company is making diamonds out of cremated human remains. The process reduces ash to carbon and then applies intense heat and pressure for weeks to create diamond crystals. Once these have cooled off, they’re cut to shape and engraved. ‘Human diamonds’ tend to have a blue colouration due to the amount of boron present in the human body.

Astronomers have confirmed that the dwarf planet Ceres

Astronomers have confirmed that the dwarf planet Ceres - the largest body in the asteroid belt that sits between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter - is generating plumes of water vapour. Thought to be caused by cryovolcanoes, which spew water instead of molten rocks, these plumes could explain how so much water made it to the early Earth.

Astronomers have observed one of the most powerful black holes in the known Universe

Astronomers have observed one of the most powerful black holes in the known Universe. Located in a galaxy cluster around 3.9 billion lights years from Earth, the black hole has created two enormous cavities (shown as two dark spaces in the bright purple X-ray glow) in the hot gas surrounding it and stopped trillions of stars from forming.

Friday 24 January 2014

For the first time, researchers have explained the mechanism

For the first time, researchers have explained the mechanism behind the eruptions of supervolcanoes like the one in Yellowstone, Wyoming that ejected more than 2,000km3 of material some two million years ago. Turns out these giant volcanic time bombs can erupt simply due to changes in their huge magma chambers as they slowly cool.

Reading someone’s mind is easier than you thought

Reading someone’s mind is easier than you thought – you just need to look at their pupils. A person who is about to answer ‘yes’ to a question will have more enlarged pupils than those who will say ‘no’. If the person is hesitant, the pupils will grow even larger. This is due to signaling chemicals produced by the brain.

For the past decade

For the past decade, 350 seals equipped with special headgear have been collecting crucial information about the Southern Ocean's temperature flucations and salinity. Scientists are now sorting through the data to better understand and monitor climate change events in the future.

This is what an embryonic leopard cub looks like in the womb.

This is what an embryonic leopard cub looks like in the womb. It's not a photograph, but a combination of three-dimensional ultrasound scans, tiny cameras and computer graphics used to create realistic representations of animal fetuses for a National Geographic documentary.

Super Moon


The DNA of a rare, sexually transmissible cancer has been decoded

The DNA of a rare, sexually transmissible cancer has been decoded. It arose in a single, husky-like dog 11,000 years ago and has survived through millions of genetic changes. The only other known transmissible cancer is the facial cancer currently devastating our Tasmanian devils.

Sunday 5 January 2014

This is fluorite, a widely occurring mineral found in parts of China

This is fluorite, a widely occurring mineral found in parts of China, Europe, and North America. Dubbed "the most colourful mineral in the world", it's commonly found in shades of purple, blue, green, yellow, and more rarely in pink, red, white, brown, and black.

This amazing shot by German photographer

This amazing shot by German photographer Martin Rietze captures the moment when a bolt of lightning flashed in an erupting volcano in Japan last year. The volcano, named Sakurajima, has been erupting almost constantly since 1955.