Posted on February 04, 2010
Smithsonian astronomers have just discovered a rare example of a galaxy that appears to have a pair of giant black holes. Now they are trying to determine if those black holes are partners tied together by gravity, or if one of the two has been kicked out in a cosmic breakup. [...more]
Posted on February 01, 2010
A new study published in the Feb. 2 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences indicates that forests in the Eastern United States are growing at a faster rate than at any time in the last 225 years. The chief culprit, researchers say, appears to be climate change, specifically: rising levels of atmospheric [...] [...more]
It’s not an exaggeration to say Hedrick was ecstatic when she peered into her inverted phase contrast microscope and found "Amphisolenia quadrispina" floating in her sample. “For 20 years I’ve been hoping to see something like this,” she says. [...more]
A meteorite that crashed through the roof of a Lorton, Va., doctors’ office on Monday, Jan. 18, 2010 was recently donated to the Division of Mineral Sciences at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. Local newspapers reported that thousands of people from southern New Jersey to southwestern Virginia witnessed the meteorite streak through the [...] [...more]
“Spinning under the influence” is one way to describe recent activities in the Costa Rican laboratory of Smithsonian scientist William Eberhard. An entomologist at the Smithsonian’s Tropical Research Institute, Eberhard recently carried out a series of experiments in which he observed the web-building behavior of dozens of spiders under the influence of drugs—specifically, a chemical injected into their bodies by parasitic wasps. [...more]
Unusual Prehistoric Whale"Mammalodon colliveri" is an unusual prehistoric toothed baleen whale. Its fossils are found in the Upper Oligocene Jan Juc Formation of south-east Australia. . [...more] Painting by Brian Choo |
 |
Subscribe 