“People who are deaf benefit from better vision due to the fact their retinas develop differently, experts at the University of Sheffield have shown.

The research, which was funded by RNID — Action on Hearing Loss and published June 1, 2011 in the journal PLoS ONE suggests that the retina of adults who are either born deaf or have an onset of deafness within the very first years of life actually develops differently to hearing adults in order for it to be able to capture more peripheral visual information.”

“The above image shows a three-millimeter-wide droplet of heptane fuel burning in microgravity. The burning fuel (yellow) produces particles of soot (green) that ultimately spiral out from the flame zone in long, twisting streamers.”

Stars Adorn Orion’s Sword

“This image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope shows what lies near the sword of the constellation Orion — an active stellar nursery containing thousands of young stars and developing protostars. Many will turn out like our sun. Some are even more massive. These massive stars light up the Orion nebula, which is seen here as the bright region near the center of the image.

To the north of the Orion nebula is a dark filamentary cloud of cold dust and gas, over 5 light-years in length, containing ruby red protostars that jewel the hilt of Orion’s sword. These are the newest generation of stars in this stellar nursery, and include the protostar HOPS 68, where Spitzer spotted tiny green crystals in a surrounding cloud of gas” 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Megeath (University of Toledo, Ohio)

New View of the Great Nebula in Carina

“Eta Carinae is one of the most massive and brightest stars in the Milky Way. Compared to our own Sun, it is about 100 times as massive and a million times as bright. This famed variable hypergiant star (upper center) is surrounded by the Carina Nebula. In this composite image spanning the visible and infrared parts of the spectrum, areas that appear blue are not obscured by dust, while areas that appear red are hidden behind dark clouds of dust in visible light. A study combining X-ray and Infrared observations has revealed a new population of massive stars lurking in regions of the nebula that are highly obscured by dust. Adding these new massive stars to the known massive stars suggests that the Carina Nebula will produce twice as many supernova explosions as previously supposed.

Visible light in the blue part of the spectrum from the Digital Sky Survey is represented as blue, near infrared light with a wavelength of 2.2 microns from the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) is green, and infrared observations from the Infrared Array Camera on NASA’s Spitzer Space telescope at 3.6 microns is red”

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/M. Povich (Penn State Univ.)

Tasseled Anglerfish

“The tasseled anglerfish is one of over 200 anglerfish species that put food on the table by combining camouflage and the physiological fishing tackle that gives them their name. The fish uses a protruding piece of rodlike dorsal spine, tipped with a bacteria-fuelled, glowing “lure,” to tempt prey close enough to be gulped by its outsize mouth.”

Photograph by Jason Edwards

“The fifth dwarf planet of the solar system, Haumea, and at least one of its two satellites, are covered in crystalline water-ice due to the tidal forces between them and the heat of radiogenic elements. This is the finding of an international research study using observations from the VLT telescope at the European Southern Observatory in Chile.

The tiny and strange planet Haumea moves beyond the orbit of Neptune. It has the shape of a flattened rugby ball and is around 2,000 km long. It spins completely in less than four hours, at one of the fastest rotation speeds in the solar system. The crystallised water that covers this planet and its two satellites (Hi’iaka and Namaka) makes them shine in the darkness of space.”

Dwarf Planet Haumea Shines With Crystalline Ice

“The planetary system around the red dwarf Gliese 581, one of the closest stars to the Sun in the galaxy, has been the subject of several studies aiming to detect the first potentially habitable exoplanet. Two candidates have already been discarded, but a third planet, Gliese 581d, can be considered the first confirmed exoplanet that could support Earth-like life. This is the conclusion of a team of scientists from the Institut Pierre Simon Laplace (CNRS, UPMC, ENS Paris, Ecole Polytechnique) in Paris, France, whose study is published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Are there other planets inhabited like Earth, or at least habitable? The discovery of the first habitable planet has become a quest for many astrophysicists who look for rocky planets in the “habitable zone” around stars, the range of distances in which planets are neither too cold nor too hot for life to flourish.”

First Habitable Exoplanet? Climate Simulation Reveals New Candidate That Could Support Earth-Like Life

“Dalhousie Ph.D. student Shane Gero has recently returned from a seven-week visit to Dominica. He has been traveling to the Caribbean island since 2005 to study families of sperm whales, usually spending two to four months of each year working on the Dominica Sperm Whale Project. One of the goals of this project is to record and compare whale calls over time, examining the various phrases and dialects of sperm whale communities.

When they dive together, sperm whales make patterns of clicks to each other known as “codas.” Recent findings suggest that not only do different codas mean different things, but that whales can also tell which member of their community is speaking based on the sound properties of the codas. Just as we can tell our friends apart by the sounds of their voices and the way they pronounce their words, different sperm whales make the same pattern of clicks, but with different accents.”

Whales Have Accents and Regional Dialects: Biologists Interpret the Language of Sperm Whales

“A new analysis of data from NASA’s Galileo spacecraft has revealed that beneath the surface of Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io is an “ocean” of molten or partially molten magma.

The finding, from a study published May 13 in the journal Science, is the first direct confirmation of such a magma layer on Io and explains why the moon is the most volcanic object known in the solar system. The research was conducted by scientists from UCLA, UC Santa Cruz and the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.”

NASA’s Galileo Reveals Magma ‘Ocean’ Beneath Surface of Jupiter’s Moon