An international team of astronomers has used nearly three years of high precision data from NASA’s Kepler spacecraft to make the first observations of a planet outside our solar system that’s smaller than Mercury, the smallest planet orbiting our sun.
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In a remarkable example of interdisciplinary teamwork, astronomers are helping cancer researchers use computerized stargazing algorithms developed for spotting distant galaxies to identify biomarkers in tumors to determine how aggressive they are.
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When you twist your head around to check for a driver in your "blind spot" before changing lanes, don’t you wish you could swivel your head around like an owl? Owls can rotate their heads by as much as 270 degrees in either direction without damaging the delicate blood vessels in their necks and heads, and without cutting off the blood supply to their brains.
Owls also have the uncanny ability to fly silently, relying on specialized plumage to reduce noise so they can hunt in acoustic stealth (many "contactees" have mistaken Grays for owls).
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