How long do you think it will take before it makes it to Ebay
On July 23, a lengthy FBI probe into corruption in New Jersey ended in the arrests of 44 people, including two mayors, a prominent real-estate developer and several rabbis. But amid the bribery and money-laundering allegations, the element of the sweeping sting [...]

Come on its just a rock
How many planets are in the solar system? The official answer is eight – unless you happen to live in Illinois. Earlier this year, defiant Illinois state governors declared that Pluto had been unfairly demoted by the International Astronomical Union, the authority that sets the rules on all matters planetary.

The Green Peas stuck out because of their small size and green color compared to the more common galaxies
A team of astronomers has discovered a group of rare galaxies called the “Green Peas” with the help of citizen scientists working through an online project called Galaxy Zoo. The finding could lend unique insights into how [...]

At one time or another, we’ve all found ourselves lying in a grassy field somewhere, looking up at the clouds and thinking, “Wow, that really looks like a bear.” (Pics)

Two bumblebees. Declining bumblebee populations are at greater risk of inbreeding, which can trigger a downward spiral of further decline.
Declining bumblebee populations are at greater risk of inbreeding, which can trigger a downward spiral of further decline. Researchers have provided the first proof that inbreeding reduces colony fitness under natural conditions by increasing the [...]

Surgical thread can be embedded with a patient’s own adult stem cells to promote healing.
Johns Hopkins biomedical engineering students have demonstrated a practical way to embed a patient’s own adult stem cells in the surgical thread that doctors use to repair serious orthopedic injuries such as ruptured tendons. The goal, the students said, is to [...]

Potamopyrgus antipodarum is a snail that lives in the muds of New Zealand’s lakes, rivers and estuaries
The coevolutionary struggle between a New Zealand snail and its worm parasite makes sex advantageous for the snail, whose females favor asexual reproduction in the absence of parasites, say Indiana University Bloomington and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology biologists [...]

Ants are more rational collective decision makers than humans.
In a study released online on July 22 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences, researchers at Arizona State University and Princeton University show that ants can accomplish a task more rationally than our – multimodal, egg-headed, tool-using, bipedal, opposing-thumbed – selves.

Caption: The structure of jewel beetle cells results in striking colors as light hits them from angles.
“Jewel beetles” are widely known for their glossy external skeletons that appear to change colors as the angle of view changes. Now they may be known for something else–providing a blueprint for materials that reflect light rather than [...]

Competitive begging. Researchers have found the first signs of vocal learning in the food begging calls of male chipping sparrows, which learn to vary their cries from an early age.
Only a handful of social animals — songbirds, some marine mammals, some bats and humans — learn to actively style their vocal communications. Babies, for instance, [...]

New expanding spot on the giant planet Jupiter. (Credit: NASA, ESA, and H. Hammel (Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.), and the Jupiter Comet Impact Team.)
The checkout and calibration of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has been interrupted to aim the recently refurbished observatory at a new expanding spot on the giant planet Jupiter. The spot, [...]

Experimental set-up at the FLASH laser used to discover the new state of matter
Oxford scientists have created a transparent form of aluminium by bombarding the metal with the world’s most powerful soft X-ray laser. ‘Transparent aluminium’ previously only existed in science fiction, featuring in the movie Star Trek IV, but the real material is an [...]