Artist’s impression of the new source HLX-1
A new class of black hole, more than 500 times the mass of the Sun, has been discovered by an international team of astronomers.

How much light is reflected and how much is absorbed depends on two factors
It appears to be a paradox: ultra-thin material that absorbs all the incident light. Nonetheless, it does exist.

Mice fed on a diet high in polyunsaturated fatty acids can sprint faster
Between the 1932 and 2008 Olympic Games, world record times of the men’s 100m sprint improved by 0.6 seconds due to improved training techniques and technological advances. Imagine if this improvement could be achieved by a simple change in diet. Scientists at the [...]

The Mexican Free-tailed Bat (Tadarida brasiliensis) lives a very long life compared to closely related animals such as mice
Scientists from Texas are batty over a new discovery which could lead to the single most important medical breakthrough in human history—significantly longer lifespans. The discovery, featured on the cover of the July 2009 print issue of [...]

An illustration of a dust storm on Mars.
For the first time, direct evidence of lightning has been detected on Mars, say University of Michigan researchers who found signs of electrical discharges during dust storms on the Red Planet.

Maybe there is still hope for solving the
dead spots that separate communities
Vice President Joe Biden outlined a $4.7 billion loan and grant program Wednesday to develop the infrastructure needed to deliver broadband, or high-speed, Internet access to areas that are under served or without access.

 flowers show signs of evolution.
Scientists at UC Santa Barbara have zeroed in on the genes responsible for changing flower color, an area of research that began with Gregor Mendel’s studies of the garden pea in the 1850’s.

New research sheds light on how alcohol alters the way brain cells work.
Alcohol’s inebriating effects are familiar to everyone. But the molecular details of alcohol’s impact on brain activity remain a mystery. A new study by researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies brings us closer to understanding how alcohol alters the way brain [...]

apply skin cream in order to stimulate the gene into action
Vaseline, a known molecule from apples and a gene network encapsulated in algal gelatin are the components of a possible gene therapy which literally gets under the skin.

Nematode
Caltech researchers studying the nervous control of nematode mating behavior have produced video footage of a male worm preparing to mate with a hermaphrodite.

From Diesel’s “Liquid Space” fashion show
Augmented reality is a technology futurists and scifi authors like Vernor Vinge have been talking about for decades. Now the tech has matured and is entering the market. Two videos of new products show you the near future. (Videos after the jump)

 
This image shows that after 36 hours nearly every target cell (round gray spheres) has ingested a nanocapsule containing a small-interfering RNA (in red).
It is now possible to engineer tiny containers the size of a virus to deliver drugs and other materials with almost 100 percent efficiency to targeted cells in the bloodstream.

 
 piranhas teeth
How did piranhas — the legendary freshwater fish with the razor bite — get their telltale teeth? Researchers from Argentina, the United States and Venezuela have uncovered the jawbone of a striking transitional fossil that sheds light on this question. Named Megapiranha paranensis, this previously unknown fossil fish bridges the evolutionary gap between flesh-eating [...]

 
The male peacock’s display attracts mates
Throughout the animal kingdom brilliant colors or elaborate behavioral displays serve as “advertisements” for attracting mates. But, what do the ads promise, and is there truth in advertizing? Researchers at Yale theorize that when males must provide care for the survival of their offspring, the males’ signals will consistently be [...]

Professor Payson Sheets and his team uncovered a manioc field one-third the size of football field
A University of Colorado at Boulder team has uncovered an ancient and previously unknown Maya agricultural system — a large manioc field intensively cultivated as a staple crop that was buried and exquisitely preserved under a blanket of ash [...]

 
Round goby fish
Scientists have found the existence of two types of males of a fiercely invasive fish spreading through the Great Lakes, which may provide answers as to how they rapidly reproduce.

 
E. coli bacteria
Bacteria can anticipate a future event and prepare for it, according to new research at the Weizmann Institute of Science. In a paper that appeared June 17 in Nature, Prof. Yitzhak Pilpel, doctoral student Amir Mitchell and research associate Dr. Orna Dahan of the Institute’s Molecular Genetics Department, together with Prof. Martin Kupiec [...]

 
Researchers found that intelligence varies among individual monkeys.
Scientists at Harvard University have shown, for the first time, that intelligence varies among individual monkeys within a species – in this case, the cotton-top tamarin.

Scientists first discovered psittacosaurs in the Gobi Desert in 1922
Plants or meat: That’s about all that fossils ever tell paleontologists about a dinosaur’s diet. But the skull characteristics of a new species of parrot-beaked dinosaur and its associated gizzard stones indicate that the animal fed on nuts and/or seeds. These characteristics present the first solid [...]

YourSpace is shrinking.
In May 2009, Facebook became the most popular US social networking site.
But it was close.
According to comScore, Facebook totaled 70,278,000 unique visitors, up 97% from May 2008 to May 2009. MySpace hits shrank 5% over the same timeframe, fading to 70,255,000 unique visitors.

Digital textbooks to replace printed textbooks in schools 
In the state that gave the world Facebook, Google and the iPod, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says forcing California’s students to rely on printed textbooks is so yesterday.

Online advertising revenues have fallen
Asked about a possible recession early in 2008, IDC analyst Karsten Weide said, “We think there will be some effect on advertising spending overall, but online ad spending will almost be unaffected-even if there’s a depression.”
What a difference a year makes.

Prolific Twitter users, such as Ashton Kutcher and his wife, Demi Moore, account for the majority of tweets posted on the microblogging site.  
The report found that the use of Twitter is highly concentrated among its most prolific users. This is in contrast to usage patterns on other social networks, such as Facebook, where the top [...]

They are always watching
Digital security is clearly an important matter to President Barack Obama and he will today appoint a “cyber czar” to oversee the nation’s computer defenses.

Apple praising Microsoft now thats new
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has reported a favorable impression of Microsoft’s Bing search engine.