Earth's radiation belts, called Van Allen belts, were discovered after the very first launches of satellites in 1958 by James Van Allen. Subsequent missions have observed parts of the belts but what causes such dynamic variation in the belts has remained something of a mystery. Seemingly similar storms from the sun have at times caused completely different effects in the belts, or have sometimes led to no change at all.

And the obesity wars drone on: it’s the sugar, it’s the fat, it’s the paucity of playgrounds, it’s the prevalence of too-thin models and TV and gaming and chips and texting. It’s the lack of parental discipline and self-restraint.

But wait: what if we accepted that “the environment”--the catch-all phrase for the above--just can’t be changed, or at least not fast enough to make a difference? And what if we just accepted that people will, by and large, continue to do as their genetic backgrounds direct them: eat as much as they can, and move as little as they must?

Environmental activists make money telling us all how terrible things are; climate scientists appreciate the help promoting their data, we do have a bit of a train wreck coming at us emissions-wise, but climate scientists also know there is a risk of backlash if there are too many hyperbolic claims, and that 'green fatigue' will set in if every change in temperature and every storm is attributed to global warming. That's why even the IPCC, no wallflower when it comes to using media talking points, wishes media would not attribute local weather to climate change.

Researchers usingt the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in West Virginia say they have discovered an important pair of prebiotic molecules in interstellar space. The discoveries indicate that some basic chemicals that are key steps on the way to life may have formed on dusty ice grains floating between the stars.

Researchers have electronically linked the brains of pairs of rats, enabling them to communicate directly to solve simple behavioral puzzles - even thousands of miles apart, one in Durham, N.C., and one in Natal, Brazil.

The results of these projects suggest the future potential for linking multiple brains to form what the research team is calling an "organic computer," which could allow sharing of motor and sensory information among groups of animals. 

Martin A. Schwartz is Professor of Microbiology and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Virginia. The professor draws attention to the importance of stupidity in scientific research in his recent article for Seismological Research Letters – January/February 2011; v. 82; no. 1; p. 3-4. Entitled :

Light from two massive stars that exploded hundreds of millions of years ago recently reached Earth, and each event was identified as a supernova. A supernova discovered Feb. 6th exploded about 450 million years ago while the second, discovered Nov. 20th, 2012, exploded about 230 million years ago.

For a government that likes military action but not losing American lives, drones are the next big thing.   Drones have been, and will continue to be, used in more and more applications outside the military, including citizen surveillance and natural disaster research. 

But military spending is what is driving optimization and the U.S. Department of Defense reports that drone accidents happen 50 times more often than mishaps involving human-operated aircraft. The U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps reported 43 mishaps that involved human factors issues associated with drone ground control workstations and technology during the years 2006 and 2007. 

Chronic or acute liver failure can be deadly. Toxins take over, the skin turns yellow and higher brain function slows. A line of special liver cells could change that, says Neil Talbot, a Research Animal Scientist for the USDA Agricultural Research Service, in an interview with the American Society of Animal Science.

Astronomers using new data from the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array - NuSTAR - and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton X-ray satellites have measured  the supermassive black hole at the center of the spiral galaxy NGC 1365, more than 2 million miles across, and discover it is spinning so fast that its surface is traveling at nearly the speed of light.

A black hole's gravity is so strong that, as the black hole spins, it drags the surrounding space along. The edge of this spinning hole is called the event horizon. Any material crossing the event horizon is pulled into the black hole. Inspiraling matter collects into an accretion disk, where friction heats it and causes it to emit X-rays.