South African Clone of Penn State Telescope Makes First Scientific Discovery
The Southern African Large Telescope
Research Paper Illuminates How Light Pushes Atoms
A pencil-like laser beam can be made by intersecting two infinitely wide light waves at a small angle. "You might think that an atom would absorb a photon randomly from only one of the beams," as depicted in the section labeled a), "but this paper shows that the atom recoils with a speed that is less than it would get from the momentum of either of the infinitely wide photons, with no sideways recoil," as depicted in b).
New Method for Dating Art Prints and Early Books Borrows Know-How from Genetic Science
The print clock. In these models, close-ups of a carved woodblock (above) and engraved copperplate (below) are shown, corresponding to a curved black line on the print behind it, at two time periods. Image courtesy of Blair Hedges, Penn State
Giant Deep-Sea Tubeworm's Meal Ticket Comes in as a Skin Infection
Credit: Andrea D. Nussbaumer, Charles R. Fisher and Monika Bright Tubeworm artificial settlement cubes after one year deployment at the East Pacific Rise in 2500 m depth.
How Big is Big? Probing the Conditions of the Universe on the Largest Scales
Credit: Hogg, SDSS-II collaboration The SDSS telescope at Apache Point, NM has been used to create a map of regular galaxies (black points) and luminous red galaxies (red points) out to 40% of the distance to the edge of the visible universe. Light from the most distant red galaxies has taken 5.6 billion years to reach us, while the edge of the visible universe is 13.7 billion light years away. This map of the universe allowed astronomers to detect galactic structures more than a billion light years across.
X-rays Fly as Cracking Comet Streaks Across the Sky
NASA's Swift satellite captured this image of comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 as it chanced to fly in front of the Ring Nebula.
Penn State Researchers Look Beyond the Birth of the Universe
The figure represents our expanding universe as the right branch of the arc.
Methane-Belching Bugs Inspire a New Theory of the Origin of Life on Earth
More that twenty years ago, Penn State's James G. Ferry first isolated Methanosarcina acetivorans from anaerobic sediment beneath a kelp bed. Ferry and Christopher House, also at Penn State, have helped uncover the biochemistry this microbe uses to make vinegar out of carbon monoxide. Now they suggest that this a primitive version of this unique biochemistry may have fueled the metabolism of the first life forms on earth.
Massive Duplication of Genes May Solve Darwin's "Abominable Mystery" about Flowering Plants
The yellow water lily (Nuphar advena) shows evidence of an ancient genome duplication that may have been a key event in the evolution of flowering plants.Photographs by Yi Hu, Penn State Eberly College of Science Department of Biology.
Two Milky Way Companion Galaxies Discovered
The Constellation Bootes
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