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This self-portrait of

Opportunity shows effects of wind events that had cleaned much of the accumulated dust off the rover's solar panels

It combines multiple frames taken

the largest and third-largest bodies in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter

The team operating NASA's Curiosity Mars rover is telling the rover to use several tools this weekend to inspect a sandstone slab being evaluated as a possible drilling target

If this target meets criteria set by engineers and scientists, it could become the mission's third drilled rock, and the first that is not mudstone

The planned inspection, designed to aid a decision on whether to drill

The first example of living human cartilage grown on a laboratory chip has been created by scientists

The researchers ultimately aim to use their innovative 3-D printing approach to create replacement cartilage

Osteoarthritis is marked by a gradual disintegration of cartilage, a flexible tissue that provides padding where bones come together in a joint

-- as frosty as Earth's North Pol

A "brown dwarf" star that appears to be the coldest of its kind—as frosty as Earth's North Pole—has been discovered

Images from the space telescopes also pinpointed the object's distance at 7.2 light-years away, making it the fourth closest system to our Sun

Brown dwarfs start their lives like stars, as collapsing balls of gas, but they lack the mass to burn nuclear fuel and radiate starlight

Open-heart surgery

In 1953, a heart-lung machine designed by Dr. John Heysham Gibbon was used to successfully complete the first open-heart surgery, on patient Cecelia Bavolek, demonstrating that an artificial device can temporarily mimic the functions of the heart. Improved versions allow surgeons today to perform bypass surgery and heart transplants. He built the first experimental heart-lung machine or pump oxygenator in 1937 that used two roller pumps and able to replace the heart and lung action of a cat for 25 minutes. By the late 1940s, with financial and technical support from IBM President Thomas J. Watson, Gibbon produced an improved device which cascading the blood down a thin sheet of film for oxygenation to prevent damage blood corpuscles

In 2000, a conjunction of the five bright planets - Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn - formed a rough line across the sky with the Sun and Moon. Unfortunately, nothing was visible from the earth, because the the line of planets was behind the Sun and hidden in its brilliance. Such a conjunction last happened in Feb 1962 and will not happen again until Apr 2438. Throughout former history, a conjuction event was regarded with foreboding. However, now science can be dismissive. Donald Olson, an expert on tides at Southwest Texas State University, working with the assistance of a graduate student, Thomas Lytle, calculated the stress on the Earth caused by the Moon and eight planets has often been routinely greater, most recently on 6 Jan 1990

Conjunction of the planets

First U.S. space flight

Galactic radio waves

In 1933, the discovery of radio waves from the centre of the Milky Way galaxy was by described by Karl Jansky in a paper he read to the International Radio Union in Washington. The galactic radio waves were very low intensity, short wavelength (14.6 m, frequency about 20 MHz) and required sensitive apparatus for their detection. Their intensity varied regularly with the time of day, and with the seasons. They came from an unchanging direction in space, independent of terrestrial sources. He had conducted his research on static hiss at the radio research department of Bell Telephone Labs, Holmdel, N.J. The New York Times carried a front page report the next day

Electrolysis of water

In 1800, English chemist William Nicholson was the first to produce a chemical reaction by electricity. He had been working with Anthony Carlisle, a London surgeon, experimenting with Allesandro Volta's voltaic pile. The new effect was discovered when wires from the poles of the battery being used came into contact with water and bubbles of gas were released as current flowed through the water. Closer examination of the electrolysis showed oxygen was released at the (positive) anode, and hydrogen appeared at the cathode. Electricity had separated the molecules of water. Further, the effect of the amount of hydrogen and oxygen set free by the current was proportional to the amount of current used

Gulf Stream

Van Allen radiation belts

In 1958, the discovery of the powerful Van Allen radiation belts that surround Earth was published in the Washington Evening Star. The article covered the report made by their discoverer James. A. Van Allen to the joint sysmposium of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Physical Society in Washington DC. He used data from the Explorer I and Pioneer III space probes of the earth's magnetosphere region to reveal the existence of the radiation belts - concentrations of electrically charged particles. Van Allen (born 7 Sep 1914) was also featured on the cover of the 4 May 1959 Time magazine for this discovery. He was the principal investigator on 23 other space probes

Supernova

In 1006, Chinese and Arabic astronomers noted a supernova. The speed of the still-expanding shock wave was measured nearly a millenium later.* This is was history's brightest "new star" ever recorded, at first seen to be brighter than the planet Venus. It occurred in our Milky Way galaxy, appearing in the southern constellation Lupus, near the star Beta Lupi. It was also recorded by observers in Switzerland, Italy, Japan, Egypt and Iraq. From the careful descriptions of the Chinese astronomers of how the light varied, that it was of apparently yellow color and visible for over a year, it is possible that the supernova reached a magnitude of up to -9. Modern measurements of the speed of the shock wave have been used to estimate its distance

Researchers

have for the first time used electrical pulses delivered from a cochlear implant to deliver gene therapy, thereby successfully regrowing auditory nerves

The research also heralds a possible new way of treating a range of neurological disorders, including Parkinson's disease, and psychiatric conditions such as depression through this novel way of delivering gene therapy.