You may have seen this one, but it's worth a second look:
It's a shot from the Space Station, capturing a large volcanic eruption. The shock wave of the blast has cleared a hole in the clouds, and the top of the plume is rocketing towards the stratosphere. Full story and more versions of the photo, including a spectacular 4288 × 2840 hi-res version, here:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1397.html
Different subject: Two very nice galleries of 9 gorgeous images each:
From Mars: http://tinyurl.com/m6vmz3
From Saturn: http://tinyurl.com/l5ok2u
And from back here on earth: Here a video captured by a small remote-controlled airplane that's designed to look like a bird in flight. During this particular flight, a for-real eagle gets curious about the mechanical birdlike intruder and makes several close inspection/attack passes.
http://www.therawfeed.com/2009/06/rc-bird-with-video-cam-captures-curious.html
And also within biology: A very interesting New Scientist article discussing how numeracy evolved by looking at the innate mathematical abilities of various animals. For example, the lowly salamander apparently is hard-wired with clear concepts of one, two, and three, but after that can only count things as "many" or "even bigger many."
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227131.600
Another more direct form of the brain's working is revealed in the first-ever photos of a memory being made in brain tissue: We store short-term memories electrically, but long-term memories require that the brain slightly rewire itself by producing new proteins to create new connections. The latter process was captured on camera:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31570902/ns/technology_and_science-science/
It was a cool week in science!
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