megapixels

Volcano Light Show

Nature unleashes a torrent of energy as ash fills the air

Chalten: Photo by Carlos Gutierrez/UPI
lying dormant for more than 9,000 years, the Chaitén volcano belched forth a 40,000-foot-tall ash plume in early May, touching off lightning and a monthlong eruption. The volcano, situated 700 miles south of Santiago, Chile, forced the evacuation of 8,000 people from the nearby village of Chaitén. It was roughly comparable in size to the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption that released hundreds of millions of tons of debris in an explosion 1,000 times as powerful as the atomic bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki.

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Big Baby

The miracle of life—520 light-years away

At this moment, in the constellation Taurus, a planet is forming in the dust and debris surrounding the star HL Tau. The protoplanet, named HL Tau b, may be the youngest yet discovered.

Childhood's End: The bright spot at the lower right is a developing planet: Photo by Greaves, Richards, Rice & Muxlow

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Super-Repellant Surfaces

Millions of nanosize nails form a highly repellent surface

Watertight: Photo by Tom Krupenkin
A trio of prismatic drops (left to right: water, ethylene glycol and ethanol) balances on a new ultra-repellent surface invented by scientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The surface, made up of silicon spikes just 400 nanometers wide, physically repels a wide variety of liquids, including water, oil, solvents and detergents.

Previously, scientists relied on chemical modification to make surfaces repel liquids, a time-consuming process. In the end, each coating worked to repel only certain liquids, and oil-repellent surfaces simply weren’t possible to manufacture.

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The Grouse

Gadget Myths—Exposed!

The Grouse debunks a few techie urban legends and solicits your advice

The readers have spoken—and I shall heed your call! Based on the flurry of responses from a Grouse column last month (in which I bemoaned the snake oil sales tactics of the overpriced cable market), theres clearly a hunger out there for clarity when it comes to parsing the jargon-filled nonsense thats used to market consumer electronics. Hype is always to be expected when it comes to sales, but unfortunately sometimes conventional wisdom gets swept up in the hubbub and eventually we find ourselves believing in techie urban legends. Great for sellers, not so much for consumers. So taking my own advice, Im following the Gadgetry Golden Rule and passing on a five choice bits of somewhat counter-intuitive wisdom Ive had need for and which may inform your next purchase. Pay it forward—hit the comments section with your own, and spread the word.

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When Whales Walked the Earth

A newly unearthed fossil is the missing link between land and marine mammals

Missing Link: Photo by Northeastern Ohio Universities Colleges of Medicine and Pharmacy
Standing two to three feet tall on legs adapted to wade through shallow water, the 48-million-year-old Indohyus is the missing link between modern-day whales and their land-lubbing ancestors.

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