10 new black holes

Summary: NASA's NuSTAR X-ray telescope has successfully discovered 10 super massive black holes. NuSTAR has been designed to hunt for these huge black holes in hopes of better understanding how common they are and what this means for our understanding of how the universe was formed.


Live Science

Saddle Shaped Universe

Summary: Based on data, it is possible that the universe may be saddle shaped instead of flat. On the other hand, it could be a statistical error. We should know for sure next year with data expected to be gathered from the Planck team.


Live Science

Cosmic Caterpillar

Summary: Hubble has yet another incredible space image for us. It is a cloud of gas that looks like a caterpillar. Unlike the small creatures we are used to on earth, this celestial caterpillar is 6 trillion miles long. It is actually a cloud of gas collapsing and may give birth to a star. But the important part is how beautiful it is.



Smithsonian Mag

The Art in Explosions

Summary: Some times scientists get so caught up in the beauty of the numbers that we can forget to see the beauty in the nature all around us. Martin Klimas, a German photographer, has recently been photographing exploding roses. He begins by freezing them in liquid nitrogen and then he shoots them with a gun to make it shatter them into as many pieces as possible while taking pictures.




Smithsonian Mag

Magic fingers

Summary: I'll confess I have no clue how this one works but the concept is cool. Essentially, Disney Imagineers have come up with a way to transmit sound from person to person by simply touching their ear. I am shaky on the practical applications here but it sounds interesting nonetheless.



BBC
NewScientist

Imperio!

Summary: Scientists have created a basic form of mind control to play a video game. Of course, this wasn't the sole intent of the technology. It is simply a good way to prove that it works. Scientist One can see the screen and knows when the space bar should be hit. Scientist One's brain signal is transmitted to a second Scientist who actually hits the space bar from another room.
While this is incredibly simplistic, the scientists call it a 'proof of concept' that can pave the way for more exciting mind-control.
While legitimate mind-control and human puppeteering is not what they have in mind, their intended goals are equally cool. They have imagined that this technology could be used similar to Spock to share ideas almost instantaneously. This may also be helpful when communicating with scientists who speak a different language than you.
This is not expected to become reality for at least another 40 years, but until then we can only wait and hope.


What would you do if you could mind-meld with someone else?


BBC

Voyager 1 is officially outside the Solar System!

Summary: JPL announced that Voyager 1 is officially beyond the furthest extent of particles from the sun. They have also released a sound clip of what interstellar space sounds like and some preliminary analysis.

sound clip

BBC News