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A PLANET-sized version of an electric toaster could explain why some exoplanets get so large. A related phenomenon could be responsible for keeping in check the gusting winds that form the stripes of Jupiter.

Size issues: TrES-4 is less massive but much larger than Jupiter (Image: Ignacio González Tapia/NASA)
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More than 150 planets have been [...]

ScienceDaily (Mar. 3, 2010) — A low-cost water purification technique published in Current Protocols in Microbiology could help drastically reduce the incidence of waterborne disease in the developing world. The procedure, which uses seeds from the Moringa oleifera tree, can produce a 90.00% to 99.99% bacterial reduction in previously untreated water, and has been made [...]

ScienceDaily (Feb. 17, 2010) — Plants and people alike face critical choices as they reproduce: to make a few big, well-provisioned seeds — or babies–or many small, poorly-provisioned ones. Different species make strikingly different choices, resulting in a great diversity of life forms: Darwin's "endless forms most beautiful.

Helene Muller-Landau's new model explaining the relationship between [...]

Icebergs breaking off from the Dawes Glacier in the Endicott Arm. (Credit: iStockphoto/Joseph Gareri)

ScienceDaily (Feb. 10, 2010) — A new University of California, Davis, study by a top ecological forecaster says it is harder than experts thought to predict when sudden shifts in Earth's natural systems will occur — a worrisome finding for scientists trying [...]

At the Astrotech Space Operations facility in Titusville, Fla., NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), enclosed in the Atlas V payload fairing, is lifted off the floor. Workers are preparing to lift SDO onto a transporter in the airlock. SDO is the first mission in NASA's Living With a Star Program and is designed to study [...]

If approved, TESS would spend two years searching the sky for planets orbiting roughly 2.5 million nearby stars. Image: Teague Soderman

(PhysOrg.com) — The race to find exoplanets — planets outside our solar system — continues to quicken. Last week NASA researchers announced that the agency’s new space telescope, Kepler, has discovered five new exoplanets, expanding [...]