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Three images of the same location taken at different times on Mars show seasonal activity causing sand avalanches and ripple changes on a Martian dune. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

A student in the new Microfluidics Lab peels back the polymer, showing engraved channels from an ink-transparency template.

A latitude-longitude grid superimposed on this Voyager 2 false color image shows that Uranus' atmosphere circulates in the same direction as the planet rotates.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson and Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne today traveled to Ann Arbor, Michigan to announce a cooperative agreement to develop and adapt hydraulic hybrid technology for the light duty auto market. The goal of this partnership is to design a Chrysler minivan as a demonstration vehicle, using EPA’s own patented technology. It is anticipated that the hydraulic hybrid technology will increase overall fuel efficiency 30-35 percent – 60 percent city driving -- and reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent. Increasing efficiency also cuts down on emissions of other harmful pollutants that threaten Americans’ health.

Dunja Mijatovic, OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, at a press conference in Kyiv, 13 October 2010.

The purpose of any business investment is to deliver net economic value. Yet, research has shown that in more than 60 percent of IT implementations, the value expected or “promised” is not being received. So the critical question is, “How can CIOs optimize the value achieved through critical IT investments?”

Cassini Jupiter Portrait

This true color mosaic of Jupiter was constructed from images taken by the narrow angle camera onboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft on December 29, 2000, during its closest approach to the giant planet at a distance of approximately 10 million kilometers (6.2 million miles).

It is the most detailed global color portrait of Jupiter ever produced; the smallest visible features are approximately 60 kilometers (37 miles) across. The mosaic is composed of 27 images: nine images were required to cover the entire planet in a tic-tac-toe pattern, and each of those locations was imaged in red, green, and blue to provide true color. Although Cassini's camera can see more colors than humans can, Jupiter's colors in this new view look very close to the way the human eye would see them.

Everything visible on the planet is a cloud. The parallel reddish-brown and white bands, the white ovals, and the large Great Red Spot persist over many years despite the intense turbulence visible in the atmosphere. The most energetic features are the small, bright clouds to the left of the Great Red Spot and in similar locations in the northern half of the planet. These clouds grow and disappear over a few days and generate lightning. Streaks form as clouds are sheared apart by Jupiter's intense jet streams that run parallel to the colored bands. The prominent dark band in the northern half of the planet is the location of Jupiter's fastest jet stream, with eastward winds of 480 kilometers (300 miles) per hour. Jupiter's diameter is eleven times that of Earth, so the smallest storms on this mosaic are comparable in size to the largest hurricanes on Earth.

Unlike Earth, where only water condenses to form clouds, Jupiter's clouds are made of ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and water. The updrafts and downdrafts bring different mixtures of these substances up from below, leading to clouds at different heights. The brown and orange colors may be due to trace chemicals dredged up from deeper levels of the atmosphere, or they may be byproducts of chemical reactions driven by ultraviolet light from the Sun. Bluish areas, such as the small features just north and south of the equator, are areas of reduced cloud cover, where one can see deeper.

This is what researchers at the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider expect data from a Higgs boson to look like. The Higgs boson is the subatomic particle that scientists say gives everything in the universe mass.