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Professor Anna Stefanopoulou (left) examines a V8 internal combustion engine with students Jacob Larimore and Xinfan Lin at the University of Michigan's Automotive Research Center. The researchers model engine performance to improve efficiency.

The west coast of Ireland boasts one of the largest concentrations of wave energy in the world, and consequently, Ireland has been pursuing the development of wave energy as a sustainable/renewable energy alternative. Wave energy conversion devices, such as the ones pictured here, are being developed and tested by a number of companies. [Photo courtesy Ocean Energy, Ltd.]

Europa's "Great Lake." Researchers predict many more such lakes are scattered throughout the moon's icy shell.

Preparing in Florida for Launch to Mars
The Mars Science Laboratory Spacecraft, inside its payload fairing, is hoisted onto its Atlas V launch vehicle (left). The mission will place a rover onto the surface of Mars in August 2012.

Scientists are simulating how the very first stars in our universe were born. This diagram shows a still from one such simulation. The cube on the right is a blown up region at the center of the box on the left.

This radar image of asteroid 2005 YU55 was obtained on Nov. 7, 2011, at 11:45 a.m. PST (2:45 p.m. EST/1945 UTC), when the space rock was at 3.6 lunar distances, which is about 860,000 miles, or 1.38 million kilometers, from Earth.

Scientists have found bones in Brazil that belonged to a 20-foot-tall sloth that lived some 10,000 years ago.

Shown here in an ornamental scroll, ITRI's e-paper, which can be produced in normal cut sheet formats too, indefinitely retains images printed on it thermally.

Once filleted, it's easy to confuse one white-fleshed fish for another.

Cells that make up the intestinal wall form fingerlike projections (blue) and release antibacterial proteins that keep bacteria (green) at a distance.