Guess what, y'all? It's the most Earth-like planet yet discovered! Only 1.5 times Earth's radius, 0.75 AU from a Sol-like star! Here are a few other planets of interest to go along with it: 9 Exoplanets that could support life (more or less) as we know it

Also, stuff is still happening on Earth, but that's not what I'm excited about right now.

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Big news-- or rather, new's that's relatively small in an exciting way! NASA has announced confirmation of Kepler 22b, "the first world smaller than Neptune to be found in middle of its star's habitable zone." Although, the planet's composition is unknown, it is only 2.4 times the size of Earth, and its star is "almost a twin of our sun" ( Read more... )

Lynn Margulis was the first to realize that mitochondria and chloroplasts probably started out as independent organisms that entered larger cells. You can read more here.

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Neutrinos may move faster than light! The link goes to and article about a CERN project that confirms the results of a previous experiment with neutrinos. In the experiments, the neutrinos arrived at the destination a tiny fraction of a second faster than light would have. Obviously, the ship to Gliese won't be leaving next month, but if this ( Read more... )

What's only 3.6 times as heavy as Earth and 36 light-years away AND in the Goldilocks zone of the star it orbits? HD 85512b , that's what! Note that it's NOT a gas giant like the first exoplanets to be observed from Earth. 3.6g might seem like a mighty strong gravitational pull, but that's quite non-crushing compared to other recent exoplanet ( Read more... )

The universe could be full of failed stars-- or overachieving gas giants, too dim to see until recent developments in infrared telescopic technology. One has already been discovered that has a temperature as low as 86 degrees! It still gives off too much radiation for humans to live on the surface, but there's great deal of excitement. Objects ( Read more... )

Check out these monkeys and capybara. The original post is a still picture of four monkeys riding the same capybara. Be sure to scroll down through the comments: there's a video of monkeys grooming and kissing capybara too.

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Hey, we may not have found a silicon-based lifeform from another planet yet, but Felisa Wolfe-Simon and her colleagues have discovered a lifeform that can use arsenic in place of phosphorus right here on Earth. Being a basic building block of life-- It's not just for carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur anymore. Besides ( Read more... )

Gliese 581g is in the Goldilocks Zone, baby! Its gravity is not much greater than Earth's, and it's only 20 light-years away. Start your word processors-- if you haven't already.

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University of Cincinnati experimenters have achieve artificial photosynethsis. The process is more efficient than natural photosynthesis because no energy is diverted to the growth and reproduction of an organism, and it works even with extremely high carbon dioxide concentrations that would cause living plants to shut down. It has potential ( Read more... )