A new study may explain why the most recent solar minimum lasted an extra 15 months and may help predict the duration and severity of future solar cycles. This image was taken by an ultraviolet camera on the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory on March 11.
Credit: ESA, NASA

Light bouncing around a disordered crystal spontaneously arranged itself in bright spots, represented by the tall spikes in this figure.
Credit: L. Sapienza

In a rare, naturally occurring mix-up, a chicken has mostly male cells on one side (with bulkier body, light plumage and longer, red wattle) and predominantly female cells on the other.
Credit: The Roslin Institute at the University of Edinburgh

Healthy brain (left) shows response to pain from heat on the forearm. Different regions (right) respond to that heat in vets with Gulf War syndrome two.
Credit: UT Southwestern Med. Ctr.

Progress in resolving the genetic relationships among vertebrate species has accelerated steadily. This figure shows the increase in the percentage of tree branching points, or nodes, determined for the major vertebrate groups since 1993.
Credit: R. Thomson and H. Shaffer/BMC Biology

View larger version. | This figure, to appear online the week of March 8 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, traces the movement of these “outsourced” carbon dioxide emissions. The thicker the arrow, the larger the flow of emissions; numbers denote the mass of carbon dioxide transferred each year in millions of metric tons.
Credit: Davis and Caldeira

AsScience News reported December 17, tallies of each nation’s greenhouse gas emissions often ignore the fact that about one-fourth of the globe’s carbon dioxide is generated by one country in the production of goods or services for export to another. This figure, to appear online the week of March 8 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, traces the movement of these “outsourced” carbon dioxide emissions. The thicker the arrow, the larger the flow of emissions; numbers denote the mass of carbon dioxide transferred each year in millions of metric tons. View larger image.
Credit: Davis and Caldeira

A chameleon doesn’t depend on muscle power to flick its tongue, so it can nab prey in cool temperatures that stymie other cold-blooded predators.
Credit: C.V. Anderson

One sperm whale’s movements over seven days (traced in image) show the animal making many deep dives in a small area.
Credit: Mate et al., Oregon State University Marine Mammal Institute

Power lines are one part of the grid that produces and transports electricity.
Credit: imagedepotpro/iStock

Tom Gage's electric car was on display during the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in February.
Credit: T. Siegfried

The edges of Thomas Hull’s “Hyperbolic Cube” trace out a Hamilton cycle on a cube.
Credit: COURTESY OF T. HULL

Ian Sammis created this piece as a way to debug his mathematical software. It shows the fast Fourier transform of the Sierpinksi space-filling curve.
Credit: COURTESY OF I. SAMMMIS

Safieddine Bouali’s “Monarch Safye” is an image of a three-dimensional strange attractor found through economics research, and reminds him of a monarch butterfly in flight.
Credit: COURTESY OF SAFIEDDINE BOUALI

Erik and Martin Demaine created “Natural Cycles” as part of their exploration of curved folds in origami.
Credit: COURTESY OF E. DEMAINE AND M. DEMAINE