During two recent lightning storms, the Fermi telescope found evidence that positrons, not just electrons, are in storms on Earth.
Credit: Axel Rouvin/Flickr

Botanical Medicine: From Bench to Bedside, Raymond Cooper and Fredi Kronenberg, eds.

The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness by Alvaro Fernandez and Elkhonon Goldberg

Sunburst diving beetle (Thermonectus marmoratus) larvae possess a grand total of 12 eyes, four of which are naturally bifocal.
Credit: Stowasser, et. al

Invisibility cloaks aren't just the stuff of science fiction anymore. On a tiny scale in the lab, cloaking devices are all the rage in the emerging field of transformation optics.
Credit: Cary Wolinsky and Rick Kyle

Macaw pens at the prehistoric site of Paquimé in northwestern Mexico were made of adobe and contained stone doors with stone plugs. New research suggests that large-scale breeding of scarlet macaws occurred there.
Credit: A. Somerville

A scarlet macaw displays the colorful plumage that pre-Columbian people wanted for ritual and political displays. Breeding of these birds for their prestigious feathers may have occurred in northwestern Mexico, far from the birds’ tropical homes.
Credit: Mary C. Somerville

This 1-centimeter-tall invisibility device uses metamaterials to bend microwaves around its center so that they reemerge on their original paths on the other side. David Smith of Duke University and his colleagues reported cloaking a tiny copper ring using this device in 2006.
Credit: Jack J. Mock, D. Smith Lab/Duke University

A metamaterial cloak (outer ring) steers light.
Credit: J. Pendry et al./Science May 2006

Cloaking devices would steer light or other electromagnetic waves around them like water around a stone in a smooth stream, leaving nary a ripple of difference in the flow.
Credit: Cary Wolinsky and Rick Kyle

New work reveals how greenhouse gases interact with aerosols, components of this haze over Los Angeles.
Credit: steinphoto/istockphoto

Credit: Adapted from D. Shindell et al./Science

Credit: A. Nandy

The glowing patterns on the underside of a lantern shark may help camouflage the animal from below, scientists say. Hormones trigger the luminescence, a new study shows.
Credit: Jérôme Mallefet

The velvet belly lantern shark may spend hours at depths greater than six times the height of the Empire State building. Glowing at such depths may camouflage the animals or help them signal to potential mates.
Credit: Pierluigi Angioi