Science News Headlines

Marine mammal specialists from across the country have descended on an Alaska aquarium to help care for a baby beluga whale that became separated from its mother shortly after its birth.

The Scienceblogging Weekly (July 6th, 2012)

An experimental electronic plastic's liquid-metal interior keeps electrical connections intact even after the plastic stretches to more than four times normal size. Larry Greenemeier reports.

Astronomers observed light warped by the lensing effect of a massive galaxy cluster more than 10 billion light years away, the most distant cluster ever responsible for perceived lensing. Evelyn Lamb reports.

You wanted to know: who are these scientists? Introducing: Jack DiTullio

Some upcoming events.

The Higgs Boson and my mom

Leggy Robot (Almost) Moves Like Jagger

The temporal parietal junctions of poker players behaved differently when they were bluffing another human versus bluffing a computer. Cynthia Graber reports

The Garden of Our Neglect:  How Humans Shape the Evolution of Other Species

You wanted to know: who are these scientists? Introducing: Kay Bidle

There's the science, and then there's the glitter. As researchers celebrate the best-yet evidence of the existence of the Higgs boson, some are already thinking about who's going to get the Nobel Prize in physics for the seminal discovery.

Who flies the robotic skies? Drones have evolved from the U.S. military's battlefield scouts into the hottest new gadgets for Homeland Security and local police departments. That growing swarm of flying robots in the U.S. has spawned a new effort to track down drone usage among government entities.

If you've tried mediation and don't think it's your cup of tea, you might want to test out another technique before giving up on the practice entirely, advocates say.

Men might one day be able to slather a gel on their backs and shoulders that protects against getting their partners pregnant.

A camera headed for the International Space Station has the resolution to spot objects as small as cows down below — but it's using that power to take pictures of floods, landslides, forest fires and similar disasters on Earth.

Tropical Storm Daniel, the fourth named storm of the East Pacific season, has roared to life in the Pacific Ocean, and a satellite peering through the top of the storm has spied rain clouds 9 miles (14 kilometers) high inside the gale.

The North Atlantic is currently bursting with color as blooms of microscopic plants erupt on the surface of the chilly sea. But these expanses of plankton, which provide the basis for the area's food chain and help take in enormous quantities of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, wouldn't be possible without swirling currents …