This false-color panorama of the central 300 light-years of the Milky Way shows the glow from ionized hydrogen gas and a multitude of young stars. The infrared portrait is the sharpest ever taken of our galaxy core. Full Story
Credit: Hubble portion of panorama: Q.D. Wang, NASA, ESA; Spitzer portion: S. Stolovy/Spitzer Science Center/Caltech, JPL/NASA

This month, NASA’s twin robot geologists, the rovers Spirit and Opportunity, celebrate their fifth anniversary exploring the Red Planet. Shown is a portion of a panorama assembled from images Spirit took between February and October 2008. Read more.
Credit: IMAGE CREDIT: JPL/NASA, Cornell University, New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science

These hand axes are likely 1.6 million years old. Discovered in a diamond-mining pit in South Africa, the artifacts suggest human ancestors in southern Africa were making relatively advanced tools around the same time as were their eastern African counterparts. Full story.
Credit: PHOTO CREDIT: R. Gibbon

Far from being their brothers’ keepers, some bacteria are their brothers’ killers. New research on sibling colonies of Paenibacillus dendritiformis shows that the bacteria have developed what the researchers call a "well-orchestrated, deadly response" to nearby bacteria of the same species. Here, a single colony of P. dendritiformis is stopped by a signal extracted from between two warring bacterial sibling colonies.  Full Story
Credit: Avraham Be’er, et al., PNAS

A tall goldenrod nods its head into a candy-cane curve (left) during the early weeks of growth, but will straighten up to bloom. Ducking may offer some protection from a pesty gall midge, a new study shows. The tall goldenrod (right) bears the signs of attacks by both insects tracked in the study. A midge caused the leaf rosette gall at the top of the stem, while a fruit fly induced the swelling ball gall lower in the stem.
Credit: IMAGE CREDIT: Wise

Ilmenite crystals bear the scars of intense shock from an extraterrestrial impact, one that likely hit just off the coast of what is now New York City about 2,300 years ago. Full story.
Credit: IMAGE CREDIT: D. Breger, Drexel University

Soybeans left for 18 days in tents with caterpillars suffered more damage from the pests' munching when bees were excluded (random selection of leaves, right) than when the pollinators zipped back and forth over the plants (left).
Credit: IMAGE CREDIT: Helga R.Heilmann, BEEgroup, Current Biology