Science isn't all about examining graphs and charts. In this weekly column, staff writer Andrea Alfano puts together the most striking science images from the past week's news for your viewing pleasure. Scroll down to find phenomenal images and fascinating facts about the science behind them.
This week's science images look back 125 million years into the past with a new feathered dinosaur fossil and years into the future with the development of complex 3D structures made of white graphene that could one day improve heat regulation in electronics. Plus, there's a new particle called the pentaquark and the first glimpses of Pluto.
Velociraptor's family got a little bigger this week when scientists announced their discovery of Zhenyuanlong suni (artist's impression shown above). Researchers unearthed an exquisitely preserved fossil of the bird-like dinosaur that showed it had incredibly advanced feathers. Zhenyuanlong "raises a big mystery" according to researcher Steve Brusatte of the University of Edinburgh, because its wings are unexpectedly short given how advanced the dinosaur's feathers are. This suggests that Zhenyuanlong used its feathers primarily for display rather than flight.
Data from CERN's Large Hadron Collider revealed a new particle called the pentaquark. Neutrons and protons, the particles that make up the nucleus of an atom, contain three quarks each. Scientists had long theorized that it is possible for five quarks to come together to form a particle, but until this week they have not been able to confirm that this configuration exists in reality. Reports of this elusive particle have come up in the past, but ultimately proved to be false alarms. This time, the researchers are more confident than ever that they have indeed observed a real pentaquark.
That unappetizing bit of vegetation on the left, known as teosinte, is what corn would still look like if it weren't for genetic modification. Much of corn's genetic journey from teosinte to the giant juicy ears we enjoy today has been shaped by selective breeding, the process of propagating only the plants with the most desirable properties. This process is very inefficient and can take decades, centuries, or even millennia, but as a study published this week demonstrates, pinpointing key genes can drastically speed up the process. Scientists showed that a single genetic mutation can unleash juicy kernels from their tough shells.
Graphene is the superstar of the materials science world right now, but scientists have developed other two-dimensional materials since graphene's introduction about a decade ago. One of them is hexagonal boron nitride, also known as white graphene. While the original graphene still takes the cake when it comes to applications, scientists at Rice University reported this week that a 3D structure made with white graphene is great for controlling heat flow, a useful property for electronics.
It may not look like much in and of itself, but this image reveals young mountains on the surface of Pluto, a mind-boggling 3 billion miles away from Earth. This is one of the first closeup glimpses of Pluto that NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has returned to Earth since successfully completing its flyby of the dwarf planet.
Science lovers celebrated the birthday of Nikola Tesla, the incredible inventor after whom Elon Musks's electric vehicle company is named, on July 10. The image above shows a Tesla coil, which he invented in 1891. The first system to be able to transmit electricity wirelessly, the Tesla coil was a revolutionary invention that made some of the first radio antennas and telegraphs possible. But it could also do less useful, but more dazzling and mad scientist-esque things like shoot lightning bolts, as shown in this image.
