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Tyrannosaurus rex heading to Washington, D.C.

The Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History will finally have a Tyrannosaurus rex to call its own, thanks to the Army Corps of Engineers.
GALEX decommissioned: What happens to abandoned space probes?

NASA's earth-orbiting GALEX was shut down Friday, meaning that the spacecraft will join a long line of space probes sacrificed to the universe.
Duel of the natural disasters: Earthquakes cause volcanos to shrink

Earthquakes can humble even volcanoes, sending them slinking down some six inches into the earth, a new study has found.
Tree rings reveal El Niño tied to recent global warming

El Niño, the notoriously capricious weather phenomenon, has a clear pattern of unusually aggressive behavior throughout the past century. Scientists see a link to global warming.
Why don't spiral galaxies run out of gas? Look to the (extended) halo.

New research suggests that galaxies hold more 'normal matter' than scientists could image. This matter in the form of gas resides in halos that turn out to be about twice as vast as previously estimated.
'Parrot dinosaur' walked on all fours, then graduated to two (+video)

New research suggests that Psittacosaurus, China's 'parrot dinosaur,' walked on four feet – and then two feet.
A space shuttle's final mission: Atlantis opens to the public (+video)

The much-anticipated Atlantis exhibit - showcasing the last space shuttle to make a mission - will open at Florida's Kennedy Space Center on Saturday.
The ultimate video game: Teams compete in DARPA Robotics Challenge

Teams from eight countries competed in the first round of the challenge to develop a disaster-response robot.
NASA launching IRIS, a new eye on poorly understood region of sun

IRIS, the new NASA space telescope, is being sent aloft to study a region of the sun's atmosphere physicists previously had little interest in, so much so the region was dubbed the 'ignorosphere.'
Voyager 1 comes closer to leaving the solar system...again

Scientists have detected one of the critical signs that the Voyager 1 is nearly in interstellar space. But this has happened before.
Levitating magician: How magicians use science to deceive

Levitating magician: A viral Pepsi ad shows an English magician apparently levitating alongside a double-decker bus. How are we so easily fooled by magic?
Gorilla taunting: If you want to go to Hogwarts, be nice to zoo animals

Children taunting a zoo gorilla got their just dues when the animal decided to best them at their own game.
Pacifica shark attack: why we don't need to be afraid

Pacifica shark attack: Shark attacks are on the rise, but odds of becoming a shark attack victim are still very close to nil.
Social lemurs make better larcenists, scientists say

Social lemurs were found to be better thieves than their less social counterparts, in a study that could have implications for how animal intelligence in measured.
Washington earthquake: Shaken but no serious damage

Washington earthquake: A magnitude 4.3 earthquake stuck near Leavenworth, Washington, Wednesday evening.
Straight from the horse's toe: the world's oldest genome

Scientists have reconstructed the genome of a horse that lived some 700,000 years ago, mapping out the evolutionary history of the modern horse.
Galactic miracle babies? Smallish planets survived birth in stellar maelstrom.

Astronomers say the Kepler mission found two mini-Neptune planets orbiting stars in a stellar cluster that would have been a most inhospitable environment at the time they were born.
Why gorillas can't throw fastballs

A team of researchers has found that some 2 million years ago, early humans evolved the ability to aim and throw, skills not shared by our closest living relatives.
Alaska volcano spews five-mile-high ash plume

Alaska volcano: Located almost 600 miles southwest of Anchorage, Pavlof Volcano let loose its most powerful eruption since becoming active in mid-May.
How a remote-controlled cockroach might come to your rescue

A new cyborg roach is the prototype to a search-and-rescue insect that could be dispatched to hunt for survivors in disaster zones.