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The deserts of Argentina take on a starring role in this photographer’s breathtaking Milky Way shots. Amateur snapper Gonzalo Javier Santile, 46, spent the last two years capturing these rare shots of the galaxy as it arced over deserts in Salta Cafayate, Cordoba Valle de Punilla, Provincia de Buenos Aires and the Rio Negro province. In his pictures, the Milky Way can be admired as it towers over canyons, cacti, bushes, and even small brooks and lakes.

@marco_org Apple has a patent that can reduce the gold content of their 18k gold by half. veg.gy/ZhMF2— Sumocat (@SumocatS) Mar 6 2015 1:58 PM It’s inartfully put (140 characters is a bitch), but as a practical matter he’s correct. Apple’s patent application is for a method that allows them to make 18k gold that has, on a volume basis, less gold than regular 18k gold. How can this be? It’s because Apple’s gold is a metal matrix composite, not a standard alloy. Instead of mixing the gold with silver, copper, or other metals to make it harder, Apple is...

Go back and listen to Cory Booker’s stump speeches over the years, and, as in those of any politician, you’ll hear many of the same stories. But Booker’s are more dramatic and heart-rending than most. They draw heavily on his experiences in Newark, N.J., where he moved in 1995 after his second year at Yale Law School. They have also helped to make him a political celebrity and put millions of dollars into his campaign war chest and Newark’s coffers. Booker’s tales of his trials and travails on the streets of Newark, the city that twice elected him mayor, are...

He was tall and darkly handsome, in a chiseled sort of way. Clearly intelligent. Quiet and attentive, yet distant in a way that intrigued her as they both drew closer together during those long evenings sipping cheap wine and practicing sophistication on each other. Both were new to adulthood, trying out the public personalities each wanted the world to see, not the inner tremors that corroded their intestines during long nights when dark personal fears crept into the corners of their lonely apartments. Like most others from somewhere else who found themselves living in New York City, they told each...

One of the more mysterious characters from President Obama's 1995 autobiography Dreams From My Father is the so-called 'New York girlfriend.' Obama never referred to her by name, or even by psuedonym, but he describes her appearance, her voice, and her mannerisms in specific detail. But Obama has now told biographer David Maraniss that the 'New York girlfriend' was actually a composite character, based off of multiple girlfriends he had both in New York City and in Chicago

As the debate rages about Joint Strike Fighter life-cycle cost, Lockheed Martin officials are raising a previously unheard point to bolster their low-price claims -- a new low-observability (LO) substance called fiber mat. Lockheed officials avoided the need to use stealthy appliqués and coatings by curing the substance into the composite skin of the aircraft, according to Tom Burbage, executive vice president of F-35 program integration for the company. It "makes this airplane extremely rugged. You literally have to damage the airplane to reduce the signature," he said in an interview with AVIATION WEEK. This top-fiber mat surface takes the...

July 17, 2008 Britain's Axon claims that its newly patented mass-production techniques will make carbon composite car frames and bodywork even cheaper than their metal counterparts - and only 40% as heavy. What a revolutionary technology this could be - the power to weight ratio of any vehicle on the planet could be dramatically increased for no extra cost! The company plans to release a highly affordable 500cc Review-of-Three-Wheeled-Vehicles Mar-08 passenger car making at least 100mpg from a basic petrol http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline engine in 2010, and Axon is confident its simple, lightweight solution to the fuel economy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_efficiency challenge will be...

The Boeing Co. marked the completion Wednesday of the first of what it hopes will be thousands of composite tail fins for its hot-selling 787 Dreamliner. The 33-foot-long tail fin is the largest structural piece of the 787 that Boeing is manufacturing. Its partners around the world are making the rest. .....snip... Making composite parts for Boeing jets is nothing new for Boeing's Composites Manufacturing Center. Workers here have been responsible for the composite tail fin and horizontal stabilizer of the 777 for about 13 years. Late last year, the unit delivered the 600th 777 composite empennage.

THE OSCILLATING RACE  Bush 47.17% - 256 | Kerry 48.66% - 282 June 15, 2004 Last week, Kerry lead the composite poll by 1.54% and this week, he leads by 1.49%, but the electoral vote picture has switched from last week's Bush lead of 281-257 to a Kerry lead of 282-256. While the state by state picture continues to oscillate between the candidates, there's been a clear trend in Kerry's favor in the national composite results, but that trend has slowed and for the last month, there hasn't been much change.This week's composite poll includes the suspicious LA Times...

KERRY SURGE FALLS SHORT  Bush 47.77% - 274 | Kerry 48.52% - 264 June 1, 2004 From the May 11 to the May 18 Composite Polls, there was a net change of 4.13% in favor of Kerry, taking him from a deficit of 1.41% to a lead of 2.72% -- the highest lead for either candidate since I began tracking the numbers on March 8. Since the Composite Poll methodology constrains weekly swings by factoring in the previous week's composite result, this should be seen as a significant swing to Kerry. That week, Kerry led by 5 in the...

IT’S APRIL, SO IT’S ACADEMIC  Bush 50.39 | Kerry 48.03April 27, 2004If I had to predict this election today, I’d see this race as I usually see Duke/UNC basketball games.  One of three things will happen.  Duke will win in a blow-out.  Duke will win a close one.  Or UNC will win a close one.  But no way will UNC win a blow-out.  I hope things are different next year, though. In this election, Bush is Duke and UNC is Kerry.  I see no way that Kerry can win a significant electoral victory in November.  If history is a guide, Kerry...

A 2000 Repeat?  Bush 48.9  Kerry 48.9April 13, 2004 The race for president is currently a tie, with each candidate pulling 48.9% of the vote in the fully allocated April 13 Federal Review Composite Poll. Bush has kept it close in a tough news week for him and the country, largely due to a 4 point lead in the Gallup poll, a substantial lead in the Iowa Electronic Market and the results of last week’s Composite Poll in which Bush held a slight lead. Other polls, however, including Newsweek and FoxNews show Kerry with a 4 and 1 point lead,...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 March 24 A Digital Sunset Over Europe and Africa Credit: NASA; Copyright: The Living Earth, Inc.; Used with Permission Explanation: No single spacecraft or astronaut took this picture. It is a digital composite of archived images taken over many orbits by several Earth-orbiting satellites. Similar images can be digitally stitched together for any Earth location by John Walker's Earth and Moon Viewer website. Specifically, the daytime images...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 March 13 WIRO at Jupiter Credit: A. Kutyrev (SSAI/GSFC), D. Rapchun(GST/GSFC), J. Norris(NASA/GSFC) R. Canterna & R. Martin (U Wyoming) Explanation: Gazing out over the mountaintops from the Wyoming InfraRed Observatory (WIRO), astronomers recently recorded this bizarre looking image of the solar system's ruling planet, gas giant Jupiter. The false-color picture is a composite of images taken to test a sophisticated digital camera operating at liquid helium...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 February 18 Candor and Ophir Chasmata Credit: Viking Project, NASA Explanation: First imaged by the Mariner 9 spacecraft, Valles Marineris, the grand canyon of Mars, is a system of enormous depressions called chasmata that stretch some 4,000 kilometers along the Martian equator. Looking north over the canyon's central regions, Candor chasma lies in the foreground of this spectacular view with the steep walls of Ophir chasma near...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 January 8 X-Rays from the Galactic Core Credit: Fred Baganoff (MIT), Mark Morris (UCLA), et al., CXC, NASA Explanation: Using the orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers have taken this long look at the core of our Milky Way galaxy, some 26,000 light-years away. The spectacular false-color view spans about 130 light-years. It reveals an energetic region rich in x-ray sources and high-lighted by the central source, Sagittarius...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 December 22 Summer at the South Pole Credit & Copyright: Galileo Project, NASA Explanation: The December solstice brings the beginning of Winter to Earth's Northern Hemisphere and Summer time to the South! This view of Earth's Southern Hemisphere near the beginning of Summer was created using images from the Galileo spacecraft taken during its December 1990 flyby of our fair planet. Dramatically centered on the South Pole,...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 December 21 Solstice Celebration Credit: SOHO - EIT Consortium, ESA, NASA Explanation: Aloha and Season's greetings! On December 22nd, at 01:14 Universal Time (December 21, 3:14pm Hawaii-Aleutian Standard Time), the Sun reaches its southernmost point in planet Earth's sky marking the final season change for the year 2002. In celebration, consider this delightfully detailed, brightly colored image of the active Sun. From the EIT instrument onboard the...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 December 18 Io Volcano Culann Patera Credit: Galileo Project, JPL, NASA Explanation: What causes the unusual colors surrounding Io's volcanoes? Io, the innermost large moon of Jupiter, is known to be the most tumultuous body in the Solar System. Approximately the size of Earth's Moon, Io undergoes nearly continuous volcanic eruptions from an interior heated by gravitational tides from Jupiter and Jupiter's other large moons. The robot...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 December 3 Eclipse Over Acacia Credit & Copyright: Fred Espenak Explanation: On December 4th, for the second time in as many years, the Moon's shadow will track across southern Africa bringing a total solar eclipse to African skies. Reaching Africa just before 6:00 Universal Time, the narrow path of totality - corresponding to the path of the Moon's umbra or dark central shadow - will run eastward...