Are we alone in space?

Extrasolar planets are candidates for life in Outer Space. Astronomers and astro-biologists use high resolution telescopes to detect traces of life on planets outside our solar system. More than 400 planets have been identified meanwhile most of them consisting of gas. Some of them have the size of Jupiter, the biggest planet which orbits our sun. Surprisingly some of these planets consist of hard and stony material maybe allowing earth-like atmospheres, a kind of "Super-Earth".

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Globedweller.com is a new website for expat professionals

However, often it can be difficult and time-consuming to settle in to the new host country.  But even for busy scientists, it can be well worth to make that effort, since their stay will be so much better if they emerge themselves in the culture and daily life of their new home. Even when the stay is temporarily.

All countries have much more to offer than just work. That is why www.GlobeDweller.com has been launched.

The idea is to give everybody who works abroad a better experience. To connect them with the people and activities where they live.

The community, which is at the core of Globedweller.com, achieve this by making contact with other expats who live in the same area easy, and by providing the means to exchange knowledge and experiences on integration, accommodation, shopping, banking, day-care and schools.

On top of that, Globedweller.com is open to locals as well. So finding friends who are able to truly show you the ways of your new host country is possible and thus helping make the stay a lasting experience of more than just work. Join Globe Dweller today!

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Hermit crabs exaggerate their fighting ability with misleading claw displays

Jane Palmer, Ph.D.

Back off. Male hermit crabs display their claws to intimidate and deter attackers. Credit Hans Hillewaert by courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

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Pigs are highly intelligent animals and new research shows that they also have some degree of awareness.Photo courtesy of Photocase.com

Awareness is a difficult thing to study or even to define. Traditional it is defined as the ability to perceive, to feel and to be conscious, but this definition is very difficult to measure. Thus while we can be fairly certain that we ourselves are aware, we can be less certain that our friends are aware but at least they can tell us so. Animals cannot. However, there is one way to assess the self-awareness in animals and human infants. Put them in front of a mirror and looks for signs that they recognise themselves. When human infants are exposed to mirrors age and then fooled to think that a video playback of themselves with a sticker on their head was a mirror, 0% of two year olds, 25% of three year olds and 75% of four year olds reached for the sticker. 

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The micrograph shows abundant (malignant) plasma cells with the occasional Mott cell, a plasma cell with an intracytoplasmic Russell bodies (an eosinophilic uniformly staining membrane bound body which contains immunoglobulin). Wikimedia Commons, Author: Nephron

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An ant-acacia Acacia collinsii like the one on which the vegetarian jumping spiders were found. Photo taken by Thomas Hesselberg.

The spider belongs to the group of jumping spiders, which are usually active hunters without a web. They have a good vision and use it stalk prey at a distance before they are within jumping distance. However, this particular jumping spider does not hunt any prey, but spend its life on a plant. Not just some plant though, but an ant-acacia, which is a plant that lives in a close mutualism with an ant. The acacia offers the ants housing in its thorns and food in the form of special fat and protein rich Beltian bodies and in return the ants protects the plant against herbivores and other encroaching plants.

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Alzheimer's Disease

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