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CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - An unmanned Delta 4 rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Friday to put a multi-use, broadband communications satellite into orbit for the U.S. military.

"Atlas of Vertebrate Decay" captures creatures at their most putrefying, and could be a boon to fossil hunters

Some of our favorite stories of this week

A new type of fuel cell could make CO2 storage cheaper, but it could also prove to be a good way to pump more oil out of the ground.

The electrochemical reactions that occur inside fuel cells to generate electricity could provide a cheap way to selectively remove carbon dioxide from the exhaust gases of fossil-fuel power plants. The same reactions could concentrate the carbon dioxide, allowing it to be stored underground. The fuel cell could also be used to generate electricity, providing revenue to offset its cost.

A great blue wave has spread across the country in one of our greatest natural spectacles, as carpets of bluebells have come into flower. But the bluebells were some four or five weeks later this spring than last year, and the cold spring made their appearance more patchy than usual. Britain has around half the world's population of bluebells, and they are also a truly national plant, growing from Land's End to the northern tip of Scotland. They are most at home in ancient woodlands, and in Tudor times their bulbs were made into a starchy glue used for binding books and stiffening ruffs.

The native bluebell flower is a rich blue colour, scented and hung on an arched stalk, but the plant is battling against an alien imposter. The Spanish bluebell is paler, scentless and has an upright flower stalk, and this import has cross-pollinated with the native flower to produce an extremely aggressive hybrid. The hybrid first appeared in the wild in 1963 and has spread rapidly, and now many of the bluebells found in gardens, urban areas and increasingly in woodlands are the hybrid bluebell.

Another sensation to enjoy now in many bluebell woodlands is the heady scent of garlic. This is the smell of wild garlic, which is now festooned with clusters of white star-shaped flowers shining bright against their glossy dark green leaves. By coincidence, wild garlic is a relative of bluebells, and they both belong to the lily family.

• Plants

Paul Simons
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If you Tweet about a TV show or its ads, don’t be surprised if the advertisers ‘Sponsored Tweet’ you back

People love to Tweet about television shows they are watching; this much, we know. But now the analytics technologies are producing the payback: televsion advertisers will find out and Tweet them back.

Veteran statistician seen as highly qualified for a challenging assignment

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Venus and Jupiter, the two brightest planets in the sky this month, will be joined by tiny Mercury for a rare celestial show this weekend.

Researchers peer through the quantum weirdness

Scientists have built a remote-controlled electronic device that is absorbable by the human body.

This weekend, three planets will nestle together in the western sky at twilight to form a rarely seen glowing triangle. With good timing and a bit of luck you should be able to see it without a telescope.

Newsletter alleges that more than $1 million was spent on a redesign including glass walls and designer furniture

In 1986, the European spacecraft Giotto became one of the first spacecraft ever to encounter and photograph the nucleus of a comet, passing and imaging Halley's nucleus as it receded from the sun. Data from Giotto's camera were used to ...

For two short years he was King of England, one of the most powerful men in the world. Then he was killed, desecrated, and dumped in a hastily dug grave, the location of which would be forgotten and rediscovered, centuries ...

A roundup of the most interesting stories from other sites, collected by the staff at MIT Technology Review.

Inside Google’s Secret Lab
A bit light on detail and insight, but they got more out of Google than anyone else has.
—Tom Simonite, IT editor

Public-private venture brings research hopes to Geneva after pharma giant's exit last year

Scientists who worked with the Nobel prize-winning pioneer discuss his legacy alongside footage and previously unseen interviews

    

From a snail-eating snake to a harp-shaped sponge… Quentin Wheeler on whittling down 18,000 new species to 10 favourites

On 23 May,the International Institute for Species Exploration announced the annual top 10 new species for the sixth time. A committee of taxon experts led by Dr Antonio Valdecasas of the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales in Madrid made the final selections. The list is a kind of scientific shock-and-awe campaign, shocking us at what we did not know about our own planet and leaving us in awe over the diversity, complexity, wonder and beauty of the living world. From new species of black-staining fungi that threatened the Palaeolithic cave paintings at Lascaux, France to the first old-world monkey to be discovered in Africa in 28 years, a beautiful shrub from Madagascar's disappearing littoral forests, a bioluminescent cockroach, and a violet from the high Andes that is barely 1cm tall, we are struck that the depth of Earth's living diversity is matched only by our ignorance of it.

A new species of green lacewing is a sign of things to come, being discovered through social media in a collaboration among citizen and professional scientists. A new record was set for the smallest vertebrate animal by a Lilliputian frog with an average body length of only 7.7mm. As if to remind us of the constant change on our planet and unending struggle for survival, a fossil hanging fly was described from Jurassic deposits 165m years old in China that mimicked gingko leaves so well that the two were confused. Rounding out the top 10 were a beautiful, ringed, snail-eating snake and a harp-shaped predaceous sponge. Choosing just 10 species from the 18,000 or so new ones named last year was a seemingly impossible task, but merely a dress rehearsal for living through the biodiversity crisis of the 21st century. Some scientists believe that more than half of all species could disappear in the next 100 years, which would rank as only the sixth mass extinction event in Earth history. While we cannot save every species, or even all those we set out to save, we can have a significant impact on what biodiversity looks like in the future. If picking 10 favourites was tough, imagine making decisions that affect which and how many species survive.

We announce the top 10 on or about Carl Linnaeus's birthday on 23 May as a homage to his incredible, inspiring vision of an inventory of Earth's flora and fauna. When he conceived and set out on his inventory in the middle of the 18th century, it was a dream impossibly larger than he could have imagined. The 10,000 or so species known to him are outnumbered nearly two to one by the new species we name each year, and we have yet to become serious about completing this enterprise. Technological advances, particularly in cyberinfrastructure, have quietly chiselled away at all the constraints of access to travel, colleagues, collections, literature, and data that held back Linnaeus and the generations of taxonomists who have followed. With investments in natural history museums, taxonomic research infrastructure, and inspiring and educating the next generation of species explorers we can discover and describe most of the estimated 10m-12m "higher" plant and animal species in less than 50 years. Baseline data on what species exist and where will empower us to detect, monitor, and respond to changes in biodiversity and make effective public policies. If you liked the top 10, imagine announcing the top 10 million.

Quentin Wheeler is director of the International Institute for Species Exploration, Arizona State University

• Zoology
• Animals
• Wildlife

Quentin Wheeler
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From The Perfect Protein: The Fish Lover's Guide to Saving the Oceans and Feeding the World , by Andy Sharpless and Suzannah Evans. Rodale Books. Copyright © 2013, by Oceana.

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The 17 groups will each receive up to 11 years of support