Just like Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown, kicking a football through goal posts can be an elusive task, according to Purdue University research. "People trying to kick field goals will see a much smaller goal after unsuccessful attempts," said Jessica K. Witt, an assistant professor of psychological sciences who studies perception in athletes. "But those who kicke...

The tight cluster of stars surrounding a supermassive black hole after it has been violently kicked out of a galaxy represents a new kind of astronomical object and a fossil record of the kick. A paper published in the July 10 issue of The Astrophysical Journal discusses the theoretical properties of “hypercompact stellar systems” and suggests that hundreds of these faint star clusters...

NASA`s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) has taken and received its first images of the Moon, kicking off the year-long mapping mission of Earth`s nearest celestial neighbor. The LROC imaging system, under the watchful eyes of Arizona State University professor Mark Robison, the principal investigator, consists of two Narrow Angle Cameras (NACs) to provide high-resolution black-and-white ...

How `molecular machines` inside cells swing into action to activate genes at different times in a cell`s life is revealed (6 November) in new research published in Molecular Cell. Genes are made of double stranded DNA molecules containing the coded information an organism`s cells need to produce proteins. The DNA double strands need to be `melted out` and separated in order for the code to be acce...