How is it possible that you were not planning on going shopping, but that you still end up going and even return home with four new pairs of trousers? Apparently you really did want to go shopping but were not consciously aware of it. Dutch researcher Martijn Veltkamp has demonstrated that you can motivate people with subliminal messaging: quickly flashing words onto a screen without their noticin...

Herschel opened its `eyes` on 14 June and the Photoconductor Array Camera and Spectrometer obtained images of M51, ‘the whirlpool galaxy’ for a first test observation. Scientists obtained images in three colours from the observation, which clearly demonstrate the excellence of Herschel, the largest infrared space telescope ever flown. This image shows the famous ‘whirlpool galaxy...