Japanese researchers working with induced pluripotent stem cells have coaxed a semi-functional, liver-like tissue from a petri dish in what could mark a significant step forward for regenerative medicine and the science of creating new, working organs from scratch. There’s still a long way to go of course, but researchers are enthusiastic that the work could light the way forward for pluripotent stem cell research into organ generating technologies.

This rare view from a Black Hawk helicopter about to drop water onto a wildfire comes courtesy of the Nebraska Air National Guard, which is deployed in northern Colorado for the raging High Park Fire. Three Black Hawks and 14 other helicopters are among the heavy technology battling the blaze 15 miles northwest of Fort Collins.

Shutting down a brain receptor in mice — a receptor that also exists in humans — can block pathological rage, a new study says. We didn't realize that mice could experience pathological rage. But stopping it, and the impulsive violence that could result, would be a way to treat the types of aggression that are common in some neurological and psychological disorders in people.

When a bullet is recovered at a crime scene, ballistic identification can help track the gun that fired it, but identifying the person who fired the gun is a lot harder. Now scientists have found an unlikely method to ID gunmen on the lam, using flower pollen.

Internships more often than not are mindless, coffee-fetching black holes of boredom. But not at Syyn Labs, a Los Angeles collective that creates unusual interactive art and science projects for commercials and music videos. Last summer, student interns Hoon Oh, Robb Godshaw and Jisu Choi took it upon themselves to reinvent the sport of table tennis. Their project could pass for an extra in Transformers: It’s part ping-pong table, part machine, and so difficult to play that it reduces pros to the level of rank amateurs.

When the roused and active sun flings its energetic particles at Earth, we get to see beautiful aurorae, even in low latitudes of late. Pretty as they are, they don’t give a full account of how hard the planet’s magnetosphere is working to shield us from the sun’s wrath. This new video from the animation whiz team at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center brings it home.

It shows a massive coronal mass ejection careening toward our planet, where it’s deflected by Earth’s powerful magnetic field. Venus is not so lucky.

An interesting story in the New York Times today explores the ease with which noninvasive prenatal diagnostics can now determine paternity, even when the pregnancy is only eight or nine weeks old. Multiple companies are now offering such tests, which require only blood samples from the mother and from the potential father to determine paternity long before the pregnancy culminates.

Already demolishing the standing world record more than twice over, a massive human-powered quadrotor designed by students at the University of Maryland is poised to make aviation history today. The Gamera II helicopter is shooting for the Sikorsky Prize, one of aviation’s last great challenges, by hovering for one full minute under human power only. Their first attempt Wednesday morning lasted 35 seconds!