From the article:

"We used to joke, ‘Jack’s on duty,’ never knowing he’d go after a bear," owner Donna Dickey told The Star-Ledger of Newark for Friday’s editions.

Neighbor Suzanne Giovanetti first spotted Jack’s accomplishment after her husband saw a bear climb a tree on the edge of their northern New Jersey property on Sunday. Giovanetti thought Jack was simply looking up at the bear, but soon realized the much larger animal was afraid of the hissing cat.

After about 15 minutes, the bear descended and tried to run away, but Jack chased it up another tree.

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Doug Wilson took this cool photo of the sun’s halo over Utah for NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Have you ever seen a halo around the Sun? This fairly common sight occurs when high thin clouds containing millions of tiny ice crystals cover much of the sky. Each ice crystal acts like a miniature lens. Because most of the crystals have a similar elongated hexagonal shape, light entering one crystal face and exiting through the opposing face refracts 22 degrees, which corresponds to the radius of the Sun Halo. A similar Moon Halo may be visible during the night. The picture was taken in Gunlock, Utah, USA. A flock of birds was caught by chance in the foreground. Exactly how ice-crystals form in clouds remains under investigation.

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Found at Vivek’s Blog.

How do gazelles survive during food and water shortage for a prolonged period of time in the desert? By shrinking their liver and heart, of course!

Sand gazelles’ livers and hearts–which are important determinants of metabolic rate–decrease significantly in mass during four months of food and water restriction. Conversely, the gut walls, which are responsible in ruminants for 28–46% of whole-body protein synthesis, an energy demanding process, did not decrease significantly in mass. There are few sources of drinking water in the desert, so sand gazelles must rely on vegetation for both food and water requirements.

Link – via Nutmeg

Squid and octopus can change their skin to blend into their surroundings – in the future, with the help of nanotechnology, maybe humans too can have programmable tattoos:

This "dermal display" (featured on the winter 2006 cover of Cryonics magazine) would consist of about three billion light-emitting nanorobots capable of rearranging themselves to spell out words and numbers and produce animations for the display. To turn on and control the display, you simply tap it with your finger.

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