Space Shots: The Universe's Best ImagesThis smiley face was captured by Hubble. The two bright eyes are galaxies, and the smile is caused by a phenomenon called strong gravitational lensing. Essentially, the gravitational pull of some galaxy clusters is so strong that it warps spacetime around them. As light from even more distant stars and galaxies travels through this warped spacetime, it gets distorted, showing up to us as arcs and circles. When we see circles, like the outline of the smiley face above, that circle is called an Einstein ring.

Why Artificial Intelligence Will Not Obliterate HumanityElon Musk is terrified of artificial intelligence (AI). The founder of SpaceX and Tesla Motors predicts it’ll soon be "potentially more dangerous than nukes," and recently he gave $10 million toward research to "keep AI beneficial." Stephen Hawking has likewise warned that "the development of full AI could spell the end of the human race."Musk and Hawking don’t fear garden variety smartphone assistants, like Siri. They fear superintelligence—when AI outsmarts people (and then enslaves and slaughters them).

Watch TV Station Helicopter Pilots Track Down A DroneDrones and helicopters are already sharing the same sky. Last Monday, while covering a fire at a salvage yard, a news helicopter from Seattle’s KIRO-TV spotted a drone flying over a different network’s news copter, and then tracked that drone down to its pilot. The helicopter pilot also contacted the FAA about the incident.This isn’t the first time helicopters and drones have had close encounters, but what’s fascinating is the combined audio and visual from the KIRO-TV cockpit.At 0:55, the helicopter pilots refer to the unmanned craft as a drone, and shortly thereafter guess the vehicle's altitude to be 1,500 feet, well above the 500-foot ceiling for drones proposed by the FAA. The drone descends rapidly, hovering just above rooftops, and at 2:12 it buzzes by a person in their backyard. At 3:18 they find the man they suspect to be the pilot

Unexplained Aurora And Dust Clouds Spotted Above MarsOur planetary neighbor just got a little more mysterious. In September, NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft arrived at Mars to study the planet’s upper atmosphere, and since its arrival, the orbiter has picked up two unusual readings: 1) There’s a giant dust cloud wafting high above the Martian surface, and 2) Mars has its own aurora. Both of these discoveries come as a big surprise to NASA researchers, since neither space dust nor these kinds of auroras have been observed over Mars before. Using its Langmuir Probe and Wave instrument, MAVEN (which stands for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) has picked up small whiffs of plasma that form when dust hits the spacecraft and vaporizes. Dust particles have been picked up by other space probes throughout the solar system, but never before over Mars.

'Guitar Hero'-Style Videogame Helps Stroke Victims Recover

Pinching your fingers together is much more fun when you're playing a video game.Of the 700,000 people who suffer from strokes every year in the United States, only 10 percent fully recover. The rehabilitation process can be long and challenging, especially for older victims in more fragile states of health. Researchers have developed exercises to strengthen patients’ hand and arm muscles to improve their dexterity, but patients often get bored with the repetitive exercises and stop doing them after a while. Video games, however, have been shown to have more success, because they keep patients coming back for more practice. The MusicGlove is the first FDA-approved rehabilitation device that uses video games to help patients regain the use of their hands.