Researchers have reanimated an ancient, giant virus from 30,000-year-old Siberian permafrost that is almost not of this world--well, the world as we know it now, anyway. “Sixty percent of its gene content doesn’t resemble anything on earth,” reported one of the study's authors.

More on the following links:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/04/science/out-of-siberian-ice-a-virus-revived.html?ref=science&_r=0

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/39325/title/Ancient-Giant-Virus-Discovered/ ...

Wilhelm Conrad Röentgen, a physics professor at the University of Wurburg in Germany, was experimenting with electric current flow in a partially evacuated glass tube in 1895 and one night he noticed a glow caused by an unknown radiation. He named the phenomenon x-radiation and few months later he took the first x-ray photograph of a body part: the bones in his wife’s hand – and one can even see her wedding band. The first even x-ray image was of a key.

After a class on out-of-body experiences, a psychology graduate student at the University of Ottawa came forward to researchers to say that she could have these voluntarily, usually before sleep. "She appeared surprised that not everyone could experience this," wrote the scientists in a study describing the case, published in February in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.  

One would think that if you could leave your own body and float above it, you'd be a little more... vocal about it. But since it was a common experience for her--one she "began performing as a child when bored with 'sleep time' at preschool... moving above her body" instead of napping--it may have appeared unremarkable. This is way more interesting than what I did, which wa ...

Meet Agama mwanzae, the Mwanza flat-headed rock agama. This beautiful lizard hails from Tanzania, Rwanda and Kenya, and is very popular among collectors because he's dressed just like Spider-Man, only with a whole lot more pink.

Thanks to deforestation, road building, and other human activity, these sweet little guys have become so rare that in 1997, just 102 Vancouver Island marmots remained in the wild. But conservation efforts have brought them back from the brink, with around 300 captive-bred individuals released into the wild in 2010, and 26 wild litters born last year, producing 80 pups. Researchers state that climate change may further reduce or impact subalpine habitats along with associated forage plants.

Meet the ribbon seal, native to the icy waters off the southern coast of Russia. With no confirmed predators (except humans who occasionally hunt them), these seals are known for being super relaxed, and will let you walk right up to them on the ice floes.