From what I understand, this blue color is caused by a protein. The blue color is in the mucus of the fish. You can actually scrape some of it off and put it in clear water and you'll see the blue pigment.

We were comparing images taken of the same patch of sky at different times to locate brightening or dimming stars. But we saw something we didn't expect - dim streaks of light that moved from year to year.

I can still remember the instant I realized that one group of features was associated with an older supernova remnant. I think the e-mail I sent around to the other team members had more than twenty exclamation marks in it!

This is a Rosetta Stone finding. Usually, we're limited to studying the current snapshot of the heavens. For the first time, we have the opportunity to study the original light from the outburst and the debris left behind centuries later in the same way that archeologists make links with ancient civilizations.

The title of the poems was The Only Bar in Dixon. We sent it out to The New Yorker on a fluke, and they took them and printed all three in the same issue.

Homes and buildings, many of which are old and drafty, eat up 40 percent of the energy America uses. Such inefficiencies perpetuate our reliance on foreign oil, imperiling our national security and increasing our contribution to climate change.