Former inmate recalls daring escape from Auschwitz

With every step toward the gate, Jerzy Bielecki was certain he would be shot.
The day was July 21, 1944. Bielecki was walking in broad daylight down a pathway at Auschwitz, wearing a stolen SS uniform with his Jewish sweetheart Cyla Cybulska by his side.... ...

Indeed esoteric

Chile is widely recognised as having the world's best skies for stargazing etc ...

Some pics
Stars Just Got Bigger
A 300 Solar Mass Star Uncovered


Using a combination of instruments on ESO’s Very Large Telescope, astronomers have discovered the most massive stars to date, one weighing at birth more than 300 times the mass of the Sun, or twice as much as the currently accepted limit of 150 solar masses. The existence of these monsters — millions of times more luminous than the Sun, losing weight through very powerful winds — may provide an answer to the question “how massive can stars be?”
A team of astronomers led by Paul Crowther, Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Sheffield, has used ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), as well as archival data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, to study two young clusters of stars, NGC 3603 and RMC 136a in detail. NGC 3603 is a cosmic factory where stars form frantically from the nebula’s extended clouds of gas and dust, located 22 000 light-years away from the Sun (eso1005). RMC 136a (more often known as R136) is another cluster of young, massive and hot stars, which is located inside the Tarantula Nebula, in one of our neighbouring galaxies, the Large Magellanic Cloud, 165 000 light-years away (eso0613).....



European Southern Observatory

Whale Jumping on Boat: Shocking Video, Photos You Can't Believe

It's footage that you just can't believe even with both eyes wide open.
Off the coast of South Africa, a 40-ton whale flipped into the air and smashed the mast of a 33-foot boat.
"It's such a loud sound, when you hear those whales flapping their tails," the boat's owner Ralph Mothes said. "We were attracted by the sound....."

Frozen in time: Incredibly detailed images of animalscaptured using high-speed photography...

Shares of Geron are rising sharply after the FDA said the Menlo Park biopharmaceutical company can proceed with the first test of embryonic stem-cell therapy for humans. In August 2009, the FDA put a hold on testing the treatment for spinal-cord injury, which Geron had developed with University of California-Irvine. The Mercury News later reported that the company said cysts had developed in some animals in clinical trials. The testing was first approved early last year.