Mystery Solved: Black Holes Twist Space-Time Like Taffy
http://www.space.com/33598-black-hole-flicker-mystery-solved.html
A 30-year-old mystery about black holes has just been solved.

The story starts in the 1980s, when astronomers found that small (stellar-mass) black holes emit X-ray light that flickers in a curious pattern. At first,
this flickering occurs every few seconds; however, the time between each flicker shortens over the course of a few months, eventually stopping completely.

This "quasi-periodic oscillation" (QPO) was thought to be a result of a phenomenon predicted by Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity — that any
object with enough mass, like a black hole, will twist space-time as it spins. Later, scientists calculated that these gravitational vortices will cause
the orbits of particles around the black hole to change orientation, leading to the QPO phenomenon.

Philae the Comet Lander Sleeps Forever | Mental Floss
http://mentalfloss.com/article/83910/philae-comet-lander-sleeps-forever

New fossil evidence supports theory that first mass extinction engineered by early animals
http://phys.org/news/2016-07-fossil-evidence-theory-mass-extinction.html

Week in Geek - Science like a BOSS edition | MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/week-geek-science-boss-edition
Astronomers have made the largest and best map yet of the large-scale structure of our universe:
a map of 1.2 million galaxies that sheds some light on the mystery of dark energy.

A global message will be transmitted toward Polaris, the North Star, 434 light years away, in October
A Simple Response | Rocket Science
http://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2016/07/28/a-simple-response/

NASA’s Solar Probe Plus Mission Moves One Step Closer to Launch
https://www.nasa.gov/...goddard/2016/nasa-s-solar-probe-plus-mission-moves-one-step-closer-to-launch
NASA’s Solar Probe Plus – the first mission that will fly into sun's upper atmosphere and “touch” the sun – has passed a design review,
an important milestone leading to its anticipated summer 2018 launch. The successful review means the mission may now transition from
formulation and design to final assembly and implementation. The spacecraft, as it appears in the image, currently includes the primary
structure and propulsion system. Over the next phase of the mission, engineers at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel,
Maryland – which manages the mission and is building the spacecraft – will finish assembly and install the rest of the spacecraft systems
and science instruments.