Halley’s Comet - 1986 - NASA [/caption] Halley’s Comet itself won’t be coming around this part of our galaxy again for another 43 years or so, but thanks to the Earth crossing its path, we’ll be treated to quite the meteor spectacle in the pre-dawn hours of this weekend. Regular skywatchers know where to look to see the meteor shower that will be taking place this weekend and again in October but for the rest of us, here’s where and when to look.

As the debate about climate change rages on, scientists are offering some new evidence to the argument in the form of extreme temperature recordings. This latest one comes from Pakistan where scientists documented a world record temperature for the month of April. The temperature was recorded at a weather station in Nawabshah, Pakistan, where it was 122.4 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade! Weather-Forecast.com[/caption] From IFLScience: It’s only May, and this year is setting new standards in terrifying extreme temperatures.

NASA[/caption] For years the possibility of nuclear fission has given hope to mankind. Nuclear fission would help us break our dependence on fossil fuels and help us power longer flights into deep space. Well, NASA has been experimenting with a nuclear fission power system and, so far, the results have gone extremely well. From IFLScience: The system is called Kilopower, and it involves using the heat generated by uranium to produce power.

NY Post[/caption] New York’s LaGuardia Airport, like most major airline hubs, have their entrances swarmed by taxis looking to scoop up passengers before their competitors. The cutthroat business has resulted in the cabs ignoring parking protocols and idling areas. To combat this, LaGuardia has used security officers on foot to shoo away the cabbies, but that ended three months ago when the airport deployed the Knightscope K5 robot. It was hoped that the robot would be able to cover more ground in a more effective manner than its human predecessor.

CBS 4 Denver[/caption] Residents of Utah are not strangers to finding fossilized animal remains in the soil of their home state. Over the years, Utahans have found mammoths, saber-toothed cats, and a short faced bear, and now the Hill family can add an Ice Age shetland pony to that list. From AtlasObscura.com: While removing a sandbank from their back yard, the Hill family came across a strange skeleton they could not recognize.

Wikimedia Commons If you look toward the southeastern skies this weekend in the hours before dawn, the chances are good that you can see a pretty good meteor shower eminating from the constellation of Aquarius. What you may not realize, however, is that this meteor shower, and another one hitting our skies in October, is a direct result of Halley’s Comet. From EarthSky.org: Halley’s Comet, proud parent of two meteor showers, swings into the inner solar system about every 76 years.

ScienceMuseum.org.uk[/caption] Google “gifts for Dad,” and you’ll see things turn up like, watches, t-shirts, golf balls, ties, cigars, beer mugs, and everything in between. Try as you may, however, you probably won’t see anything like these Faberge cufflinks from 1900. Back then, it was possible to give dear old Dad the gift of the Black Death. That is if the Science Museum in London can part with their ownership of Faberge cufflinks bearing the image of Yersinia pestis.

Amanda Eller / Facebook[/caption] A nurse from North Carolina is using Facebook to get in the faces – and heads – of cigarette smokers. IFL Science reports that Amanda Eller used the social media site to provide a very real and unsettling look at how cigarette smoke impairs the respiratory system in humans. In the video, there is placed on a table in a medical facility two sets of lungs.

Australia’s Outback has been less crowded the past eighty years since the believed extinction of the thylacine or Tasmanian Tiger. The strange looking beast was a large stripped dingo-looking marsupial who entered the pages of history in 1936, when the last of its kind died in a Washington, D.C. zoo. Recent headway made by scientists looking to resurrect the woolly mammoth, however, have given biologists hope that the Tiger can once more roam the rugged terrain of the Outback.

Rumblings, geyser eruptions and growing magma chambers at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming have been unnerving citizens in and around the area lately, causing many to wonder if the super volcano underneath the park is about to erupt. MaxPixel.net[/caption] A new study just release by academics from Illinois should help allay those fears. A paper authored by geologist Patricia Gregg and PhD student, Haley Cabaniss, both of the University of Illinois, is claiming that any imminent large-scale eruption would be proceeded by hundreds if not thousands of years of increased tectonic activity, a growing magma chamber and geological ‘uplift’ measured in meters and not inches.