Feathers and Flares

Haven't had time to get back to the second Hoyle post, but on the subject I saw "The Dinosaur Feather Mystery" on the Science Channel and was blown away by the progress that has been made in both paleontology and evo-devo in the last few years on the evolution of feathers and flight. And there I was still thinking that feathers were modified scales...

Other interesting stuff to watch: a movie of the variable X-ray sky covering 1996-1999, based on RXTE, as linked to by AstroDyke.