New Probe's First Gamma Ray Sky Map Unveiled
 | Officials working with the spacecraft formerly known as GLAST celebrated the probe's new name, Fermi, with the release of its first image of the full gamma ray sky. |
Tiny Galaxies Shed New Light on Dark Matter
 | Dwarf galaxies of varying brightness orbiting the Milky Way have a common central mass, says a new study that suggests dark matter can provide the minimum mass required for galaxies to form. |
PHOTOS: "Pristine" Reefs Part of Planned Marine Reserve
 | The remote protected area in the western and central Pacific--proposed by U.S. President George W. Bush earlier this week--would be nearly as large as Texas and Alaska combined. |
PHOTOS: Giant, Bulging-Eyed Roman Emperor Statue Found
 | An "exquisitely carved" statue of Roman leader Marcus Aurelius, with lion-skin boots and a feathery beard, has been discovered in an artifact-rich site in Turkey. |
VIDEO: 1,300-Year-Old Peru Mummy Found
 | The rare pre-Inca mummy was masked and entombed with a child sacrifice. Found near high-rises in Lima, the tomb is one of the few known unlooted Wari burials. |
PHOTO IN THE NEWS: Cluster Smashup Is Dark Matter Proof
 | A distant cousin of the famous "bullet cluster" shows the same separation of dark and ordinary matter occurring as its two parent galaxy clusters collide at high speed. |
Wisdom Teeth Can Yield Stem Cells, Scientists Say
 | Dental pulp from a wisdom tooth could be a new source of therapeutic stem cells, sidestepping the ethical concerns of embryonic cells, Japanese researchers claim. |
Hurricane Gustav to Become Gulf Coast Monster?
 | The once and future Hurricane Gustav?currently a tropical storm?could become supercharged if a developing high-pressure system deflects it into the central Gulf of Mexico. |
SPACE PHOTOS THIS WEEK: Massive Galaxy Cluster, More
 | Image confirms universe's most massive galaxy cluster, Mars's sand dunes offer new clues to its past, and more in our weekly roundup of space photos. |
Escher-themed nurseries? Even four-month-olds can recognize impossible objects
"Impossible objects" like the etchings of M.C. Escher have fascinated adults for centuries. You can't help but stare and wonder at a drawing like this, which seems to defy the laws of nature:
The drawing seems strange to us because our visual system tells us that when an object or part of an object occludes another, it's in front. Since the parts of the cube are all connected, it's clear that the vertical bar in the "back" of the cube shouldn't be in front of any other bars.
Some research has suggested that young babies don't have the same ability as adults to determine how close objects are to them. Babies younger than 6 months, for example, aren't able to reach the right distance for objects after seeing a three-dimensional display. But babies do recognize real objects after seeing pictures, and they recognize possible and impossible events involving solid objects. Can they recognize impossible objects?
A team led by Sarah Shuwairi showed an image like the one above to 10 four-month-olds, but with one crucial difference: the portion of the image determining whether the object was possible or impossible was obscured with a red oval:
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