Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs displays his company's new product, the iPod Mini, at the Macworld Conference and Expo in San Francisco Jan. 6. His companies are responsible for one of the hottest gifts of the holiday season, some of the best animated movies in recent years, and computers that are, for the most part, free of viruses.
This is an image mosaic taken by the Mars exploration rover Spirit's panoramic camera and made available by NASA on Jan. 10. It shows a view of Mars southwest of the rover's landing site in the Gusev Crater. The landscape shows little variation in local topography, though a narrow peak is visible on the horizon.
South Korean scientist Shin Yong Moon, who had released a study with collaborator Woo Suk Hwang that announced the extraction of stem cells from a cloned human embryo, speaks to a group of scientists gathered at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Seattle Feb. 16.
Astronaut Mike Melvill celebrates on top of SpaceShipOne after landing as the Mojave Aerospace Ventures Team attempted to win the Ansari X Prize in Mojave, Calif. Sept. 29. The team did win the $10 million dollar prize given to the first team to launch the weight equivalent of three people into suborbital space twice within a two week period.
Vioxx is arranged on a counting tray on top of the botttle, at The Pennington Apothecary in Pennington, N.J., on Sept. 30. The withdrawal of Vioxx from the market shook up the pharmaceutical industry.
Google co-founders Sergey Brin, left, and Larry Page are seen prior to a news conference at the International Book Fair in Frankfurt, Germany Oct. 7. Long known as iconoclasts of the Internet, Page and Brin, both 31, set out to break the mold of the traditional IPO as well.
Actor Brad Pitt looks at embryonic stem cells at Children's Hospital Los Angeles on Oct. 26. Pitt toured the hospital's stem cell laboratory to show support for Proposition 71 on California's Nov. 2 ballot, which wound up passing with 59 pecent of the vote. The measure will create an Institute for Regenerative Medicine.
Aurora borealis lights up the sky northwest of Lawrence, Kan., early on Nov. 8. It was visible much further south than usual.
The Millau Bridge, the world's tallest traffic bridge, emerges through the fog, early on Dec. 9 in Millau, France. Construction workers had nearly completed work on the roadway of the bridge, a viaduct that soars over a valley in southern France. The bridge, reaching about 890 feet at its highest point, was inaugurated by President Chirac on Dec. 14 and opened to traffic on Dec. 17.
Scientists working on a remote Indonesian island, uncovered the bones of a human dwarf species, Homo floresiensis, marooned for eons. Evidence suggests that Homo floresiensis shared the Earth with Homo sapiens, or modern people. The discovery was described by as "the biggest...in half a century of anthropological research."