While we may never know what it looks like inside a black hole, astronomers recently obtained one of the closest views yet.

The sighting allowed scientists to confirm theories about how these giant cosmic sinkholes spew out jets of particles traveling nearly the speed of light.

Below is an artist’s rendition of one black hole in the BL Lacertae galaxy that spews out jets of charged particles accelerated by corkscrew-like magnetic fields.

Lets see if this drives the stock up a few bucks, shall we? 

According to a report over at CNet citing “an anonymous Apple employee”, everyone’s favorite fashion accessory /communicator is due to get haptic feedback technology courtesy of specialists Immersion.

Games:

- How I Played Games for Science: East Carolina University’s Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies has announced the results of a PopCap underwritten study claiming that casual games have a demonstrative affect at relieving stress and improving moods.

The academic group underwent a “six-month long, randomized, controlled study” measuring the impact of three PopCap games — Bejeweled 2, Peggle and Bookworm Adventures.

- Record Sales Expected For Grand Theft Auto IV: Take-Two Interactive Software Inc., is about to launch the latest version of Grand Theft Auto GTA IV. It’s expected to break records and pull in about $400M in just a single week.

Computing:

- With Cray, Intel seeks greater supercomputer share: Intel is ratcheting up the competition with smaller rival Advanced Micro Devices by joining forces w/ supercomputer maker Cray, which for the past six years has used only AMD chips in its high-performance machines.

- Apple powers up iMac with Penryn processor: Apple on Monday refreshed its iMac line with faster Intel (NSDQ: INTC) Core 2 Duo processors and an optional more powerful graphics processor on its high-end 24-inch model.

The new iMac is available in three basic configurations: a 20-inch 2.4-GHz model ($1,199), a 20-inch 2.66-GHz model, and a 24-inch 2.8- GHz model. The 2.4-GHz iMac comes with an ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT (128-MB memory) while the 2.66-GHz and 2.8-GHz models come with an ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO (256-MB memory).

Gadgets:

- Nokia’s New Phones: Built For Comfort And Speed: Nokia has just announced three new additions to its lineup, all boast a gorgeous jet black finish and quad-band GSM reception. The Nokia 6600 Slide, 6600 Fold, and 3600 Slide all fall under the fashion phone category, thanks to the smooth rounded lines and stylized directional pad.

- Cut your gadgets‘ appetite for electricity: In honor of the month that brings us Earth Day, here are some tips on cutting down the amount of electricity you use to power your gadgets

Science:

- Using Nanotech to Shut Down Troublesome Genes: MIT scientists say they’ve found a new way to silence disease-causing genes in specific tissues using RNA interference

- ‘Frankenfoods’ Gain Popularity During Food Crisis: Europe has pushed back for quite a while, is the world ready to think seriously about cheaper bio-engineered grains?

Bad news:

Computer simulations of long-term planetary motion for our solar systems reveals that Jupiter may eventually destabilize Mercury’s orbit over time. Mercury already has an eccentric orbit and it’s entirely possible influences from larger bodies could accentuate that orbit to the point where it overlaps with Venus.

And if that happens, the smaller planet (Mercury) would careen off and all bets are off at that point, Earth could be a likely recipient of a catastrophic kissing of planets and I’m sure you know what that means for civilization.

Good news:

There is only a 1% chance of this occurring before Sol balloons into a red giant billions of years from now, but still…wouldn’t that be cool?

Sky & Telescope has the doomsday scenario announced by the Paris Observatory and University of California, Santa Cruz.

[via fark]

Executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse tell Popular Mechanics they’ve been following the development of the Large Hadron Collider above (right) as they lay out Lost’s time-travel plot for the rest of this season.

Could one of the Dharma Initiative’s stations (left) create a mini black hole into the future?

Note: One of the safety concerns of this collider constructed in Switzerland is that it may actually generate micro black holes that could lead to a doomsday scenario, though this claim is not widely adopted by the scientific community.