Scientists have identified 37 volcanic structures on Venus that appear to be recently active -- and probably still are today -- painting the picture of a geologically dynamic planet and not a dormant world as long thought. NBC News reports: The research focused on ring-like structures called coronae, caused by an upwelling of hot rock from deep within the planet's interior, and provided compelling evidence of widespread recent tectonic and magma activity on Venus's surface, researchers said on Monday. Coronae are essentially fields of lava flows and major faults spanning a large circular area. Many of the 37 reside within in a gigantic ring in the planet's Southern Hemisphere, including a colossal corona called Artemis 1,300 miles (2,100 km) in diameter.

Many scientists long had thought Venus, lacking the plate tectonics that gradually reshape Earth's surface, was essentially dormant geologically for the past half billion years. The researchers determined the type of geological features that could exist only in a recently active corona - a telltale trench surrounding the structure. Then they scoured radar images of Venus from NASA's Magellan spacecraft in the 1990s to find coronae that fit the bill. Of 133 coronae examined, 37 appear to have been active in the past 2 million to 3 million years, a blink of the eye in geological time. The research has been published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

terrywallwork writes "A while back I received an email from the people at Packt publishing telling me of a new book they had just put out, and since any email the mentions the possibility of being able to read new Blender books instantly gets my attention, I clicked the link and was presented with a web page detailing a book called Blender 3D 2.49 - Architecture, Buildings and Scenery. This was confusing as I remember having reviewed a book with almost the same title and identical cover picture. So I went to my reviews and checked and sure enough I found a review with the same book cover and almost the same title. So I deleted the email and just put it down to an automated email snafu. Unfortunately I should not have been so quick with the delete button as it turned out to be an updated version of the previous book they put out." Read on to see what Terry thinks of this book.

We knew this was going to take a while -- it turned out to be just about one month since the question post -- due to some show-taping problems Alton had. He was kind enough to warn us about the delay, a warning regular Slashdot Interview readers picked up. Anyway, here we go. (Warning: Reading this interview may cause hunger.)