Black holes is da shit?

Two PRL:s within four months is something that Campanelli et al seems to have achieved. They have developed a new computational algorithm for gravitation and have used it to perform simulations of two black holes merging Phys Rev Lett 96 (2007) 111101. The paper (or its animations?) were noticed by Physics News Graphic which I found via Dark Roasted Blend.

This weeks Physical Review Focus mentions two papers looking very similar to Campanelli's, and indeed, one of the papers have basically the same authors as the article mentioned above. It is not unusual that one project renders several similar papers. Usually one writes a short paper briefly describing the finding and then complements with longer, more detailed papers. Two PRL:s though is very well done. My gravitation and cosmology and my knowledge of computer algorithms is a bit rusty but I suspect that the authors got some extra attention since they produced some cool pictures and animations. The research is probably top class (they did get it in to PRL) but if you want to make your voice heard in the scientific noise it doesn't hurt to have some fancy graphic.