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Stranded in Labrador

The longest journey begins with--well, with a cracked engine liner. We've been flagged that Glacier Girl, the restored P-38 pursuit plane from World War II that is now trying to retrace its route to Europe, is apparently stuck at the...

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June 28, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (2)

The Mystery of Tunguska

Ninety-nine years ago this weekend, something remarkable and violent happened over the the forests of Siberia. Something--perhaps a comet or meteorite--came tearing into the atmosphere and probably exploded in midair with a force a thousand times greater than that of...

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June 26, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (4)

"From Glacier to Glory"

The P-38 Lightning was a state of the art plane at the beginning of World War II, but the age of nonstop trans-Atlantic flights was still far in the future when the eight planes of "the lost squadron" began their...

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June 25, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (3)

Glacier Girl

We were asked to do a wonderful story, for World News, about a World War II plane that is finishing its mission, 65 years late. It's a P-38 Lightning pursuit plane, and it's now flying from Kentucky to England, with...

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June 22, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (18)

Is the Bible Therapy?

In North Dakota there is a group that thinks so. It runs the Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch for troubled youth, and the core of its program involves helping kids through spiritual counseling, Bible readings and religious services. "Dakota Boys...

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June 21, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (15)

Stem Cells, Still a Stalemate

The ink from the President's pen is not yet dry, and stem cell researchers are already lamenting his veto. My part of this story was to get their point of view. Martha Raddatz reported the President's. Surprisingly strong words from...

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June 20, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (9)

Lost in Translation

As best we can tell, the space station computer crisis was caused by a fried power switch or circuit board, and solved by jumper cables. The station crew has been testing the thrusters controlled by the computers this morning, and...

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June 18, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (4)

Adding Insult to Injury

You have to feel for Pluto. Last year, as you'll recall, it was demoted--no longer considered a planet. The International Astronomical Union created a new category of "dwarf planet," and said Pluto was the largest heavenly body to fit the...

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June 14, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (7)

Joy in Mudville

I don't get to do a lot of baseball in a technology column, but this is really another tale of the collision between new and old media. A reporter for the Louisville Courier-Journal, Brian Bennett, was asked to leave a...

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June 12, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (3)

A Six-Inch Tear

STS-117 has safely docked with the Space Station, the astronauts have started installing the new parts they've brought...and there's a little bit of obsessing going on over a six-inch tear in the thermal blankets near the rear of the shuttle...

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June 10, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (8)