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The Mystery of Mercury

"More like the Moon than the Moon." That was the conventional wisdom about Mercury, the planet closest to the Sun, and also the smallest (not counting recently-demoted Pluto). But now scientists have sent a ship called MESSENGER racing past, and...

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January 30, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (9)

An Asteroid With Our Name on It

If you were up at 3:30 this morning, Eastern Time, you might have heard about asteroid 2007 TU24 making a pretty close call. You say you missed it? It missed us too -- coming within about 334,000 miles of Earth,...

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January 29, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (15)

Cowed

If you worry about a warming climate you can look at your Hummer and feel anxious, or you can take comfort that some solutions don't demand that we give up such comforts. Quoth the Times of London: "A team of...

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January 28, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (101)

Maybe the Sky is NOT Falling

So there's an American spy satellite -- its actual mission, orbit and size not made public -- which has lost power and, like all other objects in low Earth orbit, is gradually losing altitude because of friction with the tenuous...

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January 28, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (15)

Artificial DNA

J. Craig Venter, the iconoclast scientist who led part of the giant project to read the human genome, has not stopped there. Since the mid-1990s he's been on a quest to create nothing less than artificial life. That's right, synthetic...

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January 24, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (22)

The Kite Runner

The days of the great sailing ships may be over. Or maybe not. Witness the MS Beluga SkySails, a new cargo ship plying the route from Bremerhaven, Germany to Guanta, Venezuela. It's equipped with a computer-controlled kite--1,722 square feet, which...

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January 22, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (8)

Cell Phones and Brain Cells

It's enough to drive you crazy. You can't see the signals from a cell phone, you can't feel them, and for 20 years now there have been all sorts of lingering fears that they're doing you harm. The latest finding:...

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January 21, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (17)

'Moon Stuck'

President Bush's plan to send astronauts back to the Moon by 2020 and eventually on to Mars has been slowly crumbling -- and now, Aviation Week & Space Technology reports that scientists, astronauts and former NASA managers are quietly meeting...

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January 19, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (50)

Mastodon For Sale

"Welcome to Mt. Blanco Fossil Museum," says the banner on the website. "Digging up the facts of God's Creation: One fossil at a time." The Mt. Blanco Museum is in Crosbyton, Tex., about 35 miles east of Lubbock, population 1,874...

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January 18, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (60)

The Whale

Which is more important, national security or the health of 35 species of whales and other sea creatures who happen to get in the way? It's not that simple. You'll recall that President Bush issued a memorandum yesterday, giving the...

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January 17, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (11)