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Water on Mars? Not So Fast

Maybe it was a nice idea while it lasted. In 2006 a team of scientists published two images from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor probe -- the first, from orbit in 1999, showing the slope of a crater, the second, from...

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February 29, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (36)

The Environment? Is That an Election Issue?

It's part of my job to be on a lot of organizations' mailing lists. This mailing came from the Sierra Club: "Two weeks ago John McCain was the only Senator to duck a crucial vote on the future of clean...

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February 27, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (34)

Phone of the Future

The Nokia Research Center, working with the University of Cambridge, is showing off a cell phone shaped like -- well, shaped like whatever you want it to be shaped like. It bends. It twists. It stretches. You can wear it...

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February 26, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (27)

Clean Kill

The Defense Department this morning reports that not only did it hit that disabled spy satellite last week, it pulverized it, including its fuel tank. The operations center at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California is reported to be tracking...

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February 25, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (22)

The Fate of the Gray Wolf

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has announced that the gray wolf in the northern Rockies "is thriving and no longer requires the protection of the Endangered Species Act." The Interior Department says there are now 1,500 wolves roaming free...

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February 21, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (77)

Earthset

Since October, a Japanese space mission called Kaguya has been orbiting the moon, taking all sorts of measurements and sending back pictures. It gets little notice here, considering that the U.S. sent its first Lunar Orbiters in 1966. But that...

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February 20, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (6)

The Realm of the Tunicates

The Aurora Australis, a research ship operated by the Australian Antarctic Division, has just come back from the Southern Ocean with some remarkable findings. It lowered a robot submersible to depths of more than 6,000 feet, and found that even...

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February 19, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (10)

'Expelled'

This is not an evolution blog -- honest -- but the issue keeps coming back. Ben Stein, the TV personality, writer, actor, lawyer, economist, and speechwriter for Presidents Nixon and Ford, has now joined the debate, with a film called...

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February 19, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (237)

Shuttle to Stay Out of Spy Satellite's Way

ABC's Gina Sunseri, covering the current shuttle mission from Houston, reports that in order to get Atlantis on the ground and out of the Defense Department's way, it will activate the landing strips at both the Kennedy Space Center and...

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February 15, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (9)

How to Down a Wayward Satellite

ABC's Luis Martinez reports the following new details on how the Navy would try to intercept USA-193, the disabled reconnaissance satellite the Pentagon announced yesterday it would try to destroy before it re-enters the atmosphere: -- The total cost of...

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February 15, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (78)