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Look Out Above: Spy Satellite in Plain Sight

"Deep Black" is the time-honored shorthand used for America's second space program -- the one the involves secret spy satellites. William Burrows, a writer and professor at New York University, wrote a book by that title 20 years ago. For...

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February 14, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (14)

Sick in Space

In December 1968, on the first day of the first flight ever by astronauts to orbit the Moon, Apollo 8 commander Frank Borman became unexpectedly nauseated -- and the whole world soon knew about it. Borman felt better the next...

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February 13, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (11)

A Star Field is Born

Far away, in the summer constellation Scorpius, is a region known as Rho Ophiuchi. It is a place where stars are being born. It is distant by human standards, but by astronomical measures, it is right in the neighborhood --...

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February 12, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (17)

The Changing Face of America

"If current trends continue," says the Pew Research Center, "the population of the United States will rise to 438 million in 2050...and 82% of the increase will be due to immigrants arriving from 2005 to 2050 and their U.S.-born descendants...."...

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February 11, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (134)

Jack McWethy

Those of us who knew him feel a bit empty today. John McWethy covered the Pentagon, the State Department, a million diplomatic missions and too many wars, and the gravity of what he was doing never went to his head....

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February 7, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (10)

A Presidential Debate on Science?

It's safe to come out now. Super Tuesday is over. Many of the country's most prominent scientists and universities, though, have signed on to an effort to host "a public debate in which the U.S. presidential candidates share their views...

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February 6, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (116)

Robo Cops

On West End Avenue in New York there's an automated camera on a post in a sturdy metal housing, meant to catch drivers if they jump the light a hundred feet away. At times, when I've been in a bad...

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February 4, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (13)

'Across the Universe'

"Nothing's gonna change my world, Nothing's gonna change my world...." That's from the Beatles' "Across the Universe." Monday, 40 years after they recorded it, NASA will send it...across the universe. It's part publicity stunt, part nostalgia, part anniversary celebration. The...

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February 1, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (23)