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Spaced Out

It will be 40 years next summer since Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, but there's still a space race on. The major players, and their motives, of course, have changed since the Cold-War days: it's now China, Japan, India...

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October 22, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (9)

Can You Hear Me Now?

Let me tell you about the day I decided civilization was finished. I was in a men's room at an airport. A man came in, yakking loudly on a cell phone. He did his business, flushed, and left -- and...

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October 17, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (28)

Tough Cars for Tough Times

Take a look at the BMW 5 Series sedan. It's a well-built upscale car -- but that's not the issue for the moment. Does the front of the car resemble a face to you? It does to many people. What...

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October 15, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (20)

The Man Who Missed the Nobel Prize

POTTER BLOG--NOBEL PRIZE CONTRIBUTOR NOW DRIVES VAN AT A CAR DEALER

Douglas Prasher played a key role in the work that won the Nobel Chemistry prize this week. Prasher did not share in the $1.4 million winnings. Instead, we're told...

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October 10, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (24)

'Western Man has Stopped Evolving'?

J. Steve Jones, a geneticist at University College London, has set off a bit of a brush fire by suggesting that human beings in technologically-advanced societies have stopped evolving, no longer faced with the challenges to their survival that made...

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October 8, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (135)

A Closeup View of Hell

Every new picture from Mercury reminds one why Earth is a good place to live. NASA's robotic MESSENGER spacecraft made a close flyby early Monday morning (around 4:40 a.m. EDT), coming within about 125 miles of Mercury's cratered surface. It's...

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October 6, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (22)

The Final Resting Place of a Submarine

"Overdue and Presumed Lost." In World War II those were the most feared -- and perhaps also most ambiguous -- words the families of a submarine crew could hear. On July 30, 1942, the USS Grunion was in the Aleutian...

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October 3, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (43)