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How to Spoil Your Vacation

A clever American writer once noted that in the days before Global Positioning System locators were widely available, you might know exactly where you were, but have no idea where you were going. In the brave new world of GPS,...

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July 28, 2009 | Permalink | User Comments (10)

'Subject: For sale one lunar rover'

The Scientist, an often-provocative life-sciences magazine, says the following classified ad was really posted on its site: "For sale one Lunar Rover $500,000.00 no offers. One careful owner low mileage buyer collects. Cash offer and I will throw in a...

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July 24, 2009 in Space | Permalink | User Comments (13)

Jupiter Dusts Self Off, Gets Back to Work

Whatever hit Jupiter last weekend, it has a lot of Jovians hopping mad, and a lot of astronomers on Earth trying to figure out what happened. There are new images of the Earth-size scar where something -- perhaps a small...

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July 23, 2009 in Science, Space | Permalink | User Comments (12)

National Historic Site

40 years after Apollo 11 went to the moon, NASA is back with a ship called Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO -- and one of its first assignments was to look for what Apollo left behind. Each of the Apollo...

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July 17, 2009 in History, Space | Permalink | User Comments (55)

Last Word on Steve Fossett

Nearly two years after he died, the National Transportation Safety Board is out with its final report on what happened to Steve Fossett's plane in the California mountains. Fossett, you'll recall, was the famed round-the-world adventurer who circled the globe...

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July 9, 2009 in Adventure, Current Affairs | Permalink | User Comments (6)

The Mystery of the Soay Sheep

The island of Hirta, in the St. Kilda archipelago off the northwest coast of Scotland, is an uninhabited, windswept place, perfect for studying the wild sheep who live there. British researchers have been watching them for 25 years, and report...

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July 2, 2009 | Permalink | User Comments (17)