Ice on Mars: More Than They Ever Thought

Note to self: whenever you make a cool scientific finding, try not to do it on a day when there's an even cooler finding. Yesterday, while NASA was talking about those intriguing traces of water in the moon's soil, other...

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September 25, 2009 in Science, Space | Permalink | User Comments (12)

Red Mars, Black Mars

Why is Mars such a rusty red? For decades, scientists have assumed the answer was as simple as rust on Earth. The Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, established that the planet once was probably warm and wet, with standing pools...

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September 21, 2009 in Science, Space | Permalink | User Comments (15)

A Rocky World, Far, Far Away

500 light-years away, in the constellation of Monoceros the Unicorn, European scientists say there is an unremarkable star called CoRoT-7. Last year they deduced that there was at least one planet orbiting it. And today, they report, it is one...

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September 16, 2009 in Science, Space | Permalink | User Comments (16)

Space Shuttle Dodges a (Big) Bullet

The astronauts of the space shuttle Discovery woke up a little while ago, and Houston told them to go on with their lives as if nothing was happening. A piece of a European Ariane 5 rocket, launched three years ago...

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September 3, 2009 in Science, Space | Permalink | User Comments (5)

California Burning

If you live outside southern California, and you want an idea of why the wildfires there are such news, take a look from above. This image, shot by NASA's Aqua satellite, shows a plume of smoke that extends diagonally northeast...

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September 1, 2009 in Science, Space | Permalink | User Comments (4)

Mars as Big as the Moon -- Not

Mars as big as the Moon? I hate to clog your computer with spam, but this one is going around again, so it's worth a mention. "The Red Pla!net is a bout to be spectacular!" says the headline of an...

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August 29, 2009 | Permalink | User Comments (6)

What Kids Search For When They Search the Web

Symantec, the Internet security giant, sells a service called OnlineFamily.Norton, which allows parents to monitor and control their children's online activity. It also allows Symantec to compile statistics -- such as what it is that those children search for when...

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August 13, 2009 | Permalink | User Comments (23)

Conficker Strikes…Or Does it?

You remember the Conficker worm, don't you? Well? If you don't, or if you're going, "Oh, yeah, that thing," maybe that's good. The Conficker botnet, a devilishly well-written piece of rogue computer code that threatened ominously to do something undefined...

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August 4, 2009 in Web/Tech | Permalink | User Comments (9)

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)