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Also Try Science Current Events Archives Science News Sources Lists New Planets New planets have been discovered and they are outside of our solar system (extrasolar). The first extrasolar planet was discovered in 1995. syst Materials News Feeds (BBC News) "If you run your own website, you can use RSS feeds to display the latest headlines from other websites on your site." 04-08 News Feeds (Google) Provides RSS news readers. 03-06 News -01-03-07 For Longevity, Other Factors Pale in Comparison to "Education" (New York Times) "The one social factor that researchers agree is consistently linked to longer lives in every country where it has been studied is education. It is more important than race; it obliterates any effects of income." "And, health economists say, those factors that are popularly believed to be crucial — money and health insurance, for example, pale in comparison." 01-07 -01-05-07 Memories Have "Plasticity" (ScienceDaily.com) "Dissecting the mechanisms behind emotional memory is important because the region of the brain that governs this also controls fear and anxiety. That is why an emotional memory, such as a traumatic car accident, can activate the autonomic nervous system, causing bodily responses like an increase in heart rate, sweating and blood pressure -- even if you don't realize it." 01-07 -01-14-07 Andromeda Galaxy Way Bigger Than Thought (CNN News) "The discovery of several large, metal-poor stars located far from the center of the Andromeda galaxy suggests our nearest galactic neighbor might be up to five times larger than previously thought." " 'We're typically used to thinking of Andromeda as this tiny speck of light, but the actual size of the halo...extends to a very large radius and it actually fills a substantial portion of the night sky,' said study team member Jason Kalirai of the University of California, Santa Cruz." 01-07 -01-16-07 Superstrings May Sing in Gravitational Waves (MSNBC News) "String theory posits that hidden dimensions are tightly wound in strings of elementary particles. An offshoot of this theory suggests that some such strings can form into narrow tubes of energy stretched across vast distances by the expansion of the universe. These theoretical cosmic superstrings, which researchers described as ultra-thin tubes filled with ancient vacuum created in the early universe, can coil into galactic-sized, vibrating loops that emit gravitational waves as they decay into oblivion." 01-07 -01-21-07 "Unselfish" Area of Brain Found (BBC News) "Scientists say they have found the part of the brain that predicts whether a person will be selfish or an altruist." 01-07 -01-25-08 Scientist Creates Life -- Almost (Time.com) "According to a just-released paper in the journal Science, he [J. Craig Venter] has gone beyond merely sequencing a genome and has designed and built one. In other words, he may have created life." 01-08 -02-06-06 Search for Extraterrestrial Life Delayed by Bush (MSNBC News) "NASA has delayed two programs to search for planets capable of supporting life as the space agency instead focuses on developing a new manned spacecraft to return to the moon in the next decade." 02-06 -02-08-06 Scientific Information on Global Warming Suppressed (New York Times) "The resignation [of Bush political appointee George C. Deutsch] came as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was preparing to review its policies for communicating science to the public. The review was ordered Friday by Michael D. Griffin, the NASA administrator, after a week in which many agency scientists and midlevel public affairs officials described to The New York Times instances in which they said political pressure was applied to limit or flavor discussions of topics uncomfortable to the Bush administration, particularly global warming." "Yesterday, Dr. [James E.] Hansen said that the questions about Mr. Deutsch's credentials were important, but were a distraction from the broader issue of political control of scientific information." " 'On climate, the public has been misinformed and not informed,' he said. 'The foundation of a democracy is an informed public, which obviously means an honestly informed public. That's the big issue here.' " 02-06 -02-09-06 Unopened Tomb Found in Egypt's Valley of the Kings (MSNBC News) "An American team has found what appears to be an intact tomb in the Valley of the Kings, the first found in the valley since that of Tutankhamun in 1922, one of the archaeologists said on Thursday." 02-06 -02-11-06 Record: Longest Non-Stop Flight in History (BBC News) "Adventurer Steve Fossett has broken the record for the longest non-stop flight in aviation history." 2-06 -02-13-06 "Super-Earth" Detected (CNN News) "A cold, heavy "super-Earth" has been found orbiting a distant star through a method that holds promise for detecting faraway planets that closely resemble our own, astronomers said Monday." 03-06 -02-20-06 Comet Dust Sparks Scientific Interest (MSNBC News) "Scientists say comets represent the cold leftovers from the solar system's beginnings, 4.5 billion years ago. The Stardust samples confirm that the material thrown off by Comet Wild 2 has not undergone chemical change for billions of years, Brownlee said: 'It's never been hot.' " 02-06 -02-20-08 Florida Includes "Scientific Theory of Evolution" (ABC News) "Florida's State Board of Education has voted to use the term "scientific theory of evolution" in new science standards, the first time the word "evolution" has been included." 2-08 -02-23-06 Student Deactivates Anthrax (MSNBC News) "Seventeen-year-old, Marc Roberge won first place in a science contest for discovering a way to deactivate anthrax in mail." " 'Well, just simply put the iron on the envelope and iron it back and forth for five minutes in the high temperature range, and it killed all the bacillus spores that I used.' " 02-06 -02-27-07 New Twist on Black Hole Theory (RedOrbit.com) "Professor Sam Braunstein, of the University of York’s Department of Computer Science, and Dr Arun Pati, of the Institute of Physics, Sainik School, Bhubaneswar, India, have established that quantum information cannot be ‘hidden’ in conventional ways, or in Braunstein’s words, 'quantum information can run but it can’t hide.' " "This result gives a surprising new twist to one of the great mysteries about black holes." "Dr Pati said: 'Our result shows that either quantum mechanics or Hawking’s analysis must break down, but it does not choose between these two possibilities.' " 02-07 -03-02-07 Stephen Hawking to Experience Weigthlessness (CNN News) "Renowned theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, who wrote the best-selling book, 'A Brief History of Time,' soon will experience a brief history with weightlessness." "Hawking, who uses a wheelchair and is almost completely paralyzed by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease, plans to go on a weightless flight on April 26, officials at the flight operator said Thursday." 03-07 -03-02-07 Total Lunar Eclilpse on Saturday Night (CNN News) "The moon will turn shades of amber and crimson Saturday night as it passes behind the Earth's shadow in the first total lunar eclipse in three years." 02-07 -03-08-08 Iceman Defies Science (ABC News) "He's known as 'The Ice Man.' " "Scientists can't really explain it, but the 48-year-old Dutchman is able to withstand, and even thrive, in temperatures that could be fatal to the average person." 03-08 -03-09-06 Evidence of Water Found on Saturn's Moon (CBS News) "The Cassini spacecraft has found evidence of liquid water spewing from geysers on Saturn's icy moon, Enceladus, raising the tantalizing possibility that the celestial object harbors life. " 03-06 -03-11-06 Orbiter Orbiting Mars (ABC News) "NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter began orbiting the planet today in preparation for a two-year mission to find landing sites for future voyages and search for more evidence that water once flowed on the surface." 03-06 -03-12-06 New Animal Found Deep in the Ocean (ABC News) "A team of American-led divers has discovered a new crustacean in the South Pacific that resembles a lobster and is covered with what looks like silky, blond fur, French researchers said Tuesday." "Scientists said the animal, which they named Kiwa hirsuta, was so distinct from other species that they created a new family and genus for it." 03-06 -03-12-07 Man Pleads Guilty on Reed Army Medical Center Kickback Scheme (MSNBC News) "A man has pleaded guilty in federal court to participating in a kickback scheme involving contracts at Walter Reed Army Medical Center." "Leon Krachyna Jr., 39, pleaded guilty Friday to conspiracy to bribe a public official and defraud the Army, U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein said." 03-07 -03-12-07 Progress and Human Evolution Only Occasional Partners (ABC News) "New research also shows that 'progress' and 'human evolution' are only occasional partners. More than once in human prehistory, evolution created a modern trait such as a face without jutting, apelike brows and jaws, only to let it go extinct, before trying again a few million years later. Our species' travels through time proceeded in fits and starts, with long periods when 'nothing much happened,' punctuated by bursts of dizzying change, says paleontologist Ian Tattersall, co-curator of the American Museum's new hall." 03-07 -03-13-06 Teen Science Project a Finalist (ABC News) "A Moscow High School senior has been named one of 40 finalists in a science talent search after devising a method to determine how dust settles on Mars." 03-06 -03-14-06 Possible Noah's Ark Located (ABC News) "A satellite image may launch a scientific expedition to search for Noah's Ark. The snapshot captures a mysterious object on Turkey's Mount Ararat." 03-06 -03-15-07 Scientists Discover 6 Million New Genes in the Ocean (PBS News) "Scientists spent two years trawling the oceans for bacteria and viruses, and in the process discovered 6 million new genes, doubling the number known on Earth and holding promise for new antibiotics and alternative energy sources." 03-07 -03-17-07 High School Student Wins Award for Spectograph (ABC News) "Mary, a senior at Westmore High School in Oklahoma City, won first place in the 2007 Intel Science talent search competition, beating out 40 other contestants and winning a $100,000 college scholarship." "While these devices already exist, there is one key difference between Masterman's spectrograph and those being used today. Spectrographs can cost a hundred thousand dollars to build, but Mary built hers for $300 out of household parts, and hopes that it might help make research cheaper and easier in the future." 03-07 -03-21-06 Rewriting Science (CBS News) "Hansen is arguably the world's leading researcher on global warming. He's the head of NASA's top institute studying the climate. But this imminent scientist tells correspondent Scott Pelley that the Bush administration is restricting who he can talk to and editing what he can say. Politicians, he says, are rewriting the science." 3-06 -03-21-06 Woman With Perfect Memory Baffles Scientists (ABC News) AJ's "degree of recall is so much greater than any other person's in the scientific literature that it [her method of categorizing] seems unlikely to be the complete answer, McGaugh adds." "She is also quite different from savants who have surfaced from time to time with extraordinary abilities in music, art or memory." 3-06 -03-23-06 Clive's Tortoise Dies, Aged 255 (TimesOnline.co.uk) "A tortoise brought as a present for Clive of India had died in a zoo at the venerable age of 255." "The giant Aldabra tortoise was one of four brought by British seamen from the Seychelles Islands as gifts to Robert Clive of the British East India Company. Clive died in 1774." 03-06 -03-24-06 SpaceX Launched, Then Lost (MSNBC News) "After four years of work, three launch delays and $100 million in dot-com cash, SpaceX's Falcon 1 rocket rose from its Pacific launch pad on Friday, but was lost moments later." "Space enthusiasts around the world had looked forward to what SpaceX, also known as Space Exploration Technologies, billed as the world's first all-new orbital launch vehicle in more than a decade." 9-05 -03-25-06 Intermediate Found Between Homo Erectus and Homo Sapiens (StoneAgeInstitute.org) "Scientists conducting palaeoanthropological field research at Gona, in the Afar Administrative State of Ethiopia have discovered a significantly complete cranium of a human ancestor estimated to be Middle Pleistocene in age. The new hominid was discovered at Gawis (pronounced 'gow-wees'), in the Gona Paleoanthropological Research Project study area of Ethiopia. The discovery was reported by Sileshi Semaw, Director of the Gona Project, who is based at the Stone Age Institute and Indiana University's CRAFT Research Center, USA." 03-06 -03-27-08 Simulated Immune System Reported (Time.com) "You've heard of artificial limbs and artificial hearts but what about artificial immune systems? Add another notch to the test tube: scientists at VaxDesign, a five-year-old biotechnology company based in Orlando, Florida, have created a simulated human immune system, called the Modular Immune In Vitro Construct (MIMIC for short). The dime-sized immune system can predict how humans will respond to new vaccines. The goal? To streamline vaccine research and hasten the eradication of global killers, such as AIDS." 03-08 -04-03-06 Organ Regeneration a Reality (ABC News) "The news is being hailed as a medical milestone: Several years after receiving new bladders engineered entirely in a laboratory, seven young patients are all still healthy." 04-06 -04-05-06 "Missing Link" Between Fish and Land Animals Found (TimesOnline.co.uk) "An evolutionary missing link that was among the first fish to leave the sea and walk on land has been unearthed in the Canadian Arctic." "The fossil discovery illuminates a chapter in the history of life on Earth that was essential to the ultimate emergence of human beings. Tiktaalik roseae, which lived about 375 million years ago, has features that blur the distinction between fish and terrestrial limbed creatures." 04-06 -04-05-06 New Fossils Help Fill Gap Between Water and Land Animals (ABC News) "Fossils of a 375 million year old species of ancient fish found north of the Arctic Circle fill an evolutionary gap in the transition between water and land animals, scientists said on Wednesday." "Remains of the new species named Tiktaalik roseae were found encased in frozen rock. It has the fins and scales of a fish but its crocodile-like skull, neck and ribs resemble those of a land animal." 04-06 -04-10-08 Drug Seems to Counter Radiation (Time.com) "Scientists mimicked one of cancer's sneaky tricks to create a drug that promises to prevent a serious side effect of cancer treatment — radiation damage — or offer an antidote during a nuclear emergency." 04-08 -04-20-06 New "Force Field" to Protect U. S. Tanks (Defense-Update.com) "The Trophy active protection system creates something equivalent to a hemispheric "force field" around the protected vehicle. It has three elements providing – Threat Detection and Tracking, Launching and Intercept functions. The Threat Detection and Warning subsystem consists of several sensors, including flat-panel radars, placed at strategic locations around the protected vehicle, to provide full hemispherical coverage." 04-06 -04-25-07 New Gene Found for Diabetes (Yahoo News) "The most thorough probe to date of the genetic underpinnings of the most common form of diabetes has identified a new batch of genes that increases risk for a disease affecting 200 million people globally." 04-07 -04-25-07 Potentially-Habitable Planet Found (ABC News) "What they revealed is a planet circling the red dwarf star, Gliese 581. Red dwarfs are low-energy, tiny stars that give off dim red light and last longer than stars like our sun. Until a few years ago, astronomers didn't consider these stars as possible hosts of planets that might sustain life." "The discovery of the new planet, named 581 c, is sure to fuel studies of planets circling similar dim stars. About 80 percent of the stars near Earth are red dwarfs." 04-07 -04-30-07 Apes Point to Origins of Human Language (MSNBC News) "Our closest primate relatives, the bonobos and chimps, are more versatile when communicating with their hands, feet and limbs than with their facial expressions and voices." "The finding, detailed online Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, supports the notion that humans were communicating with sign language long before they were speaking, an idea known as the 'gestural hypothesis.' " 04-07 -04-30-07 Cancer-Fighting Drug Found in Soil (Live Science) "The bark of certain yew trees can yield a medicine that fights cancer. Now scientists find the dirt that yew trees grow in can supply the drug as well, suggesting a new way to commercially harvest the medicine." "Scientists originally isolated the drug paclitaxel—now commonly known as Taxol—in 1967 from the bark of Pacific yew trees (Taxus brevifolia) in a forest near the Mount St. Helens in Washington. This yew also yields related compounds known as taxanes that can be converted to paclitaxel. Research since then has revealed other yew species generate paclitaxel and taxanes as well, as do some fungi and certain hazelnut varieties." 04-07 -05-02-07 NASA Shows New Views of Jupiter (MSNBC News) "New images beamed back by a NASA spacecraft that flew by Jupiter earlier this year are giving scientists their most detailed glimpse yet of the gas giant and its moons." 05-07 -05-07-07 Bees Disappearing at an Alarming Rate (CBS News) "According to the Apiary Inspectors of America, a hive-tracking group, more than a quarter of the country's bee colonies have been lost — more than half-a million bee colonies that have simply vanished. What is actually happening — and what repercussions could it have on your dinner table?" 05-07 -05-25-06 Scientists Confirm Origins of AIDS (ABC News) "Twenty-five years after the first AIDS cases emerged, scientists have confirmed that the HIV virus plaguing humans really did originate in wild chimpanzees, in a corner of Cameroon." 05-06 -05-30-07 Scientists Hear the Sun Scream (MSNBC News) "Speedy solar storms carrying a billion tons of charged gas through space let out a thunderous scream before they unleash satellite-stopping radiation storms that slam into Earth's magnetic field." 05-07 -06-04-07 Study: Dogs More Intelligent Than Scientists Thought (MSNBC News) " 'What's surprising and shocking about this is that we thought this sort of imitation was very sophisticated, something seen only in humans,' said Brian Hare, who studies dogs at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany. 'Once again, it ends up dogs are smarter than scientists thought.' " "The experiment suggests that dogs can put themselves inside the head of another dog -- and perhaps people -- to make relatively complex decisions." " 'This suggests they can actually think about your intention -- they can look for explanations of your behavior and make inferences about what you are thinking,' Hare said." 06-07 -06-04-07 Study: Men and Women Think Differently (LiveScience.com) "Men and women do think differently, at least where the anatomy of the brain is concerned, according to a new study." 06-07 -06-06-07 Biologists Make Skin Cells Work Like Stem Cells (Christian Science Monitor) "Scientists in the United States and Japan announced yesterday that they have developed artificial stem cells from adult mouse cells. If the approach can be retooled for humans, they say, it would avoid the ethical quicksand that surrounds the use of stem cells drawn from nascent human embryos." 06-07 -06-06-07 Biologists Make Skin Cells Work Like Stem Cells (MSNBC News) "In a leap forward for stem cell research, three independent teams of scientists reported Wednesday that they have produced the equivalent of embryonic stem cells in mice using skin cells without the controversial destruction of embryos." "If the same could be done with human skin cells — a big if — the procedure could lead to breakthrough medical treatments without the contentious ethical and political debates surrounding the use of embryos." "Embryonic stem cells are prized because they can develop into all types of tissue. So experts believe they might be used for transplant therapies in people who are paralyzed or have illnesses ranging from diabetes to Parkinson’s disease." 06-07 -06-06-07 Biologists Make Skin Cells Work Like Stem Cells (New York Times) "In a surprising advance that could sidestep the ethical debates surrounding stem cell biology, researchers have come much closer to a major goal of regenerative medicine, the conversion of a patient’s cells into specialized tissues that might replace those lost to disease." "The new technique, developed by Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University, depends on inserting just four genes into a skin cell. These accomplish the same reprogramming task as the egg does, or at least one that seems very similar." "The technique, if adaptable to human cells, is much easier to apply than nuclear transfer, would not involve the expensive and controversial use of human eggs, and should avoid all or almost all of the ethical criticism directed at the use of embryonic stem cells." 06-07 -06-06-07 The Universe Is Expanding Beyond Understanding (New York Times) "When Albert Einstein was starting out on his cosmological quest 100 years ago, the universe was apparently a pretty simple and static place. Common wisdom had it that all creation consisted of an island of stars and nebulae known as the Milky Way surrounded by infinite darkness." 06-07 -06-06-07 The Universe Is Expanding Beyond Understanding (New York Times) "When Albert Einstein was starting out on his cosmological quest 100 years ago, the universe was apparently a pretty simple and static place. Common wisdom had it that all creation consisted of an island of stars and nebulae known as the Milky Way surrounded by infinite darkness." 06-07 -06-07-07 Congress Passes Bill Supporting Stem Cell Research (MSNBC News) "The Democratic-controlled Congress passed legislation Thursday to loosen restraints on federally funded embryonic stem cell research, but the bill’s supporters lacked the votes needed to override President Bush’s threatened veto." 06-07 -06-07-07 Stem Cells Stall Brain Disease in Mice for First Time (MSNBC News) "Human stem cells taken from both embryos and fetuses delayed a fatal brain and nerve disease in mice, moving throughout the brain to take on the jobs of damaged neurons, scientists report." "They said their study, published in the journal Nature Medicine, represents the first time a human embryonic stem cell has successfully treated a disease in an animal." 06-07 -06-09-07 Wireless Charging of Devices (CBS News) "Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers announced Thursday they had made a 60-watt light bulb glow by sending it energy wirelessly, potentially previewing a future in which cell phones and other gadgets get juice without having to be plugged in." 06-07 -06-12-06 Scientists: First New Species of Human Found (ABC News) "In October 2004, a team of Australian and Indonesian archaeologists announced in Nature magazine they had dug up the bones of a brand new, previously unknown humanoid species which they nicknamed 'The Hobbit,' because it was rather small." "Graphic artists, working with the team, have pictured the hobbit. It's clearly not a dwarf, or a pygmy, but a 3-foot tall species of humans. Hobbs, who worked as a consultant with 60 Minutes on the story, believes they may have had a rudimentary form of language." "He says it's astounding because the Hobbit’s brain was a third the size of one of ours. And scientists had always used brain size as the most important characteristic separating humans from other animals -- that and the ability to use tools and build fires." 06-06 -06-14-07 Study Changes Long-Held DNA Beliefs (PBS News) "A four-year international study of the human genome has prompted scientists to rethink some of their most basic ideas about how DNA functions." 06-07 -06-22-07 Race Is on to Make Antimatter Atoms (MSNBC - Cosmic Log) "It's not often that a scientific experiment gets written up as a front-page news story, as well as a science-fiction twist in a best-selling thriller and a can't-miss movie script - but that's what's been happening to CERN's Antiproton Decelerator facility, the only place in the world where whole atoms of antimatter are built." 06-07 -07-01-06 Simulation Study: Common Ancestor of All Living Humans Lived "Recently" (ABC News) "Allowing very little migration, Rohde's simulation produced a date of about 5,000 B.C. for humanity's most recent common ancestor. Assuming a higher, but still realistic, migration rate produced a shockingly recent date of around 1 A.D." 07-06 -07-06-06 Shuttle Discovery Begins Docking at Space Station (ABC News) "Space shuttle Discovery has started docking with the international space station. Earlier, Discovery did a back flip so the international space station's crew could photograph its belly for any signs of damage." 07-06 -07-12-07 DNA Kits Available to Learn Our Own Ancestry (PBS.org) "With advances in DNA technology, researchers are learning more about the origins and diversity of humans, allowing companies to offer DNA test kits and analysis for people who want to learn more about their ancestry." 07-07 -07-12-07 Mysterious Black Spot Seen on Mars (DiscoverMagazine.com) "The HiRISE astronomical imaging project has a striking picture of a spot on Mars' surface that looks like total blackness to their Earth-based camera—it sees no light beyond the background noise level." Image 07-07 -07-13-07 Virus May Be Causing Bees to Disappear (PBS.org) "A virus from Australia may be the culprit in the mysterious deaths of tens of millions of honeybees in the past year, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Science." "Colony Collapse Disorder affected 23 percent of U.S. beekeepers last year. Affected beekeepers lost an average 45 percent of their bees to the phenomenon -- the bees simply disappeared, leaving empty or nearly empty hives." 05-07 -07-16-06 Space Shuttle Cleared for Return (ABC News) "With the last potential snags to landing cleared on Sunday, the astronauts on space shuttle Discovery hoped for good weather to cap a comeback mission for NASA with a Florida touchdown." 07-06 -07-21-06 The First Cattle Keepers (BBC News) " 'It happened during these 5,000 years of the savannah that people changed from hunter-gathers to cattle keepers,' he [Dr Rudolph Kuper] said. " 'This important step in human history has been made for the first time in the African Sahara.' " 07-06 -08-03-07 Only 10% of Life on Earth Discovered (MSNBC News) "“We’ve only touched the surface of understanding animal life,” said entomologist Brian Fisher of the California Academy of Sciences. 'We’ve discovered just 10 percent of all living things on this planet.' " 08-07 -08-08-07 Leakey Finds That Human Evolutionary Tree Must Be Redrawn (MSNBC News) "[Meave] Leakey’s team spent seven years analyzing the fossils before announcing their findings that it was time to redraw the family tree — and rethink other ideas about human evolutionary history, especially about our most immediate ancestor, H. erectus." 8-07 -08-08-07 Shuttle Endeavor Blasts Off (MSNBC News) "The space shuttle Endeavour blasted into orbit Wednesday carrying teacher-astronaut Barbara Morgan, who after more than two decades is finally carrying out the dream of Christa McAuliffe and the rest of the fallen Challenger crew." 8-07 -08-25-06 Pluto Demoted: We Now Have Only 8 Planets (MSNBC News) "Members of the International Astronomical Union overwhelmingly voted to demote Pluto to a 'dwarf planet.' Though still retaining the term planet, it was clear that Pluto had been exiled." 08-06 -08-28-05 Simulation Results: Temperature Rise Caused a Mass Extinction (BBC News) "A computer simulation of the Earth's climate 250 million years ago suggests that global warming triggered the so-called 'great dying'." "A dramatic rise in carbon dioxide caused temperatures to soar to 10 to 30 degrees Celsius higher than today, say US researchers." "Some 95% of lifeforms in the oceans became extinct, along with about three-quarters of land species." 8-05 -08-30-07 Monster Spider Web Found in Texas (CNN News) Takes a "straw vote," an unscientific poll, to see how people from different countries would vote if they could for President of the United States. 08-07 -09-07-07 Preserved Inca Maiden Found and Displayed (Google.com) "Museumgoers gasped Thursday at the well-preserved mummy of an Inca maiden which is on display for the first time, a serene gaze etched on her face hundreds of years ago when she froze to death in the Andes." "Hundreds of people packed a museum in Salta, Argentina, to see "la Doncella" — Spanish for 'the Maiden' — a 15-year-old girl whose remains were found in 1999 in an icy pit on Llullaillaco volcano, along with a 6-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy." "Scientists believe the so-called Children of Llullaillaco were sacrificed more than 500 years ago in a ceremony marking the annual corn harvest. Dressed in fine clothes and given corn alcohol to put them to sleep, the victims were then left to die at an elevation of 22,080 feet." 09-07 -09-11-07 Brainy Bird Dies (New York Times) "He knew his colors and shapes, he learned more than 100 English words, and with his own brand of one-liners he established himself in television shows, scientific reports and news articles as perhaps the world’s most famous talking bird." 09-07 -09-13-07 Super Scope to See Hidden Texts (BBC News) "The hidden content in ancient works could be illuminated by a light source 10 billion times brighter than the Sun." "The technique employs Britain's new facility, the Diamond synchrotron, and could be used on works such as the Dead Sea Scrolls or musical scores by Bach." The method uses x-rays. 09-07 -09-13-07 UN Aopts Treaty on Native Rights (BBC News) "The hidden content in ancient works could be illuminated by a light source 10 billion times brighter than the Sun." "The technique employs Britain's new facility, the Diamond synchrotron, and could be used on works such as the Dead Sea Scrolls or musical scores by Bach." 09-07 -09-14-06 Dwarf Planet Named Eris (ABC News) "A distant, icy rock whose discovery shook up the solar system and led to Pluto's planetary demise has been given a name: Eris." "Since its discovery last year, Eris, which had been known as 2003 UB313, ignited a debate about what constitutes a planet." "After much bickering, astronomers last month voted to shrink the solar system to eight planets, downgrading Pluto to a 'dwarf planet,' a category that also includes Eris and the asteroid Ceres." 09-06 -09-16-06 Oceans Provide Electrical Power (Christian Science Monitor) "Pacific swells off the Oregon coast can range from at least five feet high in the summer to 11-1/2 feet high in the winter. Over the length of the coastline, these swells could, in principle, provide 13,800 megawatts each year to a state that consumes 5,000 to 6,000 megawatts. Oregon already hosts several old coastal lumber mills that are powered by individual power substations, each of which has an outflow pipe to the sea. The existing mills would allow wave-power companies to ship 2,000 megawatts to Oregon communities without any additional infrastructure." "Nicol Stephen, a Scottish enterprise minister who visited the project in Portugal, is proposing Scotland utilize the same Pelamis technology and begin harnessing ocean power in the waters off Orkney by 2007. The payoff could be substantial. According to a report by Carbon Trust, a British organization that works with both business and public sectors to reduce carbon emissions, wave and tidal power could in the long run supply as much as 20 percent of the United Kingdom's current electricity needs." 09-06 -09-16-07 Powerful New Strategy to Link Genes With Diseases (MSNBC News) "A powerful new strategy promises to speed up the effort to link genes to specific diseases. Can you say 'transcriptome'?" "Sifting through the 25,000 genes that make up the human genome to find the causes of disease may take a lot less time now, thanks to a new approach described Sunday in the online edition of the journal Nature Genetics. The technique applies the latest computer technology to a mountain of genetic data amassed over the past 25 years. But rather than focusing on the genes themselves, researchers are turning their attention to a new type of code: the human transcriptome." " 'Looking one step down the line at the immediate output of genes has proven much more efficient than combing through the genome itself,' says the study's lead author John Blangero, a scientist at the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research in San Antonio, Texas. That immediate output is an RNA transcript, a molecule that translates each gene into a different protein. By measuring how much RNA a gene produces, researchers can determine how active that gene is. The RNA output of all genes taken together is referred to as the human transcriptome." 09-07 -09-19-07 New Source for Stem Cells (CBS News) "Researchers hope to one day extract stem cells from testicles that could be directed to grow into all kinds of tissues to repair everything from a damaged heart to brains destroyed by Alzheimer's to insulin-producing cells to cure diabetes." "So far, the researchers have found a way to grow different tissues from stem cells isolated from the testes of laboratory mice, but they believe the same technology could work in humans." 09-07 -09-20-06 Music Training May Increase Memory in Children (CBS News) "Researchers have found that not only did the brains of young, musically trained children respond differently to hearing music, but musical training also appeared to improve the children's memories over the course of a year." 09-06 -09-20-06 Oldest Fossil of a Child Found (Chicago Tribune) "The tiny bundle of bones may be the best fossil found of the primitive human ancestor Australopithecus afarensis. That is the same species as the superstar fossil dubbed Lucy, an adult female found nearby in 1974." "The skeleton, described in the British scientific journal Nature and National Geographic magazine, represents the first juvenile remains of these ancient humanlike creatures, making the fossil the oldest child by far ever found." ""One must travel forward in time more than 3 million years, to a Neanderthal infant from Dederiyeh, Syria, to find a comparably complete infant skeleton," anthropologist Bernard Wood of George Washington University wrote in an editorial for Nature." 09-06 -09-25-06 Study: Ancient Bird Had Four Wings (MSNBC News) "The earliest known bird had flight feathers on its legs that allowed it to use its hindlimbs as an extra pair of wings, a new study finds." " 'The idea that a multi-winged Archaeopteryx has been around for more than a century, but it has received little attention,' Longrich said. 'I believe one reason for this is that people tend to see what they want or expect to see. Everybody knows that birds don't have four wings, so we overlooked them even when they were right under our noses.' " 09-06 -10-05-06 "Monster" Fossil Found in Arctic (BBC News) "Norwegian scientists have discovered a "treasure trove" of fossils belonging to giant sea reptiles that roamed the seas at the time of the dinosaurs." "The fossil hoard comprises 21 long-necked plesiosaurs, six ichthyosaurs and one short-necked plesiosaur. The bones were unearthed in fine-grained sedimentary rock called black shale." 10-06 -10-05-06 Americans Win Nobel Prize (ABC News) "Americans John Mather and George Smoot won the 2006 Nobel prize for physics on Tuesday for spearheading a satellite program that added weight to the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe." 10-06 -10-05-06 Winners of Nobel Prizes (CBS News) "Every year since 1901 the Nobel Prize has been awarded for achievements in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and for peace. American Roger D. Kornberg, whose father won a Nobel Prize a half-century ago, was awarded the prize in chemistry today for his studies of how cells take information from genes to produce proteins." 10-06 -10-08-07 Three Win Nobel in Medicine for Gene Technology (New York Times) "Two Americans and a Briton won the 2007 Nobel Prize in medicine today for developing the immensely powerful 'knockout' technology that allows scientists to create animal models of human disease in mice." "The winners, who will share the $1.54 million prize, are: Mario R. Capecchi, 70, of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City; Oliver Smithies, 82, of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill; and Sir Martin J. Evans, 66, of Cardiff University in Wales." 10-07 -10-09-07 Nobel Prizes for Physics Announced (CBS News) "France's Albert Fert and German Peter Gruenberg won the 2007 Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for their discovery of giant magnetoresistance, a process used by billions [sic] of people on their computers and digital music players." "In 1988 Fert and Gruenberg each independently discovered a totally new physical effect, GMR. In this effect, very weak changes in magnetism generate larger changes in electrical resistance. This is how information stored magnetically on a hard disk can be converted to electrical signals that the computer reads." 10-07 -10-23-06 Monkeys No Longer Subjects for Research Project (ABC News) "A research center has dropped a controversial proposal to conduct medical experiments on up to 100 endangered African monkeys that are natural carriers of a form of the AIDS virus but do not get sick from it." 10-06 -10-29-07 Oldest Animal Discovered (BBC News) "A clam dredged up off the coast of Iceland is thought to have been the longest-lived animal discovered." "Scientists said the mollusc, an ocean quahog clam, was aged between 405 and 410 years and could offer insights into the secrets of longevity." 10-07 -11-09-06 Earth from Space: Science and Art Merge (MSNBC News) "Science and art merge in a stunning new Smithsonian exhibition featuring planet Earth as seen from above. Some of the satellite images show the home planet as only astronauts can see it, others taken with special instruments show things even they can't see." 11-06 -11-21-07 Giant Scorpion Fossil Found (CNN News) "British scientists have stumbled across a fossilized claw, part of an ancient sea scorpion, that is of such large proportion it would make the entire creature the biggest bug ever." "The discovery in 390-million-year-old rocks suggests that spiders, insects, crabs and similar creatures were far larger in the past than previously thought, said Simon Braddy, a University of Bristol paleontologist and one of the study's three authors." 11-07 -12-07-06 NASA to Install New Electrical System for Space Station (ABC News) "NASA on Thursday will attempt to launch its third space shuttle mission in six months, a healthy pace the agency needs to maintain to finish work on the International Space Station before the shuttles stop flying in four years."12-06 -12-10-06 Hydrogen Fuel Car for Honda for 2008 (MSNBC News) "I turned the key and heard a whir as air mixed with hydrogen. I stepped on the gas— make that hydrogen-gas pedal—and launched forward with a powerful pull. All was silent. That's because the [Honda] FCX's hydrogen is used to create power for an electric motor." 12-06 -12-10-06 New Science in Criminal Investigation of Fires (ABC News) "The new arson science could become the most powerful tool to reveal wrongful convictions since DNA testing began overturning rape and murder cases in 1989. So far, 186 men and one woman have been freed because of the new technology." 12-06 -12-20-06 Virgin Dragon to Give Birth (ABC News) "In an evolutionary twist, Flora the Komodo dragon has managed to become pregnant all on her own without any male help. She is carrying seven baby Komodo dragons." "Other reptile species reproduce asexually in a process known as parthenogenesis." 12-06 -12-22-06 Space Shuttle Touches Down in Florida (New York Times) "The shuttle Discovery returned to Earth at 5:32 p.m. Friday in a gentle sunset landing at the Kennedy Space Center here." 12-06 01-15-07 Gene Mapped in Bone Marrow (MSNBC News) "Cancer patients could be helped in the future as a result of research at the University of Kentucky that identified and mapped a gene in bone marrow, according to The Courier-Journal." 01-07 01-15-07 Miniature Galaxies Found in Our Galaxy, the Milky Way (MSNBC News) "A recent sky survey has turned up eight new members in our Local Group of galaxies, including a new class of ultra-faint "hobbit" galaxies and what might be the smallest galaxy ever discovered." 01-07 03-07 World's Fastest Animal (MSNBC News) "The giant palm salamander of Central America shoots out its tongue with more instantaneous power than any known muscle in the animal kingdom, a new study finds." "Bolitoglossa can extend its tongue more than half its body length in about 7 milliseconds, or about 50 times faster than an average eye blink." "The findings revealed the tongues were propelled outward much faster than could be achieved by muscle contraction alone." 03-07 Astronomy and Space News (CNN) Provides news stories. Breaking News in Astronomy (Pole Star Publications) Provides news key news stories. 9-00 Earth Events Viewed from Space (NOAA.gov) Provides pictures of events on earth that are viewable from space, including hurricanes, severe weather, fires, and more. 8-05 King Tut's Real Face (MSNBC News) "The first facial reconstructions of King Tutankhamun based on CT scans of his mummy have produced images strikingly similar to the boy pharaoh’s ancient portraits, with one model showing a baby-faced young man with chubby cheeks and his family’s characteristic overbite." 11-07 News on Missions to Mars (NASA - Jet Propulsion Laboratory) Provides news on missions to Mars, including two unmanned rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, landing in January 2004. 12-03 Science News (Awesome Library) Provides news and articles by discipline in science. 5-03 Science News (BBC News) Provides news stories daily. 8-04 Science News (Nature.com) Provides refereed articles. 8-05 Science News (ScienceDaily.com) Provides current events in science and technology. 9-05 Science and Technology News (Christian Science Monitor) Provides news and articles on current events. 01-06 Secret of Levitation Discovered (Yahoo News) "Scientists have discovered a ground-breaking way of levitating ultra small objects, which may revolutionise the design of micro-machines, a new report says." "Physicists said they can create "incredible levitation effects" by manipulating so-called Casimir force, which normally causes objects to stick together by quantum force." 08-07 Space Station and Shuttle (NASA Human Spaceflight - Dismukes and Humphries) Provides news on events surrounding space stations and shuttles. 2-01 Technology News (News.com.com) Provides news on technology. 6-04 Papers -02-01-07 Growing New Bone Now More Promising (LiveScience.com) "Although these results are promising, they are just the first step in a long journey toward treating damaged human bones, Zanello cautions. Especially important will be to test how well the body tolerates the nanotube structures, which, although buried in bone, would be permanent." 01-07 -02-08-06 Earliest Known T. rex Dinosaur Found (Nature.com) "Ask any dinner-party palaeontologist and they'll tell you that, despite its star turn in Jurassic Park, Tyrannosaurus rex didn't live in the Jurassic period. But now a team in China has found a tyrannousaur that did, and it gives us valuable clues about the rise of this clan of prehistoric predators." "The new species, found in Xinjiang province in northwestern China, lived around 160 million years ago. This makes it more than twice as old as T. rex, and the most primitive known member of the family." 02-06 -02-08-06 Earliest Known T. rex Dinosaur Found (USNews.com) "Scientists say they've found the earliest known tyrannosaur, shedding light on the lineage that produced the fearsome Tyrannosaurus rex. The discovery comes with a puzzle: Why did this beast have a strange crest on its head?" 02-06 -02-08-06 Spinosaurus May Have Towered Over T-Rex Dinosaur (Guardian Unlimited) "The spinosaurus - now officially the biggest predatory dinosaur known to man - measured 17 metres (55ft) from nose to tail, had long, crocodile-like jaws, and is thought to have had a sail on its back." 02-06 -02-13-06 Science and Technology Achievements Recognized (Fox News) "President Bush presented science and technology achievement medals on Monday to 15 laureates who have done work that has revolutionized organ transplants, led to development of global positioning systems and helped feed millions around the world." 02-06 -03-18-05 The X Chromosome Mapped (Chicago Tribune) " An international team of researchers announced Wednesday that they have cataloged all the genes on the female X chromosome, a technical feat expected to enable fresh insights into women's health and add a genetic component to the debate over differences between the sexes." " With more than 1,000 genes and 160 million base pairs of DNA, the X looms like a giant next to the stunted Y chromosome that produces males. The Y chromosome--78 genes, 23 million DNA subunits--was completely sequenced in 2003." "Because males carry only one X chromosome, they are particularly vulnerable to diseases carried by defective X genes. Women who carry such defective genes are usually protected by their backup copy of the X, but if their sons inherit that disease-causing X they are in trouble." 3-05 -04-13-06 Ethnic DNA Ties Covered by Tests (New York Times) "Many scientists criticize the ethnic ancestry tests as promising more than they can deliver. The legacy of an ancestor several generations back may be too diluted to show up. And the tests have a margin of error, so results showing a small amount of ancestry from one continent may not actually mean someone has any." "Given the tests' speculative nature, it seems unlikely that colleges, governments and other institutions will embrace them. But that has not stopped many test-takers from adopting new DNA-based ethnicities — and a sense of entitlement to the privileges typically reserved for them." -04-13-06 Missing Link Found Between Australopithecus afarensis and Earlier Species (New York Times) "Tim D. White, a paleontologist at the University of California, Berkeley, who was a team leader, and his colleagues said the 4.1-million-year-old fossils were anatomically intermediate between the earlier species Ardipithecus ramidus [the earliest Hominids] and the later species Australopithecus afarensis, the Lucy family. The newfound bones and teeth are the earliest remains of the most primitive Australopithecus, known as anamensis." "The Australopithecus genus — resembling apes in stature and brain size but unlike the great apes in that it walked on two legs — is thought to have given rise to our own genus, Homo." -08-01-05 Possible 10th Planet Found (International Herald Tribune) "Astronomers announced Friday that they had found a lump of rock and ice that is larger than Pluto and the farthest known object in the solar system." "The discovery will probably rekindle debate over the definition of what is a planet and whether Pluto still merits the designation. The new object - as yet unnamed, but temporarily known as 2003 UB313 - is now 9 billion miles, or almost 14.5 billion kilometers, away from the Sun, or 97 times as far away as the Earth and about three times Pluto's current distance from the Sun. Its 560-year elliptical orbit brings it as close as 3.3 billion miles. Pluto's orbit ranges between 2.7 billion and 4.6 billion miles." 7-05 08-17-04 X-Ray Technology to Improve View of Universe (BBC News) "The researchers have successfully tested a small prototype which if scaled up could be a million times more powerful than today's observatories." "Professor Cash said a fully scaled-up version of the design could resolve a region the size of a dinner plate on the surface of the Sun." 8-04 Ants Rule (LiveScience.com) "Scientists estimate that about 20,000 ant species crawl the Earth. Taxonomists have classified more than 11,000 species, which account for at least one-third of all insect biomass. The combined heft of ants in the Brazilian Amazon is about four times greater than the combined mass of all of the mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians, according to one survey." 01-07 Astronomers Discuss Changing Earth's Orbit (CNN) Describes a plan, which must be put into place within 3.5 billion years, to move the Earth's orbit gradually away from the sun as the Sun becomes hotter. Talk about planning ahead... 2-01 DNA Matching to Find Criminals (KatiesLaw.org) "In January of 2006, 'Katie's Bill', which requires DNA for most felony arrests for inclusion in the database, was passed by the New Mexico state legislature in only thirty days. The bill was signed into law in March 2006 and went into effect on January 1, 2007. After passing 'Katie’s Law' in New Mexico, Dave and Jayann dedicated themselves to getting similar legislation passed nationwide." Editor's Note: The test uses 13 markers. 09-07 Early Life on Earth (Nature.com) Provides a discussion about how long the earth remained hot at its beginning and how that affected early bacteria. 4-01 Endeavor Space Shuttle (Nasa) Describes progress of the space shuttle. 12-01 Evolution of the Universe (NASA) "The myriad galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field represented the first big step for Hubble astronomers to understand galaxy evolution. But studying galaxy evolution in the Hubble Deep Field is like trying to understand the population of a country by sampling a small village. Astronomers don't know if the galaxies in that village are representative of the universe's galactic population. The GOODS survey, on the other hand, is akin to sampling the population of a large city to make inferences about galaxies in the cosmos." 6-03 Extinction 200 Million Years Ago (CNN) Describes a very rapid mass extinction of life on earth 200 million years ago. 5-01 Hobbit-Sized Ancient Humans Found (ABC News) "Subsequent finds of other similarly sized, 3-foot-tall humans with brains the size of grapefruits in a cave on the Indonesian island of Flores suggest these 18,000-year-old specimens weren't a quirk of an ancient hominin, but part of an entire species of miniature people whose existence overlapped with that of modern Homo sapiens." "Brown and the other authors suggest that the newly found species, named Homo floresiensis, arrived on the island of Flores, in Indonesia's Nusa Tenggara region, in the form of Homo erectus, the first large-brained hominin that emerged some 2 million years ago in Africa and Asia." 10-04 Human Cloning Advanced for Treating Disease (BBC News) "South Korean scientists have cloned 30 human embryos to obtain cells they hope could one day be used to treat disease." "The resulting embryos were then grown up to produce so-called stem cells that can divide into any tissue in the body." "The aim is to use the cells to replace ones that have failed in patients with problems such as Alzheimer's disease." 2-4. Latest Discoveries in Science (National Geographic Society) Provides an overview of discoveries from the microscopic to the cosmic. 11-99 Mars - Strong Evidence of Life (CNN) Provides the conclusion of scientists that a rock, believed to be 4.5 billion years old, contains fossilized bacteria that originated on Mars. 12-00 Neanderthal DNA Genes Decoded (MSNBC News) "Humans and their close Neanderthal relatives began diverging from a common ancestor about 700,000 years ago, and the two groups split permanently some 300,000 years later, according to two of the most detailed analyses of Neanderthal DNA to date." "In popular imagination, Neanderthals are often portrayed as prehistoric brutes who became outsmarted by a more advanced species, humans, emerging from Africa. But excavations and anatomical studies have shown that Neanderthals used tools, wore jewelry, buried their dead, cared for their sick, and possibly sang or even spoke in much the same way that we do. Even more humbling, perhaps, their brains were slightly larger than ours." 11-06 Planets in Other Solar Systems (Exoplanets.org) Provides news about the latest findings on planets in other solar systems. Also provides latest findings on existing planets, techniques for finding planets, and more. 8-01 Senate Leader Supports Stem Cell Research (ABC News) "In exclusive interview with 'GMA,' Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist explained his decision to break with President Bush for the first time, and throw his support behind a bill that would expand federal funding for embryonic stem cell research." "Frist said only embryos that would otherwise be discarded should be used for the research. Those that could be adopted or implanted would not be used." "Frist is not the first Republican to support stem cell research. Republican Sen. Arlen Spector of Pennsylvania, who suffers from advanced stage Hodgkins lymphoma, supports the research, as does former first lady Nancy Reagan." 7-05 Study: Global Warming Makes Hurricanes Stronger (ABC News) "Is global warming making hurricanes more ferocious? New research suggests the answer is yes. Scientists call the findings both surprising and "alarming" because they suggest global warming is influencing storms now rather than in the distant future." "The analysis by climatologist Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology shows for the first time that major storms spinning in both the Atlantic and the Pacific since the 1970s have increased in duration and intensity by about 50 percent." "These trends are closely linked to increases in the average temperatures of the ocean surface and also correspond to increases in global average atmospheric temperatures during the same period." 7-05 Tyrannosaurus rex (FieldMuseum.org) "Tyrannosaurus rex (ty-RAN-o-sawr-us) meaning "king tyrant lizard" because of its size and large teeth and claws (Greek tyrannos = 'tyrant' + sauros = 'lizard'; Latin rex = 'king'), also known colloquially as 'T. rex' and 'The King of the Dinosaurs', was a giant carnivorous theropod dinosaur from the Upper Maastrichtian, the last stage of the Cretaceous period, 68–65 million years ago." 02-06 Ultraviolet Space Telescope (Galex) "With sensitive ultraviolet detectors, a large field of view, and its location above the ultraviolet-absorbing atmosphere of the Earth, GALEX will perform ground breaking observations of the ultraviolet sky. GALEX will detect ultraviolet objects in the sky that are more than a million times fainter than objects we can see in visible light with our eyes from the darkest location on the ground. GALEX will also peer billions of years back into the history of the Universe." 12-03 Research Amphibians Respond to Climate Changes (Nature.com) Provides a summary of research on frogs and other amphibians. It suggests that multiple factors may be reducing the number of amphibians and that global climate changes may be the key ingredient. 4-01

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