Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.
The rover Opportunity has settled into its winter haven on Mars.
The rover’s handlers plan to get Opportunity up onto Solander Point’s north-facing slope before mid-December, NASA officials said. But the golf-cart-size robot won’t hibernate through the winter; rather, it will continue to move about, investigating several different Solander Point outcrops.
The Moon’s dirtiest secret: Does its dust levitate?
This is a serious mystery left over from the Apollo missions which has significant ramifications not only for future research (the dust would interfere badly with any astronomical observatories) but also for any colonies that are eventually established.
A draft of the next IPCC climate report has arrived, and it is more of the same: We are all gonna die!
An international panel of scientists has found with near certainty that human activity is the cause of most of the temperature increases of recent decades, and warns that sea levels could conceivably rise by more than three feet by the end of the century if emissions continue at a runaway pace. The scientists, whose findings are reported in a draft summary of the next big United Nations climate report, largely dismiss a recent slowdown in the pace of warming, which is often cited by climate change doubters, attributing it most likely to short-term factors. The report emphasizes that the basic facts about future climate change are more established than ever, justifying the rise in global concern. It also reiterates that the consequences of escalating emissions are likely to be profound.
I love the way the journalist here uses the term “climate change doubters.” Throughout the story it is applied to skeptical scientists in such a way as to imply that any doubt about these conclusions is obviously something to snicker at and to ignore.
As for the claim that the seas will rise three feet in the next 90 years, note that the level of sea rise has been consistently between 2 and 3 millimeters per year for the past half century, even as we have been pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and the climate has supposedly warmed. At 3mm per year, the seas will only rise 270 millimeters by the end of the century, or just under 11 inches, not three feet as claimed by this new IPCC report.
A Michigan school board has refused to fire the teachers who publicly supported another teacher who had molested a student for three years.
It appears now that a very large number of parents are pulling their kids from this public school system and putting them in a new charter school in the area.
I wish more conservatives has this kind of courage.
The fuel leak that scrubbed yesterday’s launch of India’s GSLV rocket will likely cause at least a week’s delay before another launch attempt.
Observations of the comet that the European probe Rosetta will visit next year suggest it is becoming active earlier than expected.
The oldest globe to show the New World may have been discovered.
The globe, about the size of a grapefruit, is labeled in Latin and includes what were considered exotic territories such as Japan, Brazil and Arabia. North America is depicted as a group of scattered islands. The globe’s lone sentence, above the coast of Southeast Asia, is “Hic Sunt Dracones.”
Those words mean, of all things, “Here be dragons.” The globe is dated from 1504, only a dozen years after Columbus’s first voyage.
Freedom in today’s America: “Impeach Obama” protesters arrested for peaceably assembling.
With video, which is definitely worth watching. I would have done exactly as these protesters did, been arrested, and would be on the phone with my lawyers this instant putting together a lawsuit. The cop who made the arrest in this case broke the law and should pay for that.
And I agree with one of the comments at the website: If the protesters had labeled themselves “Occupy Wall Street” the cops would have probably brought them donuts instead while allowing them to shut down traffic illegally.
The launch today of India’s homemade Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) was scrubbed when a fuel leak was spotted at T-74 minutes.
India has had trouble getting this powerful rocket off the ground successfully, with four previous launch failures. If they succeed this time, however, they will then have the ability to build their own rocket, capable of putting commercial payloads into geosynchronous orbit.
A star that went nova last week is now visible to the naked eye.
“Nova Delphini 2013 is among the 30 brightest novae ever recorded,” says S&T editor in chief Robert Naeye. “It’s a wonderful target for backyard observers, given that it’s visible to the naked eye and relatively easy to find. But it’s also attracting the intense interest of scientists, who are using a wide assortment of telescopes and astronomical satellites to better understand these enigmatic explosions.”
Though related scientifically to certain kinds of supernovae, this is not a supernova. Nonetheless, it is rare for these events to be bright enough to be visible to the naked eye. Go outside tonight and take a look!
Ignoring what’s in it: The Obama administration has failed to meet more than half of the deadlines mandated by Obamacare.
Meanwhile, here’s another example of a company switching all of its workers to part-time to avoid Obamacare. The result is that those employees will not only earn less, they will lose their company health insurance. So much for Obama’s promise, “If you like your healthplan you keep your healthplan.”
More SWAT team abuse by the government: The Great Organic Blueberry Raid.
Read the story and weep. Also, make sure you read the other examples of government/police overkill listed at the start of the article.
Formation flying in space, without propellants.
Electromagnetic formation flight (EMFF) gets around this propellant problem by turning the satellites in a formation into electromagnets. By using a combination of magnets and reaction wheels, spacecraft in formation can move and change their attitude and even spin without propellant. Satellites can change their polarity to attract or repel one another, turn, or shift their relative positions in any manner that doesn’t require changing the center of gravity for the entire formation.
A prototype is going to be tested inside ISS in the near future.
It appears there is some “dissatisfaction” among Kazakhstan officials over the cleanup from July’s spectacular Proton rocket crash.
I think the Russians are probably rushing the clean-up in order to begin launch operations as soon as possible, and this is what Kazakhstan finds objectionable.
Works of art: Thirty-six incredible landscapes from video games.
I’ve played none of these games and probably never will, but I can agree without hesitation that the artists who created these visions created something beautiful and epic.
A plane you can drive to the airport.
After landing the wings fold up and the plane becomes legal to drive on the roads. With video.
The competition heats up: Orbital Sciences has confirmed a September 15 launch date for the first Cygnus capsule mission to ISS.
The law is such an inconvenient thing: Despite a congressional ban against providing ACORN or any of its affiliates money, HUD handed the organization $200k.
It also appears that this is not the first time the Obama administration has ignored the ban and illegally given ACORN or its affiliates money.
