Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.
The United Nations in charge! They have decided that — should extra-terrestrials ever arrive on Earth — an obscure Malaysian astrophysicist/UN bureaucrat must be in charge of negotiations. In her words:
“We should have in place a co-ordinated response that takes into account all the sensitivities related to the subject. The UN is a ready-made mechanism for such co-ordination.”
New details about the Chilean miner rescue.
More proof why it is foolish to be a bigot: A Polish Neo-Nazi couple discover that they are Jewish.
After a 24 hour delay due to an undocking problem, the Soyuz capsule with its three astronauts landed safely last night without a hitch.
An archeology dig on the grounds of Cambridge’s Newnham College has unexpectedly unearthed evidence of a large Roman settlement.
The House recessed today without dealing with the NASA authorization bill. Key quote:
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said votes on all bills were postponed until Sept. 29, when the chamber hopes to take up a stopgap spending measure, known as a continuing resolution, to keep the government running at present spending levels past Sept. 30, when the current fiscal year ends.
NASA administrator Charles Bolden is off to Saudia Arabia (and elsewhere) and here are some details about the trip.
“Two major insurers have decided to suspend sales of individual policies rather than run the compliance gauntlet in the health-care overhaul bill.”
The scheduled return of three astronauts on a Soyuz spacecraft has been delayed tonight because of a malfunction in the docking port.
Update: The return to Earth has definitely been canceled for tonight. The problem was caused when latches on the Soyuz, designed to secure it safely to ISS, refused to release on command. As of 12:43 am the plan was to recycle and try to land on Friday evening.
Using data accumulated over the past four years by Venus Express, scientists have shown that the giant double vortex storm at Venus’s south pole was only a temporary phenomenon. You can download the actual paper here [pdf]. Key quote from the paper:
The polar region of Venus shows a dynamics regime quite different than the rest of the planet, with a separation region delimited by the cold collar zone. Average wind speeds presents an almost solid body rotation, while instantaneous view highlights the complex dynamic structure with air flowing almost toward all directions. The so called dipole shape is not a stable feature and the morphology of the vortex is significantly variable on both short and long timescales.
The “cold collar” is an atmospheric ring of colder temperatures that encircles the planet’s poles.
Will wonders never cease? The sun actually does influence the climate, the powers-that-be admit at last.
