Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.
The science leaders on the team that announced faster-than-light neutrinos at CERN last year have stepped down.
The Buzz Lightyear toy that flew on space shuttle has been donated to the Smithsonian.
This news item illustrates the sad state of the American space program, when the arrival at a museum of a foot-high plastic toy that had been in space merits major news coverage. Worse, if we instead wanted to bring this toy back to ISS, we can’t, at least not without begging help from someone else.
Life imitates pulp fiction: A report describing the memories of an 80-year-old former U.S. Marine has provided the Chinese a clue to the whereabouts of the missing bones of Peking Man.
More details revealed describing the charges against the CERN scientist on trial in France for consorting with al-Qaeda.
Adlene Hicheur is accused of compiling a “hit list” of targets that included French president Nicolas Sarkozy and his former interior minister, Brice Hortefeux. …
Officials said they intercepted e-mails he exchanged with al-Qaeda’s North African branch, in which he plotted to blow up a Total oil refinery and a French military base. In one e-mail to suspected Islamic terror chief Mustapha Debchi, Hicheur said he would “propose possible objectives in Europe and particularly in France”. He wrote in March 2009: “Concerning the matter of objectives, they differ depending on the different results sought after the hits. For example: if it’s about punishing the state because of its military activities in Muslim countries – Afghanistan – then it should be a purely military objective. For example: the airbase at Karan Jefrier near Annecy in France. This base trains troops and sends them to Afghanistan.”
So, if these emails are accurate, this guy did far more than simply correspond with terrorists. He plotted to aid them in terrorists attacks.
The uncertainty of science: Geologists have uncovered a variable in the amount of uranium in rocks that will increase the margin of error for dating events hundreds of millions of years ago.
Is it snowing microbes on Enceladus?
“More than 90 jets of all sizes near Enceladus’s south pole are spraying water vapor, icy particles, and organic compounds all over the place,” says Carolyn Porco, an award-winning planetary scientist and leader of the Imaging Science team for NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. “Cassini has flown several times now through this spray and has tasted it. And we have found that aside from water and organic material, there is salt in the icy particles. The salinity is the same as that of Earth’s oceans.”
Enceladus’s gushing geysers, as seen by Cassini.
The French trial of a CERN physicist for associating with terrorists began today.
As much as I fear and oppose the intolerant Islamic world, I worry when we in the West beginning putting people on trial merely for talking to the wrong people. I wish the accusations against this man weren’t so vague.
The House today passed the Republican 2013 budget, 228-191.
Ten Republicans voted no. All Democrats voted no.
Though this budget might not be perfect, at least it makes an effort to face the budget situation. Note also that the Democrats have now rejected their own President’s budget as well as the Republican budget. In addition, the Democratic leadership in the Democratically-controlled Senate has already said they won’t pass a budget this year, the fourth year in a row.
The country is sinking in debt caused by the federal government. It behooves these elected officials to deal with it. That the Democrats won’t tells us much about their lack of qualifications for office.
And in related news: “Has Obama called David and Elaine McClain to make sure they’re holding up okay?”
The House today rejected Obama’s proposed budget for 2013 by a vote of 414 to 0.
We must all remember this vote when the Democrats demonize any future budget proposals by the Republicans. The above vote was very bipartisan. Even the Democrats rejected Obama’s proposal.
A solar tornado five times the size of the Earth.
The Russians are building nuclear powered engines for long range space travel, and announced today that they expect to have the first engine ready by 2017.
Europe’s ATV freighter has successfully docked with ISS.
An expedition financed by Jeff Bezos, the founder of amazon.com, has found the rocket engines of the Apollo 11 Saturn 5 rocket at the bottom of the Atlantic.
An incandescent light bulb, stored in a time capsule for one hundred years, still worked!
I wonder: Did the EPA try to arrest anyone for using it?
Based on discoveries already made, astronomers now estimate there are probably more than a hundred habitable superEarths within 30 light years of the Sun.
The Obama administration’s EPA loses another court case, badly.
We’re here to help you: The Obama administration today announced strict new limits on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.
See this post for some perspective and context.
Fly me to the other moons! A computer simulation suggests that the Earth normally has several asteroid-sized smaller moons in temporary orbit around it.
The first look at the ocean’s deepest bottom.
Cameron’s video reminds me of the surface of Venus as photographed by the Soviet Union’s Venera spacecraft in the 1970s and 1980s, flat and crushed by the heavy surface pressure.
A vertical forest: Two new skyscrapers being built in Milan are designed to allow trees to grow on the outside of every floor.
Win an Ipad by delving into the Hubble archive to discover a “hidden treasure.”
This is getting repetitive: Global warming models wrong again.
