Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.
A Harvard researcher, under investigation for research misconduct, has been banned from teaching next year.
The best images from Solar Dynamics Observatory’s first year in space.
Scientists find a gigantic and previously unknown deposit of CO2 at Mars’ south pole.
“We already knew there is a small perennial cap of carbon-dioxide ice on top of the water ice there, but this buried deposit has about 30 times more dry ice than previously estimated,” said Roger Phillips of Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo. Phillips is deputy team leader for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s Shallow Radar instrument and lead author of the report. . . . “When you include this buried deposit, Martian carbon dioxide right now is roughly half frozen and half in the atmosphere, but at other times it can be nearly all frozen or nearly all in the atmosphere,” Phillips said.
What this discovery means is that, depending on Mars’ orbital circumstances, its atmosphere can sometimes be dense enough for liquid water to flow on its surface.
The Des Moines CityView newspaper has published the names of over 5,000 legal gun permit holders.
A newspaper which goes after law-abiding citizens like this should simply go out of business.
This is hopeful news: More Democrats are threatening to hold up the debt ceiling vote unless there are more spending cuts.
Funding for the final shuttle flight this summer is now assured.
Some details behind Blue Origin’s manned spacecraft.
“Our conclusion was there is no benefit to the environment of oxo-degradable plastics.”
Instead, they say burn them!
Time is running out: Federal borrowing is on a pace to reach the debt limit in less than a week.
The investigation of doctors who issued fake sick notes to union protesters in Wisconsin goes forward.
Government gone wild: The National Labor Relations Board wants to shut down a Boeing plant because it happens to be in a right-to-work state.
Freedom of speech in Michigan: Dearborn denies permit, says Terry Jones could face arrest if he protests.
O really? “We need to protect our authority.”
“For example, many metals burn more easily in reduced gravity, liquids behave differently, both of which have important implications for safety and the way machinery and equipment operate in spacecraft and space stations. The beer experiments assisted in determining the correct level of carbonation, so that it can in the future be appropriately enjoyed by humans in reduced gravity,”
Politicians go sightseeing: Obama will attend the last Endeavour launch; Rep. Giffords is also expected to attend.
Giffords makes sense, as her husband will be on the flight. Obama is merely taking another of his numerous breaks from work to get a last look at a program he helped kill.
Time is truly running out: The federal government’s cash handouts to all households now exceed what those households pay in tax.
Sounds crazy, but it’s true: The budget chaos at NASA has caused the ESA to halt work on its own Mars orbiter and rover.
Saturn and Enceladus linked by electricity.
India has successfully launched three satellites using its low-Earth-orbit rocket.
The launch could not have come at a more apt time than now. The old reliable workhorse vehicle was last used in a July 2010 launch. ISRO’s next two launches of the indigenous higher-powered GSLV failed.
Leftwing civility: A University of Iowa professor tells college Republicans to “F” off.
Barack Obama at the pearly gates.
Having arrived at the Gates of Heaven, Barrack Obama meets a man with a beard. ‘Are you Mohammed?’ he asks. “No my son, I am St. Peter; Mohammed is higher up.” Peter then points to a ladder that rises into the clouds. . . .
Confusion in the environmentalism movement: A global warming activist discovers that anti-nuclear activists lie!
Got some spare time for original science? Volunteers wanted to sift through the Kepler data to find exoplanets.
Pluto’s atmosphere is expanding, and scientists don’t know why.
Pluto travels along a highly elliptical path and last passed closest to the sun in 1989. Many planetary scientists expected the atmosphere to shrink as the icy orb began receding from the sun’s warmth. The unanticipated expansion may be related to changes in the darkness of the orb’s surface a decade or so ago, which may have caused the surface ices to absorb more solar radiation and more efficiently evaporate. Or, Greaves suggests, long-term variations in the sun’s ultraviolet output, changes linked to the roughly 11-year cycle of solar activity, may be playing a role.
This is wrong, if true: The chief of the UK’s Met Office said yesterday that he has received death threats from climate change skeptics.
A Met Office spokesman confirmed Mr Hirst had received death threats made in a number of ”unsavoury emails”, but said they were ”isolated incidents” and the organisation had not felt it necessary to involve the police.
Exploring London’s abandoned Mail Rail subway system.
More on the incredibly shrinking Orion program.
It ain’t gonna fly, and if I’m wrong and it does, it will accomplish little in the process — except spend a lot of pork money we no longer can afford.
Our government at work: Red superhero capes for the unemployed!
Medicine in space does not have the right stuff.
After 28 months, the medication stored in space generally had a lower potency and degraded faster than those stored on the ground. Six medications on the space station underwent physical changes, such as discoloration and liquefaction, while such changes only occurred in two medications stored on the ground.
