Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.
This has got to stop: The death threats against Sarah Palin are at an “unprecedented level,” according to her aides.
Vicious liberal hate: Fifteen quotes. (Several of these have been noted in previous posts, but most have not.)
The bands that scientists attach to penguins to track them actually do harm. The data also suggests that certain climate research might also be skewed because of this. Key quote:
Overall, the team found, bands were bad for penguins. Banded penguins had a 16% lower survival rate than unbanded birds over the 10 years, the researchers report online today in Nature. Banded birds also arrived later at the breeding grounds and took longer trips to forage for food. As a result, they produced 39% fewer chicks. . . . [The researcher noted] that his team’s results suggest that research using banded penguins may be biased. For example, he says, several high-profile studies have used banded penguins to investigate the impact of climate change on the birds. The findings of those studies aren’t necessarily wrong, but the numbers need to be reconsidered, he says.
A new deal has been announced to fly tourists to ISS using Russian Soyuz capsules. According the arrangement between Space Adventures and the Federal Space Agency of the Russian Federation (FSA) and Rocket Space Corporation Energia (RSC Energia), three seats will be made available on Soyuz spacecraft bound for the International Space Station (ISS), beginning in 2013.
These seats will be made available through the increase of Soyuz production, from four to five spacecraft per year. Each flight will be short duration, approximately 10 days, and will contribute to the increase of launch capacity to the ISS.
Is this an example of toning down the rhetoric? The Facebook Group “I Hate It When I Wake Up & Sarah Palin Is Still Alive” has more than 2,000 members.
So you have no doubt about the ugly tone of this Facebook group, here is a screen capture from the page. Note the desire to kill Palin (and Bush) in several images.
Washington’s five most ridiculous reactions to the Arizona shooting.
Which Democrats objected to the use of mass murder as a vehicle for disseminating propaganda?
Sadly, not very many.
The money is not there, and Treasury Secretary Geithner agrees. On January 6 he wrote a letter to Congress, stating that the US will go into default if the debt ceiling is not raised.
NASA has submitted its Heavy Lift rocket proposal to Congress. However, NASA also noted bluntly that:
“Neither Reference Vehicle Design currently fits the projected budget profiles nor schedule goals outlined in the Authorization Act.”
In other words, they can’t build it for the money or in the timeframe they’ve been given by Congress.
Didn’t someone say this already? Several times?
NASA, confident that they have pinned down the cause of the cracks on the external tank, has set February 24 as the date for Discovery’s launch.
The competition moves forward: Russia allocates $3.8 billion for its space programs in 2011.
Once again, who should tone the rhetoric down? A former Democrat Congressman who called for a GOP Governor to be put against a wall and shot now pleads for civility.
The touchdown that shook the Earth.
And they say the right should tone it down? A list of Hollywood’s many hateful attacks on the right.
So, who should tone it down? A list of violent incidents which the press tried to blame the right, and was completely wrong.
Is this toning down the rhetoric? Media pivots to blame gun laws, sloppy reporting ensues.
The Krakatau volcano in Indonesia has become active, forcing the evacuation of tens of thousands residents.
So we need to tone down the rhetoric, eh? How about this collection of death threats issued by Twitter users against Sarah Palin?
It appears that youtube removed the video. However, you can see all the screenshots of all the threats here, and the video has been reposted here.
The bright outlook in 2011 for Russia’s space industry.
Not so good news: Nelson suggests NASA might not get a third shuttle flight.
Good news: NASA decides to do more to strengthen the shuttle’s external tank.
More from the AAS meeting: The Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope has detected beams of antimatter produced above Earth’s thunderstorms. Key quote:
Scientists think the antimatter particles were formed in a terrestrial gamma-ray flash, a brief burst produced inside thunderstorms and shown to be associated with lightning. It is estimated that about 500 such flashes occur daily worldwide, but most go undetected. . . . The spacecraft was located immediately above a thunderstorm for most of the observed terrestrial gamma-ray flashes. But, in four cases, storms were far from Fermi. In addition, lightning-generated radio signals detected by a global monitoring network indicated the only lightning at the time was hundreds or more miles away. During one flash, which occurred on Dec. 14, 2009, Fermi was located over Egypt. But the active storm was in Zambia, some 4,500 kilometers (2,800 miles) to the south.
Who says there’s a lack of customers for private space? Clark Lindsay, with the help of Trent Waddington, provides a list of the six nations that have signed a deal with Bigelow Aerospace to buy space on the company’s privately-built space stations.
This is how the left blogosphere has decided to tone down the rhetoric: The Left puts a bullseye on the right.
Preliminary findings from the USGS National Wildlife Health Center suggest that the mass bird die-off that occurred in Arkansas was from impact trauma. Key quote:
The State concluded that such trauma was probably a result of the birds being startled by loud noises on the night of Dec. 31, arousing them and causing them to fly into objects such as houses or trees. Scientists at the USGS NWHC performed necropsies—the animal version of an autopsy—on the birds and found internal hemorrhaging, while the pesticide tests they conducted were negative. Results from further laboratory tests are expected to be completed in 2-3 weeks.
Hanny’s Voorwerp: a strange object near a galaxy that has baffled astronomers is now seen as a light echo from when the galaxy’s central quasar was still active. More importantly, this is evidence that the quasar went quiescent sometime in the last 70,000 to 200,000 years. For a quasar to turn off so quickly is a surprise for astronomers.
What does this story really tell us? Electric cars are wonderful — except that the dealer hasn’t sold any.
Black gold! Three to four billion barrels of oil — 25 times more than previously predicted — are now thought to lie under certain geological formations in North Dakota and Montana.
