I'm just reposting this NASA press release because it's way cool ( Read more... )

Following up on Monday's bit about tardigrades (aka "water bears") surviving in space, The New York Times posts this short article basically rehashing the snippet in New Scientist. The Times, after calling them "tiny roly-poly invertebrates", does provide a link to this excerpt in Current Biology (the full article is available for $31.50 ( Read more... )

This New Scientist article says "water bears" are the first animal demonstrated to be able to survive in open space. There are some caveats, but it's really neat!

I'm so far behind I sometimes think I'm ahead. Don't know if I'll be able to catch up on reading my Friends page, but I sure hope to catch up on a slew of posts that have been gathering dust in my brain.

In the meantime, is it just me, or does the Phoenix's descent to Mars pretty much guarantee its failure? What I mean is, Phoenix, the new NASA ( Read more... )

For the two or three of you reading who haven't already heard, Arthur C. Clarke is dead. Full details in this SFScope article, which I spent several hours writing last night (he was worth it, but it cut into my sleep time). Other commentary on him is everywhere, from science fiction fan blogs to the decently sized USA Today obituary I just read to ( Read more... )

Saturn's moon Rhea may have a ring system all her own, the first moon found to have such a feature. Read all about it (and see the artist's concept) in this NASA announcement.

The flu (either that or the plague) struck last week, keeping me from many things, such as reading my friends list and updating my own page. I'm mostly back together now, but running a bit late on everything.

One update: apparently the dead spy satellite missile shot was successful: see this AP report.

Updating that previous post, the Navy is planning to make a first attempt to destroy the falling spy satellite tomorrow (see CNN's article). The first shot is planned for about 4:30PM Hawaii time, which is after the Space Shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to land (its first landing window is about 9:15AM tomorrow, and then an hour and a half later, ( Read more... )

Sort of smart, sort of stupid. This is one of those tough calls.

The Associated Press is reporting Pentagon plans to fire a missile at the unusable spy satellite that is expected to re-enter the atmosphere in March. The satellite's decaying orbit has been in the news for the past few weeks, and the assumption is that some of it will probably ( Read more... )

What do you get when you combine a slow news day with the ongoing need to keep the people afraid? You get stories like this one, which I found from a link on CNN's front page ( Read more... )