PRESS RELEASE Date Released: Thursday, October 18, 2007 Source: X Prize Foundation Finalists for 2007 Pete Conrad Spirit of Innovation Award Winners will be chosen during the X PRIZE Cup, October 26-28, Holloman Air Force Base, Alamogordo, NM The ten finalists for the inaugural Pete Conrad* Spirit... Read more…
PRESS RELEASE Date Released: Thursday, October 18, 2007 Source: SpaceX SpaceX Successfully Completes NASA Critical Design Review for First Commercial Transportation System to the International Space Station SpaceX has successfully completed the Critical Design Review (CDR) for its first Falcon 9 /... Read more…
PRESS RELEASE Date Released: Friday, October 19, 2007 Source: European Space Agency Cosmic Vision 2015-2025: and the candidate missions are... The first steps of the next great phase of European space science have been taken! Read more…
AP - James Watson, the 79-year-old scientific icon made famous by his work in DNA, has set off an international furor with comments to a London newspaper about intelligence levels among blacks. Read more…
AP - This weekend as the seven astronauts relax before Tuesday's blastoff into space, the beer will be cold and waiting at crew quarters at Kennedy Space Center. No one will monitor how much they drink, no breath tests given. Read more…
AP - Man-made rain and flooding, along with some extra food, were enough to convince the trio of anacondas at the New England Aquarium to breed in captivity for the first time. One of the aquarium's two female anacondas is confirmed pregnant by the lone male. Read more…
AP - While biologists and politicians fight over whether the greater sage grouse should be labeled an endangered species, 10 Western states allow hunters to take aim at the reclusive, ground-dwelling bird. Read more…
Reuters - Nobel Prize-winning DNA authority Dr. James Watson cut short a book tour in Britain on Friday and returned to the United States over racially insensitive comments attributed to him in a British newspaper. Read more…
STATUS REPORT Date Released: Thursday, October 18, 2007 Source: Johns Hopkins University Critical Deep-Space Maneuver Targets MESSENGER for Its First Mercury Encounter The MESSENGER spacecraft delivered a critical deep-space maneuver on Wednesday - 155 million miles (250 million kilometers) from... Read more…
SPACE.com - WASHINGTON ? As the U.S. Senate moved closer to voting on a spending bill that would give NASA an extra $1.15 billion for 2008, lawmakers rejected an amendment to trim $150 million from the U.S. space agency's budget to help states prosecute crimes committed by illegal aliens. Read more…
SPACE.com - When I was an astronomy student at Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands, pioneer asteroid hunters Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld and her husband Kees van Houten were about to retire, after very fruitful careers. Their legacy was the discovery of over 2000 asteroids, of which some 1800 yielded orbits, in collaboration with Prof. Tom Gehrels of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at Tucson, Arizona. ... Read more…
AP - NASA said Thursday it dropped a multimillion-dollar contract with an aerospace company because the firm failed to secure enough private financing to develop a new commercial spaceship. Read more…
NASA announced Thursday it will conduct a new competition for funding that remains in NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services Project, known as COTS. Read more…
A prelaunch webcast, live blogs, podcasts, pictures and videos highlight NASA's Internet coverage of space shuttle Discovery's STS-120 mission to the International Space Station. Read more…
News conferences, events and operating hours for NASA's Kennedy Space Center News Center are set for the upcoming launch of space shuttle Discovery. Read more…
By peering deep into evolutionary history, scientists have discovered the origins of photosensitivity in animals. The researcher said that anti-evolutionists often argue that mutations, which are essential for evolution, can only eliminate traits and cannot produce new features. He goes on to say, "Our paper shows that such claims are simply wrong. We show very clearly that specific mutational changes in a particular duplicated gene (opsin) allowed the new genes to interact with different proteins in new ways. Today, these different interactions underlie the genetic machinery of vision, which is different in various animal groups." Read more…
Using acupuncture before and during surgery significantly reduces the level of pain and the amount of potent painkillers needed by patients after the surgery is over, according to anesthesiologists who combined data from 15 small randomized acupuncture clinical trials. Read more…
Carbon nanotubes have been employed for a variety of uses including composite materials, biosensors, nano-electronic circuits and membranes. While they have proven useful for these purposes, no one really knows much about what?s going on at the molecular level. For example, how do nanotubes and chemical functional groups interact with each other on the atomic scale? Answering this question could lead to improvements in future nano devices. Read more…
With the aid of more than 70,000 home computer users throughout the world, researchers have, for the first time, accurately predicted the 3-D structure of a small, naturally occurring globular protein using only its amino acid sequence. The accomplishment was achieved with a newly refined computational method for predicting protein structure. Read more…
Although mortality from cardiovascular disease has declined in the US over the past several decades, patients with severe psychiatric illness are not enjoying the benefits of that progress. Read more…
We know that something happens during brain development that contributes to schizophrenia. A glitch in the process that turns genes on and off in the brain -- a specific "epigenetic" flaw -- appears to be part of the problem. Read more…
For the first time theoretical modeling has provided a glimpse into how promising dielectric materials are able to trap charges, something which may affect the performance of advanced electronic devices. Read more…
According to the National Osteoporosis Foundation, osteoporosis affects more than 2 million men in the United States and nearly 12 million more have osteopenia -- clinically significant low bone density that is less severe than osteoporosis. Now, a new study has found that men engaging predominantly in low-impact forms of exercise have an increased incidence of osteopenia -- a condition resulting in two times the risk of bone fracture. Read more…
Scientists have created a device which improves the vision of sight-impaired patients. This reconfigurable platform, which can be updated via the Internet, is especially useful for pathologies that can lead to blindness, such as macular degeneration, cataracts, etc. Read more…
Ninety-seven years after an American was hanged in London in one of the most notorious and famous murder cases in British history, forensic science is producing evidence that his execution was a mistake. Dr. Hawley Crippen was hanged for murdering his showgirl wife. Read more…
