Mosquitoes match wing beats before mating

Mars rover mission reaches 5th anniversary

Five years after the NASA rover Spirit landed on Mars, the six-wheel robotic geologist and its twin Opportunity are still on the job.

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What field still has jobs — and rewards? Ask Kitty

Though reader Cortney Jokiel is nearly 60 years younger than I am, we have something in common: nursing school.

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Exploiting nature to cut mosquitoes' life short

Old mosquitoes usually spread disease, so Australian researchers figured out a way to make the pests die younger — naturally, not poisoned.

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Great Barrier Reef coral in crisis

The rate at which corals absorb calcium from seawater to calcify their hard skeletons — and thus grow — has declined dramatically in the last two decades and signs point to manmade greenhouse gas emissions as the culprit, according to a study of samples from Australia's Great Barrier Reef.

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Study: Hawaii's pygmy killer whales stay close

A new study of pygmy killer whales — one of the least understood marine mammal species — shows that those living off Hawaii tend to stay close to the islands and don't swim out to the open ocean.

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How a deadly avalanche can be triggered

Look out above!

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New NASA report details final minutes of Columbia

When the first of many loud alarms sounded on the space shuttle Columbia, the seven astronauts had about a minute to live, though they didn't know it. The pilot, William McCool, pushed several buttons trying to right the ship as it tumbled out of control. He didn't know it was futile. Most of the crew were following NASA procedures, spending more time preparing the shuttle than themselves for the return to Earth.

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Remembering shuttle Columbia's 7 astronauts

In a new report, NASA reviews the way the space shuttle Columbia was destroyed and how the astronauts died as part of an effort to design a better spacecraft for the future. Here is a look at the seven who perished Feb. 1, 2003.

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NASA reports graphic details of Columbia deaths

Seat restraints, pressure suits and helmets of the doomed crew of the space shuttle Columbia didn't work well, leading to "lethal trauma" as the out-of-control ship lost pressure and broke apart, killing all seven astronauts, a new NASA report says. At least one crew member was alive and pushing buttons for half a minute after a first loud alarm sounded, as he futilely tried to right Columbia during that disastrous day Feb. 1, 2003.

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Scientists eye unusual swarm of Yellowstone quakes

Yellowstone National Park was jostled by a host of small earthquakes for a third straight day Monday, and scientists watched closely to see whether the more than 250 tremors were a sign of something bigger to come. Swarms of small earthquakes happen frequently in Yellowstone, but it's very unusual for so many earthquakes to happen over several days, said Robert Smith, a professor of geophysics at the University of Utah.

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Sniffly Americans skipping cold remedies

For years, at the first sign of the approach of cold season, John Musumeci would break out the zinc and vitamin C tablets.

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Amateurs are trying genetic engineering at home

The Apple computer was invented in a garage. Same with the Google search engine. Now, tinkerers are working at home with the basic building blocks of life itself.

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US, Russian space station crew conduct spacewalk

American and Russian crewmen installed a probe Tuesday aimed at tracking down problems with a Russian module attached to the international space station and conducted an array of other maintenance and scientific work during a six-hour spacewalk.

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Israelis unearth Byzantine gold hoard

Israeli archaeologists said they have unearthed more than 250 gold coins from the seventh century on the edge of Jerusalem's walled Old City. A British tourist volunteering at the dig discovered the trove on Sunday.

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4,300-year-old pharaonic tombs unveiled near Cairo

A pair of 4,300-year-old pharaonic tombs discovered at Saqqara indicate that the sprawling necropolis south of Cairo is even larger than previously thought, Egypt's top archaeologist said Monday. The rock-cut tombs were built for high officials — one responsible for the quarries used to build the nearby pyramids and another for a woman in charge of procuring entertainers for the pharaohs.

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Researchers probe scat for clues to orca decline

Using a trained dog to sniff for poop and petri dishes attached to long poles, scientists are analyzing killer whales' scat and breath samples in the hopes of solving the mystery of Puget Sound's dwindling orca population.

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Worst films 2008: Awful is the new awesome

I turned off reruns of “Cops” and a fresh new season of “Celebrity Rehab” long enough this year to see a few hundred movies. Because it’s my job. I know, tough job.

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An interesting article about how living in densely populated masses is bad for humans. This is an argument against one of the leading proposed mitigation strategies for dealing with anthropogenic global warming, which is more cities and higher human densities. Yeeeach.

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American astronaut Dr.

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Scientists say the spookfish is first known vertebrate to use mirrors, rather than lenses, to focus light in its eyes.

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Denise Chen, assistant professor of psychology at Rice, looked at how the brains of female volunteers processed and encoded the smell of sexual sweat from men. The results of the experiment indicated the brain recognizes chemosensory communication, including human sexual sweat.

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Note to the reader. I gave the wrong link above. This is the proper one.

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An analysis of an 18,000-year-old fossil, described as the remains of a diminutive humanlike creature, proves that genuine cave-dwelling "hobbits" once flourished in southeast Asia, according to a US anthropologist who conducted X-ray studies of a skull.

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For the third time,� Gu Gu the panda has attacked someone who climbed into its space, prompting officials at the Beijing Zoo to consider changes to keep visitors away from 240-pound animal.

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Climate change has become the default scapegoat for nearly every extinction on Earth. But a new study lets climate off the hook for at least one event: the disappearance of Neanderthals.

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In all previous work, it was assumed that one could squeeze indefinitely, simply tolerating the growth of uncertainty in the uninteresting direction. "But the world of polarization, like the Earth, is not flat," says Steinberg.

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This Saturday night, Jan. 10th, another perigee Moon is coming. It's the biggest full Moon of 2009, almost identical to the one that impressed onlookers in Dec. 2008.

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Compared to small, rocky worlds like Earth, Jupiter-class gas giant planets form quickly or not at all, a new study shows.

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A NASA-funded study describes how extreme solar eruptions could have severe consequences for communications, power grids and other technology on Earth.

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The annual count is a legal requirement for all British zoos, and it's also a useful tool for monitoring animal conservation efforts. Zookeepers say it makes sense to have a census.

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Listening to the early universe just got harder. A team led by Alan Kogut of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., has just announced the discovery of cosmic radio noise that booms six times louder than expected.

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Playing Tetris, rated one of the greatest video games of all time, immediately after traumatic events appears to reduce flashbacks that plague sufferers of post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a British study.

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Park officials say a visitor has found the remains of a Civil War soldier at the Antietam National Battlefield in western Maryland.

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LONG BEACH, Calif. -- Space is typically thought of as a very quiet place. But one team of astronomers has found a strange cosmic noise that booms six times louder than expected. The roar is from the distant cosmos. Nobody knows what causes it.

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Day 8 of the hearing saw the completion of cross examination of the independent investigator Thomas Herlevi and fairly brief testimony from Joe Barone, a former student in Freshwater's class. This will be a brief summary identifying the main lines of questions and responses.

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