Days of Downs and Ups

by Mat Kaplan Click to enlarge >Mat KaplanMat Kaplan is the host and producer of Planetary Radio, the Society's weekly radio series and podcast. He will be blogging this week from the Kennedy Space Center, where he hopes to witness the final launch of Space Shuttle Discovery. The lifelong fan of space exploration has never seen the liftoff of anything bigger than a model rocket. We learned shortly after I wrote my last blog entry that ....

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Netherlands stops Shell's CO2 storage project

The Hague (AFP) Nov 4, 2010
The Dutch government said Thursday it will not allow oil giant Shell to store millions of tonnes of arbon dioxide in a depleted gas reservoir under a small town, upholding the fears of townspeople. "The CO2 storage project in (the western town of) Barendrecht is not going ahead," the ministry of economy, agriculture, and environment said in a statement. A "total lack of local support" wa

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All Systems Are Nominal Aboard Bsat-3b Satellite

Newtown PA (SPX) Nov 05, 2010
All systems are nominal aboard the BSAT-3b broadcasting satellite, designed and built by Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] for Broadcasting Satellite System Corporation (B-SAT) of Japan. The satellite was launched Oct. 28 from Kourou, French Guiana at 5:51 p.m. EDT aboard an Ariane 5-ECA launch vehicle provided by Arianespace of Evry, France. Initial contact with the satellite was confirme

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NASA working to re-set Cassini spacecraft

Pasadena CA (JPL) Nov 05, 2010
Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., are working to understand what caused NASA's Cassini spacecraft to put itself into "safe mode," a precautionary standby mode. Cassini entered safe mode around 4 p.m. PDT (7 p.m. EDT) on Tuesday, Nov. 2. Since going into safe mode, the spacecraft has performed as expected, suspending the flow of science data and sending

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Astronaut Ernst Messerschmid Returns To Spacelab

Bonn, Germany (SPX) Nov 05, 2010
Drops of orange juice that transform into cubes, astronauts sliding back and forth on a sled in zero gravity, repeated glimpses of the blue globe below. The images that reached Earth from the D1 Spacelab mission are spectacular even today. The first German mission, it was launched on 30 October 25 years ago from Cape Canaveral. Space Shuttle Challenger carried the European research laborat

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The Sahara Wasn’t Always a Desert

Green Sahara

For much of the past 70,000 years, the Sahara has closely resembled the desert it is today. Some 12,000 years ago, however, a wobble in the Earth’s axis and other factors caused Africa’s seasonal monsoons to shift slightly north, bringing new rains to an area nearly the size of the contiguous United States. Lush watersheds stretched across the Sahara, from Egypt to Mauritania, drawing animal life and eventually people.
…
by some 3,500 years ago the desert had returned. The people vanished.
…
The twilight of the Green Sahara around 4,500 years ago might have been the perfect time to be hunting at Gobero, said Carlo Giraudi, the team’s geologist. As water sources dried up throughout the region, animals would have been drawn to pocket wetlands, making them easier to kill. Four middens found on the dunes and dated to around that time included hundreds of animal remains, as well as fish bones and clamshells?not usually part of a herder’s diet. “The Green Sahara’s climate was rapidly changing,” said Giraudi, “but just before the lake dried up, the people at Gobero would have thought they were living in a golden period.”

There are many values of science: letting our curious minds learn, giving us cool robots and gadgets and letting us learn about the past (and thus about the ever-changing world we live in).

Related: Ancient Whale Uncovered in Egyptian Desert – Rare Saharan Cheetahs Photographed – “Gladiator” tomb is found in Rome

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Wanna go to a science workshop

But you can't afford the expensive registration and travel costs? Here's the deal for you: a workshop without walls that you attend and participate in over the internet. The subject of this one is Molecular Paleontology and Resurrection: Rewinding the Tape of Life, a discussion of origins of life research. It should be cool; set aside your afternoons on 8-10 November.

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_a_science_workshop.php

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Episode CXXVI: The gay old thread

We seem to be infested with nasty little conservative know-nothings lately, so here's some rodent repellent that the usual denizens of the long-suffering thread will find mostly unobjectionable.

George Takei calls out a nobody named McCance.

video details and more

I'm seriously tempted to echo some of the hateful fundie rhetoric just to get Takei to wink at me.

Lily Allen sings about the appropriate response to the anti-gay wingnuts.

video details and more

(Current totals: 11,301 entries with 1,173,849 comments.)

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Discovery Unveiled, but Weather Delays Launch to
November 5

by Ken Kremer The final launch of Space Shuttle Discovery was delayed early this morning - Thursday, November 4 - due to a forecast of rain, clouds, and high winds that would all violate the launch commit criteria for the planned launch time. After a near record dry spell of more than a month without rain, heavy rain shows hit the central Florida area overnight Wednesday, November 3 and have continued throughout the day today here at KSC. The ....

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Shuttle Discovery launch delayed to Friday

Cape Canaveral, Florida (AFP) Nov 4, 2010
The final scheduled launch of the space shuttle Discovery before being mothballed in a museum was delayed for a fourth time Thursday due to bad weather, the latest in a series of delays for orbiter's mission to the International Space Station. Heavy rain early Thursday buffeted Florida's Kennedy Space Center where Discovery had already been rolled out to the launchpad after early glitches th

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