By SETH BORENSTEIN
AP Science Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) – An odd, greenish backward-flying comet is zipping by Earth this month, as it takes its only trip toward the sun from the farthest edges of the solar system. The comet is called Lulin, and there’s a chance it can be seen with the naked eye _ far from [...]

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Times Online

A US and a Russian satellite have collided in space hundreds of miles above Earth in what is believed to be the first major crash of two spacecraft in orbit.
The collision – which occurred nearly 500 miles over Siberia on Tuesday – caused massive debris clouds to shoot out into the atmosphere and [...]

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In Vitro Fertilization Offers New Lab for Studies
By Rob Stein, Washington Post Staff Writer
In addition to helping thousands of infertile couples have children, “test tube” babies are offering scientists a novel laboratory for resolving one of the most vexing debates in science: nature vs. nurture.
In the first study of its kind, British researchers have studied [...]

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Um…yeah.  So.  The scientists *think* that the black hole would lose out.  Is everyone feeling quite reassured?
From www.foxnews.com
Still worried that the Large Hadron Collider will create a black hole that will destroy the Earth when it’s finally switched on this summer?
Um, well, you may have a point.
Three physicists have reexamined the math surrounding the [...]

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“The two leading theories of conformity are that people look to the group because they’re unsure of what to do, and that people go along with the norm because they are afraid of being different, said Gregory Berns, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia.”
By Elizabeth [...]

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“But the really good news, as I see it, is that we might reverse-engineer an anti-love potion, a vaccine preventing you from making an infatuated ass of yourself. Although this love vaccine isn’t mentioned in Dr. Young’s essay, when I raised the prospect he agreed it could also be in the offing.”
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Anti-Love Drug May Be [...]

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Tonight’s ‘Leap Second’ Is Hot Tocking Point

By Dan Zak, Washington Post Staff Writer

This weary/manic/glorious/tragic/bizarre year will last one second longer than you think. As 2008 circles the drain, here comes the pithy news item about the “leap second.” It’s exactly what it sounds like. Tonight, timekeepers will slide an extra second into the world’s clock. [...]

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Want a retired space shuttle? They’re up for grabs
By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer Marcia Dunn, Ap Aerospace Writer – Thu Dec 18, 3:24 am ET
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – NASA’s soon-to-be-retired space shuttles are up for grabs.
The space agency said Wednesday it’s looking for ideas on where and how best to display its [...]

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Your corn is sweeter, your potatoes are starchier and your turkey is much, much bigger than the foods that sat on your grandparents’ Thanksgiving dinner table.
Most everything on your plate has undergone tremendous genetic change under the intense selective pressures of industrial farming. Pilgrims and American Indians ate foods called corn and turkey, but the [...]

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In a technical tour de force with potentially profound implications for the study of emerging diseases, researchers have built the largest-ever self-replicating organism from scratch.
The organism is a virus based on genome sequences taken from a bat-borne version of SARS, a lethal respiratory disease that jumped from animals to humans in 2002. The synthetic virus [...]

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Organs from pigs could be widely available for transplanting into patients in a decade, Lord Winston said yesterday.  The first organs suitable for transplanting, most likely kidneys, are expected to be ready within three years and, if tests are successful, their use could be widespread by 2018.  A herd of as few as 50 pigs [...]

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CAMBRIDGE, England (AP) – Cosmologist Stephen Hawking will retire from his prestigious post at Cambridge University next year, but intends to continue his exploration of time and space.
Hawking, 66, is Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, a title once held by the great 18th century physicist Isaac Newton. The university said Friday that he would step down [...]

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Ripped Scotch Tape Emits X-Rays

Malcolm Ritter, Associated Press
Oct. 22, 2008 — Just two weeks after a Nobel Prize highlighted theoretical work on subatomic particles, physicists are announcing a startling discovery about a much more familiar form of matter: Scotch tape.
It turns out that if you peel the popular adhesive tape off its roll in a [...]

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This makes me think of that Simpsons episode where Lisa grows a world in a petri dish… and they grow up idolizing her as a God.
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For the first time, it is possible to actually watch the initial 24 hours of the life of an embryo at the cellular level.
With a newly developed microscope that [...]

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So I guess the Big Bang experiment hasn’t been as much a doomsday device as some thought it would be…
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‘Big Bang’ experiment starts well
Scientists have hailed a successful switch-on for an enormous experiment which will recreate the conditions a few moments after the Big Bang.
They have fired a beam of particles called protons around the [...]

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