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1. DAWN: NASA PROBE ORBITS MASSIVE VESTA ASTEROID.
Driven by a weak but steady ion engine, Dawn has been accelerating 1000 days in a four-year spiral to reach the giant, 350-mile-wide Vesta asteroid, the second largest asteroid in the solar system. By probing its secrets scientists hope to catch a glimpse of how the planets, including Earth formed out of a disc of gas and dust. It is the second most massive asteroid in the solar system, with an unusually dark surface. It is reassuring to see that the great science-NASA is still alive.
2. xkcd: IS THIS THE END OF THE GREAT CELL-PHONE SCARE?
There are five-billion cell phones in use worldwide according to industry figures, and yet there is not a single verified case of cancer being caused by cell phone radiation. The science that explains why cell phone radiation can't cause cancer is more than 100 years old (read here) . Nevertheless, the Environmental Health Trust, founded by Devra Davis, exists solely to warn the public about the nonexistent cancer hazard of cell phones, and perhaps sell a few copies of her book. On the other side is the webcomic xkcd (see here) .
3. BLINDED: EARTH HAS ITS EYES PLUCKED OUT.
One week after a House subcommittee proposed terminating the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), NASA's costly successor to the orbiting Hubble observatory, agency officials told an advisory panel on Thursday that JWST can be launched as soon as 2018, but political realities could delay the mission's start well into the 2020s. "Political realities" could terminate it completely. Meanwhile, the 2012 budget request NOAA sent to Congress in February asked for $47.3 million for the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) and $11.3 million for Constellation Observing System for Meteorology Ionosphere and Climate-2 (COSMIC-2). The House bill would not provide funding for either. Republicans oppose any mission that would give evidence of global warming. Otherwise celebrity billionaires might be called on to pay taxes at the rate of working people.
4. HACKERS: CLIMATEGATE REVISITED.
Two years ago, e-mail files of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia were hacked and selectively posted on the web. Rupert Murdoch newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal, expressed shock at the "criminal conspiracy" and "scientific blacklisting" (read here). The "gate" suffix was added to invite comparison with the infamous break-in at the Watergate by Nixon's goons, but the climategate burglars were treated as heroes. There was not one line of criticism about the only criminal offense in the whole sordid climategate affair of hacking into private files. It is ironic that hacking by the Murdoch papers is now threatening the Murdoch empire.
Image Credit: NASA
