Science

In the midst of all the controversy over Pluto's official status, we wondered how the Earth would be viewed by astronomers from another planet. Coincidentally, NASA has released a photo of our "pale blue orb" taken by the Cassini spacecraft as it traveled in Saturn's system, nearly 930 million miles from Earth.

San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom is calling for a study on the feasibility of putting an energy harvesting system in the city's famed Golden Gate.

In general, wave power is considered one of the least promising alternative energy ideas. It's expensive, and keeping the system working isn't easy.

Still, it's being tried in some areas where tides are strong. Ocean Power Delivery, based in Edinburgh, Scotland, says its Pelamis system can harvest electricity from waves safely and efficiently. It's in the midst of installing a system off the coast of Portugal.

Despite having a small … Read more

Genentech has likely made every "The Best Company to Work For" magazine list ever conceived--it even topped Fortune's 100-best companies this year. But now, it should define yet another category: "The Best Company to Get Your Groove On."

The biotech pioneer celebrated its 30th anniversary in style Monday, hosting an all-day outdoor concert at its South San Francisco headquarters that featured indie rockers the Foo Fighters, pop artists the Black Eyed Peas and music legends Bob Dylan and The Eagles. Employees and guests--roughly 10,000 of them--were kept in the dark about which musical acts … Read more

An aerospace company is designing an unmanned plane to fly around Mars and gather scientific data.

Aurora Fight Sciences has responded to a NASA's Scout mission proposals to explore the red planet with the idea of a plane that will "take off" on its descent into Mars' atmosphere.

Aurora Flight's MarsFlyer project, which will build on previous designs, will be delivered to Mars in a capsule via a conventional rocket.

As it enters Mars' atmosphere, an "aeoroshell," a parachute-like device, would slow the capsule down. During the trip toward the surface, the MarsFlyer would … Read more

NASA has long been a fan of Linux, and now the space agency is putting that faith to the test in remote-controlled robots designed to rove the surfaces of the moon and Mars.

LinuxDevices.com reports that two lunar rovers using the open-source technology were on maneuvers this week in the Arizona desert. The robots, which were photographed via Webcam, reportedly use Red Hat and Gentoo versions of Linux.

The art of Willard Wigan has been known for some time, but we're embarrassed to say that we learned of it only today with this post on Snopes. His talent is so amazing that we still wanted to write about it, even at the risk of "old news" flames.

Wigan specializes in microscopic art that can literally fit on the head of a pin, and often does. His art can't be fully appreciated without the aid of a microscope, but you can view some remarkable close-up photos on his site.

The International Astronomical Union is a catty bunch. First they stripped Pluto of its planetary status, and then they reconsidered, and then demoted it again to the level of "dwarf planet"--for real this time. It's still controversial.

Now the IAU has made another potentially controversial move: it renamed "Xena."

On Wednesday, a release from the IAU addressed the problem of naming another "dwarf planet," the larger-than-Pluto object which thus far was formally named 2003 UB313. The release officially named the object Eris after the Greek goddess of discord. Unfortunately, this could turn … Read more

A robotic leg developed by Toyota has taken a big step forward--or, in this case, up.

Special joints built into the toe and knee of the 3.3-foot leg reportedly allow it to jump as high as 1.6 inches. That may not sound like much, but the mobility could eventually lead to robots that can climb and descend stairs in ways that resemble human movement much more than current models.

With this ability, maybe villainous bots like the ED-209 will finally have a fighting chance next time if another "RoboCop" sequel is ever made.

This project would be impressive under any circumstances, but it's particularly timely given today's concerns about the atmosphere and global warming.

Breathing Earth is a Flash-based project that "displays the carbon dioxide emission levels of every country in the world, as well as their birth and death rates--all in real time."