CNN's Becky Anderson is in Spitzbergen, Norway, where the 'Doomsday' seed vault is opening today.
Video: http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europ...eeds/index.html

A new theory could explain Venus' thick atmosphere, lack of water, and backwards spin

Venus is made of the same stuff of Earth, but is bone-dry, hot enough to melt lead and has a chokingly thick atmosphere. It even spins backwards.


Astronomers have spent decades trying to explain Venus' mysterious properties. Now one scientist thinks the planet's formation may explain all: Two huge, protoplanetary bodies collided head-on and merged to form our planetary neighbor, but obliterated nearly all water in the process.


"The probability that two protoplanets collided to form Venus is not at all implausible," said John Huw Davies, a geodynamicist at Cardiff University in the U.K. who developed the idea.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20080...collision<br />

Ancient Maya would paint unlucky people blue and throw them down a sacred well as human sacrifices. Now scientists have solved the mystery of how to make the famous blue pigment by analyzing traces on pottery left in the bottom of the well.

The Maya associated the color blue with their rain deities. When they offered sacrifices to the god Chaak, they would paint them blue in hopes he would send rain to make corn grow. The blue paint has been found on objects for a long time, but scientists have debated how the Maya created the pigment.


Now Gary Feinman, curator of anthropology at the Field Museum in Chicago, and Dean E. Arnold, a professor of anthropology at Wheaton College, have figured out the secret ingredient in the ancient Maya concoction.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience...iq8qqFklYSs0NUE

Increasingly autonomous, gun-totting robots developed for warfare could easily fall into the hands of terrorists and may one day unleash a robot arms race, a top expert on artificial intelligence told AFP.
"They pose a threat to humanity," said University of Sheffield professor Noel Sharkey ahead of a keynote address Wednesday before Britain's Royal United Services Institute.

Intelligent machines deployed on battlefields around the world -- from mobile grenade launchers to rocket-firing drones -- can already identify and lock onto targets without human help.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.ph...&show_article=1

The Planetary Society invited participants to compete for $50,000 in prizes by designing a mission to rendezvous with and 'tag' a potentially dangerous near-Earth asteroid. The asteroid Apophis was used as the target for the mission design because it will come closer to Earth in 2029 than the orbit of geostationary satellites. The winning mission design is called Foresight, and calls for the use of off-the-shelf parts to undercut the price of other proposals

http://www.planetary.org/programs/p...is_competition/

Researchers at Monash University, in Victoria, Australia, have found a way to coat fibers with titanium dioxide nanocrystals, which break down food and dirt in sunlight. The researchers, led by organic chemist and nanomaterials researcher Walid Daoud, have made natural fibers such as wool, silk, and hemp that will automatically remove food, grime, and even red-wine stains when exposed to sunlight.

Daoud and his colleagues coat the fibers with a thin, invisible layer of titanium dioxide nanoparticles. Titanium dioxide, which is used in sunscreens, toothpaste, and paint, is a strong photocatalyst: in the presence of ultraviolet light and water vapor, it forms hydroxyl radicals, which oxidize, or decompose, organic matter. However, says Daoud, "these nanocrystals cannot decompose wool and are harmless to skin." Moreover, the coating does not change the look and feel of the fabric.

http://www.technologyreview.com/Nanotech/20306/

The scores were compiled using raw data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Geographic Society’s Green Guide. A total of ten points were given for electricity and transportation, and five each for the other two categories. When the points were totaled up, Portland, OR came out as the greenest city in the USA. The top 10 are listed below, and the full 50 can be found on Popular Science's website.

http://arstechnica.com/journals/sci...ties-in-the-usa

The famous scene, shot using a model, triggered the imagination of countless gadget-lovers, who wondered if such a car could be made.

Now a self-confessed Bond fanatic has made an up-to-date version of the wondercar using the Esprit’s spiritual successor, the Lotus Elise, as its base.

The "sQuba" will be exhibited at the Geneva Motor Show next month.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai.../14/ncar114.xml
http://videos.streetfire.net/video/...a420099f046.htm

Saturn's orange moon Titan has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth, according to new Cassini data. The hydrocarbons rain from the sky, collecting in vast deposits that form lakes and dunes."
http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEMCSUUHJCF_index_0.html

Scientists have invented the Prius of ocean-going submersibles - a new "green" robotic glider that runs on energy absorbed from the heat of the sea, rather than batteries.

The new underwater glider can stay at sea at least twice as long as previous submersibles that used battery power. It is the first autonomous underwater vehicle to travel great distances for extended periods running on green energy, according to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience...trunsonseasheat

Astronauts will deliver Europe's first manned space lab to the International Space Station (ISS) in a spacewalk today, though with a different lineup than originally planned.


Atlantis shuttle astronauts Rex Walheim and Stanley Love are due to step outside the station's Quest airlock today at 9:35 a.m. EST (1435 GMT) to attach the European Space Agency's (ESA) Columbus laboratory to its new orbital home.


ESA astronaut Hans Schlegel, of Germany, was originally set to join Walheim on today's spacewalk, but mission managers replaced him with Love after an undisclosed medical issue arose among the shuttle crew on Saturday. Schlegel will help Atlantis pilot Alan Poindexter choreograph today's spacewalk from inside the shuttle.


"The only difference is who's going out the hatch," said Mike Sarafin, lead shuttle flight director for Atlantis' mission. None of the tasks for today's planned 6.5-hour spacewalk were modified because of the crew switch, he added.


Today's spacewalk is the first of three planned excursions for Atlantis' 12-day mission to the ISS. The outing will mark the third career spacewalk for Walheim and the first for Love, who is also making his first spaceflight during the shuttle flight.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20080...MZaZk_MD4is0NUE

The U.S. Navy is installing an electro-magnetic laboratory rail gun at its Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren, Va., bringing it one step closer to developing a ship-mounted version of this futuristic cannon.

The 32-megajoule weapon appears to be the largest rail gun ever built, according to defense contractor BAE Systems. A joule is what's needed to produce one watt of energy for one second.
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-98...g=2547-1_3-0-20

Take a look at a few of cinema's most mind-boggling moments of scientific inaccuracy—plus a few rare films that manage to get things (mostly) right

http://www.popsci.com/entertainment...llywood-physics

The first US satellite, Explorer 1, was successfully launched into space on Jan. 31, 1958.
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/arch.../31/624367.aspx

The new cell technology combines nanoparticles and organic dyes that can be produced in any number of colors and designs.

The key component of the new modules is an organic dye which in combination with nanoparticles converts sunlight into electricity. Due to the small size of the nanoparticles, the modules are semi-transparent. This aspect makes them well suited for façade integration. The new solar cells are being developed by members of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, who will be presenting their new technology in Tokyo at Nanotech 2008, the world’s largest trade fair for nanotechnology.

http://www.enn.com/energy/article/30372