Earth’s fa­mil­iar 24-hour day may be­come about 12 hundred-thou­sandths of a sec­ond shorter due to the long-term trend of glob­al warm­ing, a new re­port con­tends.Along­side var­i­ous en­vi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ters that sci­ent­ist pre­dict will en­sue from glob­al warm­ing—believed to be caused by emis­sions of heat-trapping gas­es due to hu­man ac­tiv­i­ties—another ef­fect would be a re­dis­tri­bu­tion of Earth’s wa­ter. This would oc­cur be­cause of changes in wa­ter tem­per­a­tures.Fe­lix W. Lan­derer of the Max Planck In­sti­tute for Me­te­or­ol­ogy in ... [full story]

LA JOLLA, Calif. - Pioneering astronaut Walter "Wally" Schirra, the only man who flew in all three of America's first human space projects - Mercury, Gemini and Apollo - died Wednesday. He was 84. Schirra's family reported he died of natural causes. Schirra was one of America's original seven astronauts, selected in 1959, and was commander of the first crew to fly into space aboard an Apollo capsule, Apollo 7, following the tragic launchpad fire ... [full story]

HOUSTON - The Expedition 15 crew aboard the International Space Station completed its first week of station orientation as the crew worked with experiments and hardware maintenance.Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and flight engineers Oleg Kotov and Suni Williams began the week with a couple light duty days after the busy handover operations with the former crew. Expedition 14 Commander Michael Lopez-Alegria and Russian crewmate Mikhail Tyurin, accompanied by spaceflight participant Charles Simonyi, returned to Earth on ... [full story]

'TRUE FACTS' Medicinal leeches have been a useful therapeutic tool for centuries, used to clean and speed the healing of wounds and for biomedical research. Credit has always gone to a particular species, the aptly named Hirudo medicinalis. WHAT IS IT? - A scanning electron microscope image of the fourth lumbar vertebra of an 89-year-old woman with severe osteoporosis. CNS Photo. COLOR MY WORLD - If human space travelers ever do find life ... [full story]

In a find­ing that if con­firmed could stand as a land­mark in history, as­tro­no­mers have re­ported dis­co­v­er­ing the most Earth-like plan­et out­side our So­lar Sys­tem to date: a world that may have liq­uid oceans and thus life.Swiss, French and Por­tu­guese sci­en­tists found the body, es­ti­mated as 50 per­cent wid­er than our Earth, or­bit­ing a so-called red dwarf star rel­a­tively close to Earth. The star is thought to har­bor two oth­er plan­ets al­so. Artist's im­pres­sion of ... [full story]

HOUSTON - The 14th crew of the International Space Station, Commander Michael Lopez-Alegria and Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin, along with spaceflight participant Charles Simonyi landed their Soyuz spacecraft in the steppes of Kazakhstan at 7:31 a.m CDT Saturday. The Expedition 14 mission included many highlights during its seven-month duration, including the setting of several records. Lopez-Alegria completed five spacewalks, which gave him a total of 10 for his career. This set a U.S. record for ... [full story]

Re­search­ers have found a cit­y-sized fos­sil­ized for­est in an Il­li­nois coal mine, and they say it trans­forms our un­der­stand­ing of the Earth’s first rain­for­ests.No­where else, sci­en­tists say, can one lit­er­al­ly walk through such a huge swath of rain­for­est from the Car­bon­if­er­ous era. That was a time 360 mil­lion to 290 mil­lion years ago when true rep­tiles ap­peared, gi­ant dra­gon­flies buzzed and vast swamps spread, which lat­er formed coal. De­tail of a pter­i­do­sperm, an ex­tinct ... [full story]

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Researchers at Oregon State University have made an important fundamental discovery about how different components of plant cells communicate with each other to allow for proper cell and life functions. The findings, just published in the journal Science, identify a gene involved in plant stress responses that also has a duel role in communication between the chloroplast and nucleus of cells. The correct function of this process is integral to plant function ... [full story]

HOUSTON - The crew members aboard the International Space Station spent this week finalizing handover operations, conducting experiments and preparing for the departure of the Expedition 14 crew.Expedition 14 Commander Michael Lopez-Alegria and Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin, accompanied by Spaceflight Participant Charles Simonyi, are targeted to touch down in central Kazakhstan in their Soyuz spacecraft at 7:30 a.m. CDT Saturday, April 21, one day later than originally planned.The primary landing site is too wet for ... [full story]

VANDENBERG, Calif. - NASA's Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) spacecraft, the first mission dedicated to the exploration of mysterious ice clouds that dot the edge of space in Earth's polar regions, successfully launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., at 1:26 p.m. PDT on Wednesday, April 25.The mission will study clouds that are noctilucent, meaning they can be seen from the ground only at night, when they are illuminated by sunlight no longer ... [full story]

EUGENE, Ore. - University of Oregon researchers studying mosquitoes have produced the first chromosomal map that shows regions of chromosomes that activate – and are apparently evolving – in animals in response to climate change. The map will allow researchers to narrow their focus to identify specific genes that control the seasonal development of animals. Such information will help predict which animals may survive in changing climates and identify which disease-carrying vectors may move northward, ... [full story]

HOUSTON - The crew members aboard the International Space Station were busy this week with handover operations from the Expedition 14 residents to the newly arrived Expedition 15 crew.Expedition 15 Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and Flight Engineer Oleg Kotov arrived at the station Monday after a Saturday launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. With them on their Soyuz TMA-10 spacecraft was Spaceflight Participant Charles Simonyi, a U.S. businessman flying under a contract with the Russian ... [full story]

PRIME NUMBERS 39 - Maximum body-mass index (BMI) China allows for any foreigner adopting a Chinese infant 26.6 - BMI of an average American adult 3 million - Estimated number of babies who have been created so far through in vitro fertilization Sources: Harper's Index; China Center of Adoption Affairs; International Committee for Monitoring Assisted Reproductive Technology 'TRUE FACTS' TRUE FACTS - Researchers say rats can manipulate each whisker independently to feel their way through ... [full story]