CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The launch of NASA's space shuttle Atlantis will take place no earlier than Saturday, Dec. 8, at 3:43 p.m. EST. Thursday's scheduled liftoff from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla., was postponed because of a problem with a fuel cutoff sensor system inside the shuttle's external fuel tank.The fuel cutoff sensor system is one of several that protect the shuttle's main engines by triggering their shut down if fuel runs unexpectedly low. ... [full story]

WASHINGTON - Images from NASA-funded telescopes aboard a Japanese satellite have shed new light about the sun's magnetic field and the origins of solar wind, which disrupts power grids, satellites and communications on Earth. To view images about these findings and learn more about Hinode, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/solar-b Data from the Hinode satellite shows that magnetic waves play a critical role in driving the solar wind into space. The solar wind is a stream of electrically ... [full story]

Sci­en­tists are shed­ding light on what Charles Dar­win called an “abom­inable mys­tery”: how and when flow­ers evolved.In two pa­pers to be pub­lished next week, re­search­ers re­port that two of the larg­est groups of flow­er­ing plants are more closely re­lat­ed to each oth­er - than any of the oth­er ma­jor lin­eages are. These are the mono­cots, which in­clude grasses and their rel­a­tives, and the eu­di­cots, which in­clude sunflow­ers and toma­toes. New studies indicate the two ... [full story]

Re­search­ers say they’ve solved a great mys­tery of the flu: why it spreads mainly in win­ter. The an­swer, they re­port, is that the vi­rus is more stable and re­mains air­borne long­er in the cold, dry air that pre­vails in the sea­son. A typ­i­cal flu vi­rus is shown "s­liced" in half in this di­a­gram to show the in­sides. It con­tains genes for mak­ing cop­ies of it­self on the in­side, and "spikes" that help it at­tach to ... [full story]

A bit of buck­wheat hon­ey beat the lead­ing over-the-coun­ter chil­dren’s cough rem­edy in re­liev­ing kids’ cough and as­so­ci­at­ed sleep trou­bles, a study has found. Courtesy U.K. Honey Foundation But the re­search—though pub­lished in a re­spected med­i­cal jour­nal—was funded by the U.S. hon­ey in­dus­try. Its au­thors rec­om­mend­ed fur­ther stud­ies to con­firm the re­sults, while not­ing that safe­ty and ef­fi­cacy ques­tions have aris­en around over-the-coun­ter kids’ cough med­i­cines. “Cough is the rea­son for nearly three per­cent of all ... [full story]

A newly un­veiled “di­nosaur mum­my” is one of the best-pre­served of the an­cient rep­tiles found to da­te, ac­cord­ing to re­searchers—who say this one may have had stripes and the abil­ity to out­run fear­some T. rex. The fossilized skin of "Dakota." (Courtesy Nat'l Geographic Society) Sci­en­tists on Mon­day an­nounced a pre­lim­i­nary anal­y­sis of the 67-mil­lion-year-old duck-billed di­no­saur, with mus­cles and bones pre­served in large, in­tact seg­ments of skin. “This spec­i­men ex­ceeds the jack­pot,” ex­cava­t­ion lead­er Phil­lip ... [full story]

Think­ing and us­ing an In­ter­net search en­gine might seem to be two very dif­fer­ent ac­ti­vi­ties. But a study sug­gests they draw on si­m­i­lar prin­ci­ples.When you type words in­to the pop­u­lar Goo­gle search en­gine, it re­turns a list of web­pages con­tain­ing those words. The list is­n’t or­dered any old way: it’s or­dered based on how “im­por­tant” Goo­gle deems the pages to be. Goo­gle meas­ures a page’s “im­por­tance” us­ing a for­mu­la based on pop­u­lar­ity. It takes in­to ... [full story]

ELECTRON INK   VERBATIM - 'Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.' - American humorist and writer Mark Twain. CNS Photo    WHAT IS IT - This is a scanning electron micrograph of the head of a dung beetle. CNS Photo   TRUE FACTS - The strongest surface wind known is a gust recorded during a spring storm atop Mount Washington in New Hampshire in 1934. It measured 231 miles per hour. CNS Photo    CAUGHT RED AND DEAD ... [full story]

MOSCOW - Russian scientists are searching for a crew of Russians and Europeans to test simulated flights to Mars. Moscow Institute of Biomedical Problems chief Anatoly Grigoryev said the crew must be ready by early next year to begin 105-day simulated missions, Itar-Tass reported Thursday.Grigoryev said the crew, which will include four Russians and two Europeans, will include women and men, and will be isolated from the external world in a model of the Martian spaceship ... [full story]

LANSING, Mich. - Michigan wildlife officials say they believe a fisherman illegally released pigs on an island to get rid of fish-eating cormorants.The pigs were discovered on Snake Island in Lake Michigan in May by biologists doing a count of cormorant eggs. They found very few eggs and two pigs, The Detroit News reported.Those pigs were removed but a duck hunter has since reported a third. That one has not been seen since although it ... [full story]

WASHINGTON - In the final forecast update to the U.S. winter outlook, NOAA Climate Prediction Center forecasters remain confident in predicting above average temperatures for much of the country -- including southern sections of the Northeast -- and below normal precipitation for the southern tier of the nation. Above average precipitation is still anticipated for the Pacific Northwest, and in the Great Lakes and Tennessee Valley. "La Nina strengthened during October, making it even more ... [full story]

Corvallis - A new move toward “marker based breeding” with economically important forest tree species is expected to improve and speed up the identification of trees with desirable traits – to achieve faster growth, drought resistance, wood quality or other useful characteristics. Forestry scientists at Oregon State University will collaborate with other leading forest research institutions around the nation on this project, which is being partly funded by a recent $6 million grant from the ... [full story]

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. - NASA and industry engineers successfully tested the main parachute for Constellation Program rockets during a drop test Thursday at the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Ground near Yuma, Ariz. The parachute system will allow Ares I and Ares V first stage boosters to be recovered and reused. Thursday's test validated the results of an earlier test conducted in September."Measuring 150-feet in diameter and weighing 2,000 pounds, this is the biggest chute of its ... [full story]