NASA commemorates the 45th anniversary of Americans in orbit with a special multimedia salute to the original Mercury astronauts and new interviews with Sen. John Glenn, Scott Carpenter and Walter Schirra. On Feb. 20, 1962, an Atlas rocket successfully carried Glenn and the hopes of an entire nation into orbit aboard Friendship 7, a flight that ushered in a new era of space travel that eventually led to Americans walking on the moon by the ... [full story]

Astro­no­mers have be­lieved for dec­ades that most of the mat­ter in the cos­mos is un­seen. It be­trays it­self only through its gravita­t­ional pull on vis­i­ble ob­jects, whose move­ments are of­ten hard to ex­plain with­out this “dark mat­ter.”And the past year has seen in­creas­ingly bold claims that as­tro­no­mers have “proved” the stuff’s ex­ist­ence.De­spite that, there’s a core of doubt­ers who are­n’t go­ing away. Many of them are stick­ing by an al­ter­na­tive the­o­ry that holds that tweak­ing ... [full story]

HEIDELBERG, Germany - German and U.S. scientists said they have found a molecule in human genes that may cause fidgeting and make obesity less likely. The scientists found that mice with the molecule were more likely to be energetic and athletic, while mice without it were more likely to be lazy and put on pounds, the BBC reported Wednesday. The researchers said the genetic switch in the mice is also found in humans and is ... [full story]

As­tro­no­mers have de­tected the bright­est stel­lar ex­plo­sion, or su­per­no­va, on rec­ord. They say it may be a new type of su­per­no­va that may also oc­cur be­fore long in our own ga­l­axy—what one re­search­er said would be his­to­ry’s most awe­some star show. The find­ing comes from ob­ser­va­tions by NASA’s Chan­dra X ray Ob­serv­a­to­ry and ground-based tele­scopes. It in­di­cates vi­o­lent ex­plo­sions of ex­treme­ly mas­sive stars were fair­ly com­mon in the ear­ly uni­verse, sci­en­tists said.“This was a tru­ly mon­strous ... [full story]

It’s well known that some spe­cies of birds lay their eggs in oth­er spe­cies’ nests, to force oth­ers to raise their off­spring. Now, re­search­ers have iden­ti­fied a new low in the be­hav­ior of some of these “par­a­site” birds: they re­tal­i­ate mafia-style against those that re­ject their im­po­si­tion, by ran­sack­ing their nests. Many spe­cies, no­ta­bly cuck­oos, are brood par­a­sites that lay their eggs among un­wit­ting hosts.  A warbler next parasitized with cowbird eggs. (Courtesy PNAS) Some of ... [full story]

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Researchers at Oregon State University have found one gene in the human body that appears to be a master regulator for skin development, in research that could help address everything from skin diseases such as eczema or psoriasis to the wrinkling of skin as people age. Inadequate or loss of expression of this gene, called CTIP2, may play a role in some skin disorders, scientists believe, and understanding the mechanisms of gene ... [full story]

A vault designed to pro­tect va­nish­ing seed va­rie­ties for fu­ture gener­a­t­ions opened Feb. 26 on a re­mote Arc­tic is­land.The Sval­bard Glob­al Seed Vault, a pro­ject of the Nor­we­gian go­vern­ment, re­ceived in­au­gu­ral ship­ments of 100 mil­lion seeds that orig­i­nat­ed in over 100 coun­tries.  The seed vault's entrance juts out from a mountainside. (Credit: Mari Tefre/Global Crop Diversity Trust) With de­posits rang­ing from un­ique va­ri­eties of Af­ri­can and Asian food sta­ples such as maize, rice, wheat, cow­pea, and ... [full story]

Al­bert Ein­stein the­o­rized long ago that mov­ing things would warp the fab­ric of space and time, which ac­cord­ing to his find­ings are unit­ed as a four-di­men­sional space-time. As the ob­jects trav­eled, they would al­so em­a­nate rip­ples of grav­i­ty called grav­i­ta­tion­al waves. No one has de­tected that yet, but some re­search­ers be­lieve they could find such waves com­ing from strange, wispy cos­mic struc­tures called su­per­strings. Cos­mic su­per­strings are the­o­rized to wig­gle and os­cil­late, pro­duc­ing grav­i­ta­tion­al waves, and ... [full story]

Poorly managed marine fisheries are in trouble around the world, researchers say, while ecosystem-based management is a powerful idea that in theory could help ensure sustainable catches - but too often there’s a gap in translating broad concepts into specific action in the oceans that successfully meets these larger goals. To address that, Mark Hixon, a professor of zoology at Oregon State University, today modified a very old set of rules and issued “Ten Commandments” ... [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]

So what does an underwater cage full of white sea bass miles out in the ocean have to do with a sugar beet farm in northern Utah? Everything, as far as Donald Kent is concerned.   AQUACULTURE AMBASSADOR - Donald Kent, president of the Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute, has led the nonprofit for more than a decade. CNS Photo by John Gibbins. It was a sugar beet farm that sustained Kent's father, Sidney Kent, and his family during ... [full story]

A spaceship inspired by beautiful novelist Vanna Bonta is for sale on eBay, winning the high bidder a place in aerospace and literary history and possibly half of a million-dollar grand prize. A rocket competing in a NASA Lunar Lander competition has been named 'Lauryad,' after the spaceship from American novelist Vanna Bonta's quantum fiction FLIGHT trilogy, and is being auctioned on eBay, Integrated Media announced. eBay auction Lunar LanderThe rocket's team is competing in ... [full story]

Anyone who has ever put up Christmas lights knows the problem: Holiday strands so carefully packed away last year are now more knotty than nice. In fact, they have become an inextricable, inexplicable, seemingly inevitable mess. It happens every year, like some sort of universal law of physics.   XMASKNOT - University of California San Diego researchers Doug Smith, 38, right,who is a professor of Physics at UCSD, and Dorian Raymer, 24, left, who is a ... [full story]