May 29, 2007

• Russia
  Russia
  Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
  
   successfully tests its new RS-24
  RS-24
  The RS-24 Yars is a Russian MIRV-equipped, thermonuclear intercontinental ballistic missile first tested on May 29, 2007 after a secret military R&D project, to replace the older R-36 and UR-100N that have been already used almost for 50 years. RS-24 is a missile that is heavier than the current...
  
   ICBM, purportedly designed to defeat present and future anti-missile system
  Anti-ballistic missile
  An anti-ballistic missile is a missile designed to counter ballistic missiles .A ballistic missile is used to deliver nuclear, chemical, biological or conventional warheads in a ballistic flight trajectory. The term "anti-ballistic missile" describes any antimissile system designed to counter...
  
  s. (RIA Novosti) (Interfax-AVN) (The Guardian)

May 23, 2007

• A study on the development of land-adapted limb
  Limb (anatomy)
  A limb is a jointed, or prehensile , appendage of the human or other animal body....
  
  s in prehistoric fish
  Fish
  Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...
  
   is published in Nature
  Nature (journal)
  Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...
  
  . From analysis of the fossil
  Fossil
  Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...
  
   remains of Tiktaalik roseaes fins the authors conclude that gradual changes can explain the evolution in its structure. (BBCNews)

May 22, 2007

• Members of NASA
  NASA
  The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
  
  's Spirit rover
  Spirit rover
  Spirit, MER-A , is a robotic rover on Mars, active from 2004 to 2010. It was one of two rovers of NASA's ongoing Mars Exploration Rover Mission. It landed successfully on Mars at 04:35 Ground UTC on January 4, 2004, three weeks before its twin, Opportunity , landed on the other side of the planet...
  
   team announce the discovery of a patch of soil on Mars
  Mars
  Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
  
   that consists of about 90 percent silica
  Silicon dioxide
  The chemical compound silicon dioxide, also known as silica , is an oxide of silicon with the chemical formula '. It has been known for its hardness since antiquity...
  
  . This is seen as strong evidence for liquid water
  Water
  Water is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. A water molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state . Water also exists in a...
  
   in the area of Gusev crater
  Gusev crater
  Gusev is a crater on the planet Mars and is located at . The crater is about 166 kilometers in diameter and formed approximately three to four billion years ago. It was named after Russian astronomer Matvei Gusev in 1976....
  
   at some earlier time. (Reuters)

May 15, 2007

• NASA
  NASA
  The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
  
   and the European Space Agency
  European Space Agency
  The European Space Agency , established in 1975, is an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to the exploration of space, currently with 18 member states...
  
   announce that the Hubble Space Telescope
  Hubble Space Telescope
  The Hubble Space Telescope is a space telescope that was carried into orbit by a Space Shuttle in 1990 and remains in operation. A 2.4 meter aperture telescope in low Earth orbit, Hubble's four main instruments observe in the near ultraviolet, visible, and near infrared...
  
   has detected a ring of dark matter
  Dark matter
  In astronomy and cosmology, dark matter is matter that neither emits nor scatters light or other electromagnetic radiation, and so cannot be directly detected via optical or radio astronomy...
  
   2.6 million light-year
  Light-year
  A light-year, also light year or lightyear is a unit of length, equal to just under 10 trillion kilometres...
  
  s wide, in a cluster of galaxies
  Galaxy groups and clusters
  Galaxy groups and clusters are the largest known gravitationally bound objects to have arisen thus far in the process of cosmic structure formation. They form the densest part of the large scale structure of the universe...
  
   five billion light-years from Earth
  Earth
  Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
  
  . (Boston Globe) (NASA)

May 8, 2007

• A startup grant sponsored by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
  Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
  The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is a philanthropic non-profit organization in the United States. It was established in 1934 by Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., then-President and Chief Executive Officer of General Motors.-Overview:...
  
   is announced to fund the Encyclopedia of Life
  Encyclopedia of Life
  The Encyclopedia of Life is a free, online collaborative encyclopedia intended to document all of the 1.9 million living species known to science. It is compiled from existing databases and from contributions by experts and non-experts throughout the world...
  
  . (Reuters)

May 4, 2007

• Mission members of the COROT
  Corot
  Corot may refer to:* Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, French landscape painter * COROT, a space mission with the dual aims of finding extrasolar planets and performing asteroseismology* COROT-7, a dwarf star in the Monoceros constellation...
  
   space observatory
  Space observatory
  A space observatory is any instrument in outer space which is used for observation of distant planets, galaxies, and other outer space objects...
  
   program announce the discovery of its first exoplanet
  Extrasolar planet
  An extrasolar planet, or exoplanet, is a planet outside the Solar System. A total of such planets have been identified as of . It is now known that a substantial fraction of stars have planets, including perhaps half of all Sun-like stars...
  
  , found during its initial 60 day science phase. It is designated COROT-Exo-1b
  COROT-Exo-1b
  COROT-1b is an extrasolar planet approximately 1,560 light-years away in the constellation of Monoceros. The planet was discovered orbiting the yellow dwarf star COROT-1 in May 2007...
  
   and orbits its sun
  Star
  A star is a massive, luminous sphere of plasma held together by gravity. At the end of its lifetime, a star can also contain a proportion of degenerate matter. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth...
  
   once in 1.5 days. (SpaceRef.com)

May 3, 2007

• Using precise measurements of planet
  Planet
  A planet is a celestial body orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals.The term planet is ancient, with ties to history, science,...
  
   Mercury
  Mercury (planet)
  Mercury is the innermost and smallest planet in the Solar System, orbiting the Sun once every 87.969 Earth days. The orbit of Mercury has the highest eccentricity of all the Solar System planets, and it has the smallest axial tilt. It completes three rotations about its axis for every two orbits...
  
  's rotation
  Rotation
  A rotation is a circular movement of an object around a center of rotation. A three-dimensional object rotates always around an imaginary line called a rotation axis. If the axis is within the body, and passes through its center of mass the body is said to rotate upon itself, or spin. A rotation...
  
  , scientists discover a significant "wobble", that most likely is caused by the core
  Planetary core
  The planetary core consists of the innermost layer of a planet.The core may be composed of solid and liquid layers, while the cores of Mars and Venus are thought to be completely solid as they lack an internally generated magnetic field. In our solar system, core size can range from about 20% to...
  
   of the planet being liquid
  Liquid
  Liquid is one of the three classical states of matter . Like a gas, a liquid is able to flow and take the shape of a container. Some liquids resist compression, while others can be compressed. Unlike a gas, a liquid does not disperse to fill every space of a container, and maintains a fairly...
  
  .(Reuters)