I wish I’d seen this…

A bright fireball lit the sky over Saskatchewan…and I missed it.

The ancient sea of Mars

Nope, “The Ancient Sea of Mars” is not the title of a lost Barsoomian tale by Edgar Rice Burroughs; it’s where one of the Mars Rovers touched down! Next thing you know they’ll spot a fossil…

Invasion of the giant squid!

First Norway was attacked by Stalinist crabs, then Europe was overrun by Nazi raccoons, and now Chile is under attack by giant squids. Apparently those ’50s sci-fi movie makers were better at predicting the future than we thought.

More big news coming from Mars?

NASA is set to make another announcement of a “major scientific finding” from the Opportunity rover, tomorrow at 2 p.m. EST.

Brain fingerprinting

It sounds like science fiction: strap a few electrodes onto someone’s head and determine whether his or her brain contains certain information. But in fact “brain fingerprinting” is here today. Brain fingerprinting is based on the “ah-ha” response, an involuntary response by the brain to information it has been exposed to before. Dr. Lawrence Farwell, …

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Cool comet image

Check out this image of the Comet Wild 2, combining a detailed photo of its surface with a longer-exposure image that captures the outgassing jets. Cool!

This is good to hear…

Jayson Blair’s book is not exactly, um, burning down the house. Wonder if he’ll have to give back part of the six-figure advance?

Operatic hobbits

They’re small, but boy can they sing! The first operatic adaptation of The Hobbit is announced by the Canadian Children’s Opera Chorus.

I didn’t sign it!

Apparently, a hundred well-known (well, in Canadian terms) Canadian personalities” have demanded that Ottawa withdraw from the U.S. missile-defense shield. Hey, I’m a Canadian personality–and for what it’s worth, I say the 100 signees are all wet.

NASA explains "Dust Bowl" drought

I live in the heart of the Great Plains–always have. The “Dirty ’30s” reduced the population of Saskatchewan by something like half–only in the past few years has it rebounded to the 1 million mark, which is where it was in the late 1920s. So it’s interesting to read this new research explaining how the …

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There goes another one…

It was a near-miss, in cosmic terms: an asteroid 30 metres in diameter zipped by Earth Thursday, only 43,000 kilometres out.

Pterosaurs: pterrific phlyers

Here’s an interesting article about pterosaurs: new research says they were sophisticated flyers, not just gliders–and they could teach modern aircraft designers a thing or two!