|  Jaw-Dropping Views of Saturn Cap 2013 for NASA's Cassini Spacecraft (Photos)  | NASA's Cassini spacecraft has capped 2013 with a spectacular new collection of Saturn photos showcasing the planet's beauty, as well with its trademark rings and strange moons. The newly released Saturn photos by Cassini include two views of Enceladus, Saturn's sixth-largest moon. Geysers at its poles shoot ice particles into space, some of which make it into orbit around Saturn. Some of this space "snow" becomes part of Saturn's E ring, Saturn's second outermost ring that is made of microscopic particles.
| Read More » 6 US Drone-Testing Centers Announced  | In a push to bring drones to U.S. skies, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has selected six site operators to research and test unmanned aircraft across the country. Three universities — the University of Alaska, Virginia Tech and Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi — as well as Griffiss International Airport in upstate New York, the state of Nevada and the North Dakota Department of Commerce were among the FAA's picks announced Monday (Dec. 30). The shape of some ventures, such as Amazon's Prime Air, will hinge on the FAA's decisions. FAA officials say these six new site operators "will conduct critical research into the certification and operational requirements necessary to safely integrate UAS [unmanned aircraft systems] into the national airspace over the next several years."
| Read More » Light in Cloud Forests Can Outshine a Sunny Day  | One surprise: On cloudy days, these misty forests may actually see more light than they would on a perfectly sunny day. "Sometimes it's brighter than complete sunlight," Keith Reinhardt, a plant physiologist at Idaho State University, said last month at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. To find out why, Reinhardt and his colleagues placed light, temperature and moisture sensors on spruce fir trees in the southern Appalachian forestsstretching from Virginia to the Great Smokey Mountains. The mountains, about 6,500 feet (2,000 meters) high, are cool and wet, with cloud bottoms often grazing the forest floor, and mountaintops shrouded in fog for 60 to 80 percent of all the days in the growing season, Reinhardt said.
| Read More » Florida's Mangrove Forests Expand with Climate Change  | Fewer deep freezes, attributable to Earth's warming climate, have caused mangrove forests to expand northward in Florida over the past three decades, new research suggests. "Mangroves showed the largest increases in regions where cold snaps became less frequent over the past 30 years," study co-author Kyle Cavanaugh, an ecologist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Maryland, wrote in an email. The findings, published today (Dec. 30) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest that climate change could alter ecosystems even more dramatically in the years to come. They found that the area taken up by mangrove forests in the northernmost latitudes had doubled over the last few decades, while the southern stretches changed little.
| Read More » Real-Life Smoking Caterpillar Uses Nicotine as Defense  | Ripped from the pages of Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland," scientists have discovered a smoking caterpillar of sorts. The researchers found a gene in hornworm caterpillars that allows them to puff nicotine out through their spiracles (tiny holes in their sides), from the tobacco they consume, as a warning to their would-be predators. Researchers called this tactic "defensive halitosis." [Video – See the Smoking Caterpillars in Action] "We never would have discovered the function of this gene if the spider hadn't told us," he told LiveScience.
| Read More » Gone in 2013: A Tribute to 10 Remarkable Women in Science  | Gone in 2013: A Tribute to 10 Remarkable Women in Science
| Read More » Teaching Kids to Love Science, and Falling in Love with the Kids  | Teaching Kids to Love Science, and Falling in Love with the Kids
| Read More » Rocket Engines and Retired Shuttles: 2013, the Year in Space History Artifacts  | The year 2013 has left its mark on space exploration history, but it was also a banner year for space artifacts from decades past. The prior 12 months saw a new type of U.S. commercial cargo spacecraft resupply the International Space Station, the first Canadian astronaut to command a space mission, the first Indian interplanetary probe lift off for Mars and the first Chinese moon landing. But 2013 also marked the reemergence of four-decade-old rocket parts, the re-lighting of an equally-old engine piece, the debut of a retired space shuttle and the redesign of the orbiter's mission control.
| Read More » Beyoncé Challenger Shuttle Disaster Audio Clip Upsets Astronauts' Families  | Beyoncé is ending the year on a sour note with members of the NASA community. The pop singer included an audio clip from the 1986 space shuttle Challenger disaster as part of her new song, "XO." The track was released Dec. 13 as part of Beyoncé's new self-titled album. What followed almost 30 years ago was one of the most solemn moments in NASA's history. In the song however, Nesbitt's words are met with Beyoncé singing about love and being kissed by her lover.
| Read More » One-Third of Americans Don't Believe in Human Evolution The new findings come from to the Pew Research Religion & Public Life Project, which surveyed a national sample of 1,983 adults over the phone and also collected survey questionnaires from an additional 4,006 adults. Both white Catholics and white Protestants are similarly likely to see God's hand guiding evolution if they do believe, with 36 percent of all white mainline Protestants and 33 percent of all white Catholics saying a supreme being guided the evolution of living things. Read More » The 10 Best Science Stories of 2013  | Archaeologists excavated ancient civilizations; Planning is underway, and $232 million of government and private money has been pledged to the initiative, as of November.
| Read More » Bizarre Physics, Exomoons & Humanoids: Science Wishes for 2014  | Science breakthroughs in the past year include the discovery of new planets far beyond Earth's solar system, the confirmation of an elusive particle and new clues about the evolutionary history of early humans. But the worlds still need to be confirmed as such.
| Read More » 11 Must-See Skywatching Events in 2014  | During the overnight hours, it will be a night first for Mars and later for the full moon. As a bonus, later that very same night (actually the early hours of April 15), North America will have a ringside seat to a total lunar eclipse when the full moon becomes transformed into a mottled reddish ball for 78 minutes as it is completely immersed in the shadow of the Earth. This total lunar eclipse will be the first one widely visible from North America in nearly 3.5 years. The Americas will have the best view of this eclipse, although over Canada's Maritime provinces, moonset will intervene near the end of totality.
| Read More » Naked Mole Rat Named 'Vertebrate of the Year'  | Famed as the world's longest-living rodent, the wrinkly faced naked mole rat has won Science Magazine's Vertebrate of the Year award, confirming that the contest is based on more than just looks. The naked mole rat, a subterranean rodent native to East Africa, can live up to 30 years, roughly nine times longer than mice of the same size. With two yellow buck teeth protruding from a pale, hairless body, the mammal may not be an eye pleaser, but it has an alluring longevity-related adaptation that has gripped researchers in recent years: It seems to be immune to cancer. The academic journal Science Magazine chose the animal as its 2013 Vertebrate of the Year to celebrate two groundbreaking studies this year that have helped explain the animal's resistance to cancer.
| Read More » Secret to Ancient Roman Sundial Revealed in 3D Simulations  | Using NASA data and new computer simulations, researchers say they've discovered how the sun would have lined up with an Egyptian obelisk and the famed Ara Pacis in ancient Rome. The Ara Pacis, or "Altar of Peace," was dedicated in the year 9 B.C. to honor the Pax Romana, an era of relative peace established by Rome's first emperor Augustus. But in ancient times, it would have stood in the northern outskirts of the city, near an Egyptian obelisk that the Romans uprooted from Heliopolis and repurposed as a gnomon, or giant sundial. Many historians had long accepted German scholar Edmund Buchner's theory that the shadow of the obelisk (which now sits in the Piazza Montecitorio) would hit the center of the facade of the Ara Pacis on Augustus' birthday, Sept. 23.
| Read More » Why We Make New Year's Resolutions Ancient people practiced the fine art of New Year's resolutions, though their oaths were external, rather than internally focused. Citizens would bring each other gifts of honey, pears and other sweets as presents for a "sweet new year," Alston said. Read More » Cosmic Horsehead Dances with Flame Nebula in Amateur Astronomer's Photo  | The iconic Horsehead and Flame nebulas paint the night sky in this beautiful image recently sent to SPACE.com. Amateur astrophotographer David Ellison captured this image from his backyard in Chattanooga, Tenn. Located approximately 1,500 light years from Earth in the constellation Orion, the Horsehead Nebula is simple to spot due to its unique shape resembling a horse's head. "People don't realize just how large this nebula is in the sky," Ellison told SPACE.com in an email. The star seen just above the Flame nebula is Alnitak. [100 Greatest Night Sky Photos of 2013]
| Read More » Shapeshifting Northern Lights Dance Over Alaska in Amazing Photos  | Dazzling auroras over Alaska take center stage in these spellbinding images captured this month by an amateur astronomer.
| Read More » Oh, Never Mind: Top 5 Retracted Science Studies of 2013 Mistakes often result in a scientific retraction, a public removal of the flawed paper from publication. A private, U.S.-based blog called Retraction Watch keeps track of such retractions, which seem to be on the rise these days. General anesthesia pertains to a temporary, total loss of sensation and consciousness. Perhaps a group of Chinese scientists inhaled a little too much anesthetic when they published "Different anesthesia methods for laparoscopic cholecystectomy." [No Duh! The 10 Most Obvious Science Findings] Read More » 4 Mobile Technologies That Will Change How You Do Business in 2014 Small business owners, get ready. In 2014, new mobile gear will help you connect with customers, sell your product and stay productive wherever you are. In other words, these four burgeoning mobile technologies are primed to change how you do business in the new year.Phablets Read More » 6 Ways Retail Will Change in 2014 From mobile technologies changing the way consumers shop to new ways of accepting and processing payments, these trends are just the beginning. Some of the changes retailers saw in 2013 included more robust and flexible mobile credit card processing solutions that enabled businesses to take payments anytime, anywhere; Next year, retailers should expect these trends to play even more significant roles by enabling mobile commerce (m-commerce) and e-commerce to take businesses and consumer expectations to the next level. Not only will there be strong consumer demand that will make m-commerce the norm for retailers, but small businesses will have an even greater opportunity to work with and expand toward global markets via e-commerce. Read More » New Year, New Career: How to Land Your Dream Job in 2014 "Oftentimes, companies have just re-evaluated their budget and departmental needs, and are prepared to bring in new employees at the beginning of the year," said Thomas Moran, CEO of staffing firm Addison Group. Originally published on BusinessNewsDaily. Read More » Big Space Missions to Watch in 2014  | Two new probes are expected to make it into Martian orbit in September and NASA's Curiosity and Opportunity rovers are still sending science back to Earth from the surface of the Red Planet. Both India's Mars orbiter Mangalyaan and NASA's MAVEN mission are expected to get into their orbits around Mars in September. MAVEN is going to investigate the Martian atmosphere and hopefully help piece together the history of how the Red Planet lost its atmosphere. Mangalyaan, India's first Mars probe, is designed to beam back images of Mars' surface and hunt for methane in the planet's atmosphere.
| Read More » 10 Coolest Archaeology Discoveries of 2013  | Archaeologists dig through the faint traces of the past to learn more about human history. From royal tombs to the mysterious vanished inhabitants of Europe, here are some of the strangest and most exciting archaeology finds of the year. It turns out Richard III may have been a control freak who spoke with a lilt and was subjected to painful scoliosis treatment.
| Read More » Tracker Craze: Fitness Wristbands' Popularity Will Continue to Grow  | Fitness trackers like the Fitbit Force, Jawbone Up and Nike+ Fuelband are rapidly increasing in popularity, and experts say this trend will continue in the coming years. While the overall market for devices for sports and fitness tracking devices — which includes things like heart-rate monitors, GPS watches and biking computers — is predicted to see a 10 percent increase in revenue by the end of 2017, the market for activity trackers is predicted to see a nearly 25 percent increase, said Shane Walker, an analyst at the research company IHS.
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