|  Can Human Civilization Continue Indefinitely?  | SAN FRANCISCO — Human beings have altered the Earth so much that human extinction is a real possibility if people continue on their current path. "For our civilization to become a new kind of entity on the planet, we need to live comfortably, over the long haul, with world-changing technology," David H. Grinspoon, an astrobiologist at the Library of Congress, said Dec. 12 here at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Not everyone agrees that a long-term perspective is possible or that it will prevent Earth's demise. For most of the last 4.5 billion years, Earth has been shaped by natural disasters, such as the dinosaur-killing asteroid, or biological forces, such as the rise of cyanobacteria that created the planet's oxygen-rich atmosphere, Grinspoon said.
| Read More » Pot and Pets: Should Dogs Get High? His owner, after seeing the effect that narcotic painkillers such as tramadol were having on Miles, decided to try something else: medical marijuana. As marijuana's once-ironclad restrictions become more relaxed, and researchers begin to find more therapeutic uses for the formerly banned substance, pet owners around the world may be wondering: Is pot good for my pet? Since 1970, marijuana has been classified by the federal government as a Schedule I controlled substance, meaning it has no recognized medical uses and a high potential for abuse, placing it in the same category as heroin and LSD. Many medical authorities, including the American Medical Association and the National Association for Public Health Policy, scoff at pot's Schedule I designation. Read More » Rugged Martian Terrain Chewing Up Curiosity Rover's Wheels  | Engineers are gearing up to perform a check of the Mars rover Curiosity's six wheels, which have accumulated a lot of wear and tear during the robot's 16 months on the Red Planet.
| Read More » NASA Astronauts Perform 1st of 3 Holiday Spacewalks Saturday: Watch Live  | On Saturday morning (Dec. 21), two NASA astronauts will venture outside the International Space Station to perform the first of potentially three urgent spacewalks to fix the vital cooling system on the orbiting outpost, and you can watch the excursion live online. NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins and Rick Mastracchio will perform the spacewalk, which is expected to begin the necessary repairs on the outside of the station. NASA TV will broadcast the entire 6.5-hour spacewalk set to begin at 7:10 a.m. EST (1210 GMT) Saturday. The six residents of the space station are not in any immediate danger, but in order to get the station up to its fully functional status, the two astronauts will need to perform a series of quickly planned spacewalks, NASA officials said.
| Read More » The Most Productive Day of the Workweek Is ... Max Messmer, chairman of Accountemps, said Mondays can be productive because many workers spend the day catching up from the previous week and planning the one ahead. "The goal should be to maintain the positive momentum established on Tuesday throughout the week." To help make that happen, Accountemps offers the following five tips to increase productivity and make every day like Tuesday. Read More » The Thing Employees Want Most From a Job For most employees, money doesn't necessarily buy happiness: Nearly 45 percent of surveyed Americans say having work they enjoy is their greatest professional priority, while about one-third consider job security, work-life balance and good benefits equally valuable, a new study finds. Specifically, employees in the first decades of their working lives — millennials and Gen Xers — place much more value on opportunities for advancement than do baby boomers, who are at or near the peak of their careers. About two-thirds of these young adults said they want to be the boss or a top executive someday, compared with just half of Gen Xers and 26 percent of baby boomers. The findings of the study are based primarily on data from anew Pew Research Center survey of more than 2,000 U.S. adults, the Current Population Survey and the American Time Use Survey. Read More » NASA Astronauts Step Outside Space Station for 1st of 3 Holiday Spacewalks  | Two NASA astronauts have begun the first of three quickly planned spacewalks to fix a problem with the International Space Station's vital cooling system. NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins and Rick Mastracchio ventured outside of the space station's Quest airlock today (Dec. 21) to begin the repairs. NASA TV will broadcast the entire 6.5-hour EVA (extra-vehicular activity or spacewalk), and you can watch the spacewalk live on SPACE.com. The six space station residents are not in any immediate danger, but in order to get the station up to its fully functional status, the two astronauts will need to perform the spacewalks scheduled for today, Dec. 23 and, if necessary, Christmas Day (Dec. 25), NASA officials said.
| Read More » Robot Olympics: Japan's Schaft Takes Lead in 2-Day Competition  | HOMESTEAD, Fla. — After one full day of competition, a two-legged, 209-pound (95 kilograms) blue robot sits atop the leaderboard here at the DARPA Robotics Challenge Trials. DARPA, the agency within the U.S. Department of Defense responsible for developing new technologies for the military, designed the contest as a way to foster the development of new robots that could one day work with humans to secure disaster sites in the aftermath of a natural or man-made catastrophe.
| Read More » 6 Ancient Tributes to the Winter Solstice Today (Dec. 21), those living in the Northern Hemisphere celebrate the mark of increasingly longer days, those in the Southern Hemisphere will transition to shorter days, and those at the equator won't notice much of a difference at all. The global discrepancy in seasonal sunlight results from Earth's 23.5-degree tilt on its axis: During the Northern Hemisphere winter, the Earth is tilted directly away from the sun, and during the summer, it is tilted directly toward the sun. For many ancient civilizations that struggled to subsist through harsh winter months, the winter solstice marked a time of spiritual rejoice and celebration. Still other people celebrate the day by tuning into the spiritual rituals of ancient civilizations and visiting the sites of winter solstice tributes. Read More » Spacewalking Astronauts Remove Faulty Space Station Pump Ahead of Schedule  | HOUSTON — Two astronauts working speedily outside the International Space Station removed a faulty pump module ahead of schedule, potentially negating the need for a planned Christmas Day spacewalk as they work to repair the outpost's critical cooling system. NASA astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Mike Hopkins ventured outside the space station at 7:01 a.m. EST (1101 GMT) today (Dec. 21), just 10 days after a flow control valve malfunctioned inside the pump module that they were set to remove and replace during another 6.5-hour spacewalk on Monday. Saturday's spacewalk ended at 12:29 p.m. EST (1729 GMT), five hours and 28 minutes after it began. Originally, the astronauts were just going to prepare the faulty pump for removal today, but the spacewalkers completed the majority of the planned tasks for Saturday's spacewalk in just three hours.
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