|  Watch the Milky Way Shine Over California's King Range in This Awesome Video  | Robert Wick, photographer for the BLM, contributed this video to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. The King Range is one of more than 800 units of the National Conservation Lands, special areas managed for conservation by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. For further information on these spectacular lands visit the BLM special areas site.
| Read More » Cosmic Forensics Pinpoint Stellar Suspects in Supernovae (Kavli Roundtable)  | Adam Hadhazy, writer and editor for The Kavli Foundation, contributed this article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. For brief periods, Type Ia supernovae can outshine an entire galaxy of billions of stars. Astrophysicists want to understand the origins of supernovae because they are integral to the evolution of galaxies and the study of dark energy.
| Read More » Does Marijuana Change the Brain? The effects of marijuana on the brain may be more complicated than experts previously thought, and may depend on factors related to the person using the drug, such as their genetics, two new studies suggest. Marijuana use does not lead to smaller brain size in teens, one of the new studies found. But in people who are genetically prone to schizophrenia, marijuana could alter their brain development in potentially negative ways, according to the other new study. Read More » Forget the 'Supermoon': What's Actually Happening at Lunar Perigee  | A full moon is when the sun, Earth and moon line up, with the Earth in the middle. As seen from the surface of the Earth, the moon is fully illuminated. Because the Earth is constantly revolving around the sun and the moon is constantly revolving around the Earth, a full moon is an instantaneous event, occurring when the moon is exactly opposite the sun.
| Read More » New NASA Model Maps Sea Level Rise Like Never Before (Video)  | A new NASA model is showing just how fast sea levels are rising around the world as a result of climate change. At a news conference today (Aug. 26), NASA officials described a new computer visualization of sea level change incorporating data collected by satellites since 1992 — it reveals that sea levels are rising quickly but unevenly across the globe. "Sea level rise is one of the most visible signatures of our changing climate, and rising seas have profound impacts on our nation, our economy and all of humanity," Michael Freilich, director of NASA's Earth Science Division at the agency's headquarters in Washington, D.C., said at the news conference.
| Read More » NASA Crashes Plane to Test Emergency Beacons (Video)  | NASA sent a small airplane plummeting to Earth today (Aug. 26), for safety's sake. Scientists and engineers at the space agency's Langley Research Center in Virginia dropped a Cessna 172 from a height of 100 feet (30 meters), in a crash test that was captured on video. Two dummies were aboard the 1974 airplane, which was outfitted with a number of cameras and sensors, as well as five emergency locator transmitters (ELTs).
| Read More » Baby Panda Twin Dies at National Zoo  | One of giant panda Mei Xiang's twin cubs died today (Aug. 26), just five days after its birth, the Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington, D.C., reported. The cub showed no signs of decline until this morning, after spending the night with its mother Mei Xiang (may-SHONG), while its twin stayed in an incubator, said Dr. Donald Neiffer, the chief veterinarian of the National Zoo. This arrangement was set up to help Mei Xiang care for the twins.
| Read More » NASA: Rising Sea Levels More Dangerous Than Thought  | The consequences of global sea level rise could be even scarier than the worst-case scenarios predicted by the dominant climate models, which don't fully account for the fast breakup of ice sheets and glaciers, NASA scientists said today (Aug. 26) at a press briefing. The open question, NASA scientists say, is just how quickly the seas will rise in the future. "When heat goes under the ocean, it expands just like mercury in a thermometer," Steve Nerem, lead scientist for NASA's Sea Level Change Team at the University of Colorado in Boulder, said in the press briefing.
| Read More » FDA wants food companies to hand over their pathogens  | By Julie Steenhuysen CHICAGO (Reuters) - Investigations into foodborne illness are being radically transformed by whole genome sequencing, which federal officials say is enabling them to identify the source of an outbreak far more quickly and prevent additional cases. Previously, samples from sick patients were sent to state and federal labs, where disease detectives ran tests to see if the infections were caused by the same bug. When enough matches emerged, typically a dozen or so, epidemiologists interviewed sick people, looking for a common food that was causing the outbreak.
| Read More » 'Star Trek: Renegades' Fan Film Warps Online on YouTube  | A new (but unofficial) "Star Trek" film is out there now for the world to see — for free.
| Read More » No, Mars Won't Be As Big as the Moon in the Sky Tonight  | Sorry, skywatchers: Despite what you may have heard, Mars won't look as big as the moon overhead tonight (Aug. 27). The unknown sender of that message was trying to get people excited about an unusually close approach of Mars to Earth in late August 2003. "The encounter will culminate on Aug. 27 when Mars comes to within 34,649,589 miles (55,763,108 kilometers) of Earth and will be (next to the moon) the brightest object in the night sky," one paragraph of the email reads.
| Read More » India's 1st Mars Probe Captures Stunning 3D View of Huge Chasm  | India's first mission to Mars has captured a stunning new 3D view of a vast chasm, revealing gullies shaped by erosive forces on the Red Planet. The images, sent back by India's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), show Ophir Chasma, a portion of the massive Valles Marineris system that stretches across much of the planet's equator. According to NASA, the chasm is the northernmost connected valley in Valles Marineris, which is about 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometers) long.
| Read More » What's Blue with Legs All Over? New 3D Avatar Millipede  | The 1.5-inch-long (3.8 centimeters) millipede was discovered in Andalusia in Spain, in 2005. It lives in the dirt underneath stones and leaf litter — a decomposer that "acts as an important component of soil fauna," said study lead researcher Nesrine Akkari, the curator of the Myriapoda Collection at the Museum of Natural History in Vienna. The researchers placed the jar containing the millipede in the machine, which then took X-rays of the specimen from different angles.
| Read More » Why America Is Prone to Mass Shootings A strange paradox is emerging in America: Overall violent-crime rates are down, but active shooter events — in which a person is trying to kill multiple people in a populated area — appear to be on the rise, according to Federal Bureau of Investigation statistics. Meanwhile, a just-released study finds that although the United States has just about 5 percent of the world's population, the country has 31 percent of the world's mass shooters. The reasons for these numbers are complex, researchers say, but the data suggest that the availability of guns, and perhaps the American obsession with fame, may be to blame. Read More » What Household Dust Says About You Menageries of microscopic life — veritable zoos with extraordinary diversity — lurk hidden in household dust, and scientists now find that these tiny communities can differ greatly from each other depending of where a person lives, what pets a person has, and how many people in the house are male or female, researchers say. "Our homes are ecosystems," said study co-author Noah Fierer, a microbial ecologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder. This research could shed light on the impact that dust microbes can have on human health, scientists added. Read More » Mars Hoaxes: Why We Believe  | Any emails or Facebook messages to the contrary are, alas, nothing but a hoax. Rumors that Mars would appear as large as the moon first emerged in 2003, when the Red Planet was actually passing closer than usual to Earth. Since then, the hoax has circulated every year and is going around yet again, despite multiple attempts by NASA to debunk this myth.
| Read More » Mars Hoaxes! 6 Stubborn Red Planet Conspiracy Theories  | Every year in August, the same Mars message circulates across the Internet: The Red Planet will appear "as big as the full moon" in the sky, as seen with the naked eye. The so-called Mars Hoax (which started in 2003 after a real-life close approach of Mars to the Earth) is just one of a series of false claims concerning the Red Planet. Readers apparently missed the line saying that it would take a 75-power magnification in a telescope to make Mars appear as big as the full moon.
| Read More » Why Knut the Polar Bear Died So Suddenly  | He spawned millions of fuzzy toys, garnered media attention on everything from his cod-liver diet to his lack of mates and even inspired his own song before his untimely death in 2011. He was Knut the polar bear, the star of the Berlin Zoo. It turns out that Knut was killed by an autoimmune disorder called anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis, a kind of brain inflammation.
| Read More » Insecure Men May Be More Prone to Violence Although it's often assumed that males who feel they are "manly" men are more likely to engage in violence than those who are less concerned about their masculinity, men who feel they don't meet perceived masculine gender norms and are stressed about it may be equally prone to violent acts, a new study finds. "These findings suggest prevention of discrepancy stress may likewise prevent acts of violence with the greatest consequences and costs to the victim, offender and society," the researchers wrote in the study. Read More » 'McWhopper' Mega-Burger Would Have Mega-Calories Burger King is proposing a one-day truce with its fast-food competitor McDonald's to create the "McWhopper," a combination of the Big Mac and the Whopper, the most popular burgers at the respective chains. Neither restaurant has released information about the exact nutritional value of the hypothetical mega-burger, which Burger King wants to sell in honor of World Peace Day in September. According to the Burger King proposal, the McWhopper would be 6 parts Big Mac and 6 parts Whopper. Read More » Birth Order Peril: Firstborn Women More Likely to Be Obese Second-born siblings may argue that firstborns get all the glory, but there may be a health benefit to coming in second: Firstborn women may be more likely to be overweight or obese than their later-born sisters, according to a new study in Sweden. Firstborn women in the study were 29 percent more likely to be overweight, and 40 percent more likely to be obese, compared with their second-born sisters, according to the researchers. In the study, researchers looked at data from the Swedish Birth Register on nearly 13,500 pairs of sisters. The data included the participants' weight when they were born, as well as their weight and height during their first pregnancies, at their first prenatal visit. Read More » Placenta 'Switch' that Kickstarts Labor May Solve Long-Standing Mystery As any 40-weeks'-pregnant woman can attest, predicting when labor might start is a dark art — which is to say, basically impossible. Now, a new study suggests that a genetic "switch" in the placenta might kick off the production of the hormones that start labor. "It's 2015, and even now we don't understand how the clock works that governs the length of pregnancy," said study researcher Dr. Todd Rosen, chief of maternal-fetal medicine at the Rutgers University Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Read More » Scientists solve mystery of polar bear Knut's death  | Knut, the star polar bear who was hand-reared at Berlin zoo after his mother rejected him, had a type of auto-immune inflation of the brain that is found in humans, scientists said on Thursday. Knut, who was just four when he drowned at the zoo in 2011, was reared by his keeper Thomas Doerflein. Knut had an epileptic fit and drowned in a pool in his enclosure.
| Read More » Scientists solve mystery of polar bear Knut's death  | Knut, the star polar bear who was hand-reared at Berlin zoo after his mother rejected him, had a type of auto-immune inflation of the brain that is found in humans, scientists said on Thursday. Knut, who was just four when he drowned at the zoo in 2011, was reared by his keeper Thomas Doerflein. Knut had an epileptic fit and drowned in a pool in his enclosure.
| Read More » Scientists solve mystery of polar bear Knut's death  | Knut, the star polar bear who was hand-reared at Berlin zoo after his mother rejected him, had a type of auto-immune inflation of the brain that is found in humans, scientists said on Thursday. Knut, who was just four when he drowned at the zoo in 2011, was reared by his keeper Thomas Doerflein. Knut had an epileptic fit and drowned in a pool in his enclosure.
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