|  Bill Nye, Neil deGrasse Tyson Celebrate 35 Years of The Planetary Society  | Led by Bill Nye "The Science Guy," with help from astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, space exploration advocacy organization The Planetary Society recently celebrated its 35th anniversary and the opening of its new headquarters in Pasadena, California. Founded in 1980 by a group of scientists that included famed astronomer and science popularizer Carl Sagan, the nonprofit Planetary Society is "the largest and most influential public space organization group on Earth," according to its website. In 2010, Nye took the job of chief executive officer for the organization.
| Read More » Newfound Moon Craters Point to Asteroid Puzzle  | Newfound lunar craters suggest that asteroids that smashed into the moon long ago were very different from the ones that now occupy the asteroid belt, researchers say. Scientists think swarms of asteroids and comets pummeled Earth, the moon and the other worlds of the inner solar system during an era known as the Late Heavy Bombardment about 4.1 billion to 3.8 billion years ago. The many giant, round craters known as lunar basins that pockmark the moon's surface now stand as mute testimony to this violent time.
| Read More » NASA must take more care about rocket parts after accident: probe  | By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla (Reuters) - - Independent NASA accident investigators said the U.S. space agency should "perform a greater level of due diligence for major system components" in rockets that deliver cargo to the International Space Station following a 2014 explosion. The recommendation came in the investigators' report on the explosion of Orbital ATK's Antares rocket that destroyed a load of cargo for the space station. It may spur calls for more oversight of NASA's use of commercial contracts to deliver cargo - and soon crew members - to the space station.
| Read More » Ultrasonic bubbles give cold water bug-killing cleaning power By Matthew Stock A hand-held device that infuses a gentle stream of regular cold water with ultrasound to turn it into a highly effective cleaning tool has been developed by British scientists, who say it could reduce dependence on traditional detergents and help combat anti-microbial resistance. The device, known as Starstream, passes a gentle stream of water through a nozzle that generates ultrasound and bubbles. Read More » Giant Wyoming Crack Explained: A Landslide Brought It Down  | A gaping crack the length of six football fields that opened up in a matter of one to two weeks in northern Wyoming is likely the product of a landslide, geologists said. A hunter looking for antelope discovered the jagged gash near Ten Sleep, a town in rural Wyoming by the Bighorn Mountains, on Oct. 1, reported 9NEWS, a local CBS channel in Wyoming. "I was stunned," Randy Becker, the hunter with SNS Outfitter and Guides who found the crack, told CBS Denver.
| Read More » Autumn's Night Skies Offer the Best of Summer ... and Winter  | Looking toward the west (to the right in the graphic), you can see the familiar constellations of summer. Above Capricornus, just to the left of Altair, is the tiny constellation Delphinus, the dolphin, one of the few constellations that actually looks like its name. It's worth also exploring the region between Altair and Albireo, where you will find two of the finest deep-sky objects: Brocchi's Cluster, popularly called "the coat hanger," and the Dumbbell Nebula, one of the largest and brightest planetary nebulae.
| Read More » Sally Ride's Life Shines in New Photobiography Book for Kids  | A new children's photobiography of Sally Ride, the first American woman to fly in space, traces the course of her life in pictures and stories compiled by her partner of 27 years — offering a rare opportunity to get to know the famously private astronaut. "Sally Ride: A Photobiography of America's Pioneering Woman in Space" (Roaring Brook Press, 2015) profusely illustrated with photos and artifacts from Ride's life, O'Shaughnessy draws from all those eras to paint a full picture of her, pointing the way for any young person wondering what the life of an astronaut is like and what it takes to become one. Space.com talked with O'Shaughnessy about writing the biography and what she hopes people will take away from Ride's story.
| Read More » Alan Alda's Challenge: Can you Explain Sound to an 11-Year-Old?  | The winning answer will help not only children across the world understand sound, but also the contest's founder, actor Alan Alda. Alda is known for his work on the TV series "M*A*S*H" and "The West Wing," and now heads the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University in New York. In fact, Alda started the competition based on an experience he had at age 11.
| Read More » Why Do Sand Dune Avalanches Boom, Burp and Sing?  | The booming and burping sounds each correspond to different classes of waves within the sand dune, they found. During the investigation, researchers visited Eureka Dunes in Death Valley and Dumont Dunes in the Mojave Desert — or what the researchers called the "very hot and sandy dunes in California" — for a total of 25 summer days, study lead researcher Nathalie Vriend said in a statement. Vriend completed the research while a doctoral student at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, but now is a research fellow in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge in England.
| Read More » Robin Williams' Death: What Is Lewy Body Dementia? Although actor Robin Williams died by suicide, the underlying cause of his death was a rare brain disease called Lewy body dementia, according to his widow. The disease caused Williams to experience hallucinations and other debilitating neurological symptoms, including depression, Susan Schneider Williams, widow of the late actor, told People magazine in a recent interview. "It was not depression that killed Robin," Schneider Williams said in the interview. Read More » Rare Multistate Outbreaks Cause the Most Foodborne Illness Deaths, CDC Says The reason that a relatively high proportion of deaths come from this small percentage of outbreaks is that the multistate outbreaks tend to involve more lethal types of bacteria contamination, CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden said at a news conference today (Nov. 3). "Multistate foodborne disease outbreaks are the most deadly type of foodborne outbreak, despite accounting for only a small portion of reported outbreaks in the United States," Frieden said in a statement. The most recent multistate outbreak involves E. coli contamination in food from Chipotle Mexican Grill. Read More » Anti-Vaccination Websites Use 'Distorted' Science, Researchers Find Many websites that promote unscientific views about vaccinations use pseudoscience and misinformation to spread the idea that vaccines are dangerous, according to a new study. For example, of the nearly 500 anti-vaccination websites examined in the study, nearly two-thirds claimed that vaccines cause autism, the researchers found. About two-thirds of the websites used information that they represented as scientific evidence, but in fact was not, to support their claims that vaccines are dangerous, and about one-third used people's anecdotes to reinforce those claims, the scientists found. Read More » Acra at Last? Site of Ancient Jewish Revolt Unearthed  | Archaeologists in Jerusalem may have just solved one of the city's greatest geographical mysteries. Excavators recently unearthed what they think are the ruins of the Acra, a fortress constructed more than 2,000 years ago by the Greek ruler Antiochus IV Epiphanes (215-164 B.C.). At one time mercenary soldiers and Hellenized Jews controlled the ancient fortress, enforcing a brutal rule over Jerusalem's residents.
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