|  For Rare-Species Poachers, Scientific Journals Are Treasure Maps  | The moment he laid eyes on the geckos — creatures with remarkable green eyes and zebralike stripes speckled with yellow — Jian-Huan Yang knew they were special. The conservation officer at the Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden in Hong Kong had discovered two new gecko species in China. Recently, commercial collectors have been using reports of such new species in scientific journals as tools to track down the newbies so they can sell them for a profit on the exotic pet trade market.
| Read More » Giant Dinosaur Had 2 Tumors on Its Tailbone  | It's fairly common to discover dinosaur remains scratched with ancient claw or bite marks, but finding fossils with signs of tumors is rare.
| Read More » 30-Year Deep Freeze Just Puts Tardigrade in the Mood  | After being locked in a deep freeze for more than 30 years, two microscopic creatures called tardigrades have been resuscitated, with one of the adults getting busy with reproduction "immediately" and "repeatedly," scientists reported.
| Read More » U.S. could still cancel Raytheon GPS ground system: general By Andrea Shalal WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon and the U.S. Air Force could still cancel the ground control system Raytheon Co is developing to operate new GPS satellites, if the company does not improve its performance on the troubled system, a top U.S. general said. Lieutenant General Samuel Greaves, who heads the Air Force's Space and Missile Systems Center, said officials were keeping close tabs on Raytheon's GPS Operational Control System, or OCX, which he described as the Air Force's "No. 1 troubled program." "OCX has significant promise, but no system is a no-fail system," Greaves told a breakfast hosted by the Air Force Association's Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. Read More » Branson's Virgin Galactic unveils new passenger spaceship  | By Irene Klotz MOJAVE, Calif. (Reuters) - Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic venture unveiled a new passenger spacecraft on Friday, nearly 16 months after a fatal accident destroyed its sister ship during a test flight over California's Mojave Desert. The rollout of the gleaming craft, dubbed Virgin Space Ship Unity, marks Branson's return to a race among rival billionaire entrepreneurs to develop a vehicle that can take thrill-seekers, researchers and commercial customers on short hops into space. "It's almost too good to be true," Branson said during a ceremony at the Mojave Air and Space Port, about 100 miles (160 km) north of Los Angeles.
| Read More » Shift in U.S. sanctions could ground Russian rocket engines: general  | By Andrea Shalal WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Air Force would ground the Russian-built RD-180 engines that power its Atlas 5 rockets if a U.S. government review determines that several sanctioned Russian individuals have too close a relationship with the engine maker, a top U.S. general said on Friday. Lieutenant General Samuel Greaves, who heads the Air Force's Space and Missile Systems Center, said the Pentagon was reviewing responses about the sanctions issue and related matters in time to meet a Feb. 22 deadline set by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain. McCain last week asked the Air Force and Pentagon to explain why the U.S. government is continuing to use engines built by Russia's NPO Energomash given sanctions in place against Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin and other sanctioned individuals, who control the company after a big reorganization.
| Read More » Disney's 'Miles From Tomorrowland' Fuses Space Science and Fun  | In an episode from "Miles From Tomorrowland" — a new Disney kid's TV show about a galactic-traveling family, whose first season finale will air in March — one of the characters sees Pluto out the spaceship's window and calls it a planet. "No, it's a dwarf planet," another character says, echoing the still hotly debated consensus from an International Astronomical Union decision in 2006. One of the show's advisers, Randii Wessen, has worked at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) since Voyager 2 flew by Saturn in 1980.
| Read More » Branson's Virgin Galactic moves to return to space race  | By Irene Klotz LONG BEACH, Calif. (Reuters) - Richard Branson said on Thursday his Virgin Galactic venture is eager to rejoin the race among rival billionaire entrepreneurs to send passengers and satellites into space, following a deadly accident 16 months ago. "To have three or four people who are fairly entrepreneurial competing with each other means we'll be able to open up space at a fraction of the price that governments have been able to do so in the past," Branson told Reuters as he toured Virgin Galactic's 150,000-square-foot LauncherOne rocket design and manufacturing plant in Long Beach, California. On Friday, Virgin Galactic plans to unveil its new SpaceShipTwo, a six-passenger, two-pilot winged space plane designed to take thrill-seekers, researchers and commercial customers on five-minute hops into suborbital space, reaching altitudes of about 62 miles (100 km).
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