Neil Armstrong Has Private Memorial - ABC News

Two of Armstrong's fellow Apollo astronauts, James Lovell and Eugene Cernan, spoke at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center this morning, where a research fund was to be set up in Armstrong's memory. The Armstrong family also urged people to donate to scholarship funds organized by the Telluride Foundation and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

A private memorial service, in suburban Cincinnati not far from Armstrong's last home, was attended by family, longtime friends and fellow astronauts. Some of them spoke publicly or released statements before or after the service. Sen. Rob Portman, the Ohio Republican who counted Armstrong as a friend, delivered the eulogy, said NASA.
<br />http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/neil-armstrong-memorial-cincinatti-private-service-man-moon/story?id%3D17127166

Genome of ancient Denisovans may help clarify human evolution - Los Angeles Times

The new genome gives scientists a sense of just how much of our genomes we owe to our extinct relatives. About 3% to 5% of the DNA in people native to Papua New Guinea, Australia, the Philippines and other islands nearby came from Denisovans, the study found, confirming reports based on a draft version of the Denisovan genome. The authors of the study didn't find any significant contribution of Denisovans to the DNA of people from mainland Eurasia, however.The advance hinged on new techniques designed to investigate scant and highly degraded genetic material found in fossils. Their application to these and other specimens promises to draw back the curtain on our species' complicated and much-debated history, said John Hawks, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, who wasn't involved in the study.<br />http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-denisovan-genome-20120828,0,75940.story

Mars rover beams back spectacular photos, NASA greeting - Christian Science Monitor

&quot;As Curiosity continues her mission, we hope the words of the administrator will be an inspiration to someone who's alive today, who will become the first to stand upon the surface of the planet&nbsp;Mars,&quot; Lavery told reporters today (Aug. 27). &quot;Like the great Neil Armstrong, they'll be able to speak aloud â€" in first person at that point â€" of the next giant leap in human exploration.&quot;For the next two years, Curiosity is slated to explore Gale and the crater's 3.4-mile-high (5.5 kilometers) central peak, the mysterious&nbsp;Mount Sharp. The $2.5 billion rover is outfitted with 10 different science instruments to aid its quest, including a rock-zapping laser and gear that can identify organic compounds â€" the carbon-containing building blocks of life as we know it.<br />http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0828/Mars-rover-beams-back-spectacular-photos-NASA-greeting

Goodbye to the last American hero - Battle Creek Enquirer

He did not allow his image to show up on lunch boxes (if he had, I'd have had one). He would not do guest shots on "The Brady Bunch" or "Laugh-In." In later years, he would never have shown up on "Dancing With the Stars" as, unfortunately, his moon-mate Buzz Aldrin, did. But I guess that's what you do when you're the second man to walk on the moon.The word "hero" is thrown around today the way we throw around a Frisbee. Anyone who does something well is suddenly a hero. Anyone who agrees with what you think is a hero. Anyone who follows through on something they say they were going to do, well, they must be a hero too.<br />http://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/article/20120826/NEWS01/308260021/Goodbye-last-American-hero?odyssey%3Dtab%257Ctopnews%257Ctext%257CFrontpage

Spectacular new NASA video shows Curiosity Mars rover's daring touchdown (+video) - Christian Science Monitor

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Other milestones follow, such as parachute deploy and ignition of the engines on Curiosity's &quot;sky crane&quot; descent stage, which lowered the 1-ton rover to the Martian surface on cables. Audio from mission control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., plays over the video, describing the nail-biting action.&nbsp;<br />http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0824/Spectacular-new-NASA-video-shows-Curiosity-Mars-rover-s-daring-touchdown-video

Panorama Shows Every Mars Landing in One Beautiful Shot - Wired

The Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, arrived at Mars in 2004. Opportunity touched down at the Meridiani Planum while Spirit explored the region around Gusev Crater, both providing incredible data about Mars&#8217; watery past during their missions. Spirit&#8217;s first Pancam image is also the highest resolution picture taken on the surface of another planet. The rover, which sadly stopped operating in 2010, also provided the breathtaking sunset image in the panorama above. Opportunity is still roving around the Martian surface.In 2008, NASA brought the Phoenix lander to the surface of Mars, touching down in the Martian Arctic for the first time. Digging into the soil with its trench, Phoenix uncovered evidence for shallow subsurface ice in the Martian poles. The lander also observed snow falling from Martian clouds and helped characterize the planet&#8217;s surface chemistry. After Phoenix spent a Martian winter in safe mode, engineers at JPL mission control!
tried to resume communication with the lander in 2010 but were unable.<br />http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/08/mars-landing-panorama/

Curiosity rover begins vaporizing Mars, one rock at a time - Christian Science Monitor

Curiosity's&nbsp;Chemical and Camera instrument, or ChemCam, fires a laser pulses that last just five one-billionths of a second but deliver more than a million watts of power, enough to turn solid rock into an ionized plasma. A trio of spectrometers in the tool then studies the sparks from the laser fire on 6,144 different wavelengths of ultraviolet, visible and infrared light to determine the composition of the vaporized rock.
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<br />http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0820/Curiosity-rover-begins-vaporizing-Mars-one-rock-at-a-time

NASA 'itching to move' on Mars as it charts course for Curiosity - Fox News

Its ultimate goal is to scale the lower slopes of Mount Sharp in search of the chemical building blocks of life to determine whether the environment was favorable for microbial life.",
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NASA 'itching to move' on Mars as it charts course for Curiosity

The team identified half a dozen potential paths through buttes and mesas that are reminiscent of the southwestern United States. Vasavada estimated it'll take a year to make the trip to the mountain driving about the length of a football field a day. Along the way, the six-wheel rover will make pit stops to study interesting rocks and scoop up soil.<br />http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/08/14/nasa-itching-to-move-on-mars-as-it-charts-course-for-curiosity/

Huge volcanic rock 'ice-shelf' spotted in Pacific - The Hindu

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I'm fairly new to geology, and so I wonder if the floating material is still referred to as &quot;pillows&quot; of basalt usually evidenced in under water volcanic activities?<br />http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/article3757605.ece?homepage%3Dtrue

Flat-Faced Early Humans Confirmed—Lived Among Other Human Species - National Geographic

Not an aberrant specimen, the study makes clear, but a different species from the early Homo varieties previously known to have inhabited Turkana: Homo habilis ("handy man"), the presumed tool user conventionally seen as the earliest known Homo species, and Homo erectus, the "upright man" believed to be a direct ancestor of our own species (time line of human evolution).Consisting of a face, a complete lower jaw, and part of a second jaw, the new fossils were found east of Kenya's Lake Turkana between 2007 and 2009. The products of a 40-year search, they provide the needed evidence to confirm that a disputed skull found in 1972 does in fact represent a new species, the team says.<br />http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/08/120808-human-evolution-fossils-homo-nature-science-meave-leakey-flat/

University Structure

The current island-structure of universities is a way of wasting invaluable potentials. The existence of various disciplines in university is a golden opportunity, but people usually ignore it.

http://higher-education.criticpen.com/article/university-structure-m4z3

NASA rover sends back video and first color picture of landscape; prettier ... - Washington Post

<br />http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/nasa-rover-sends-back-video-and-first-color-picture-of-landscape-prettier-images-yet-to-come/2012/08/07/1841bf26-e0f2-11e1-8d48-2b1243f34c85_story.html

Mars rover Curiosity lands on the Red Planet - USA TODAY

Posted document.write(niceDate("8/6/2012 12:26 AM")); | Updated document.write(niceDate("8/6/2012 7:06 AM"));NASA's Curiosity rover transmitted this image to Earth after landing successfully on Mars yesterday evening.<br />http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/story/2012-08-06/mars-rover-curiosity-landing/56814732/1

Mars rover Curiosity nears make-or-break landing attempt - Reuters

Thomson Reuters is the world's largest international multimedia news agency, providing investing news, world news, business news, technology news, headline news, small business news, news alerts, personal finance, stock market, and mutual funds information available on Reuters.com, video, mobile, and interactive television platforms. Thomson Reuters journalists are subject to an Editorial Handbook which requires fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests.Mars is the chief component of NASA's long-term deep space
exploration plans. Curiosity, the space agency's first
astrobiology mission since the 1970s-era Viking probes, is
designed primarily to search for evidence that the planet most
similar to Earth may have once have harbored ingredients
necessary for microbial life to evolve.<br />http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/05/usa-mars-idUSL2E8J451220120805

Give 'Em Hill: Mars stars at San Francisco's Exploratorium - San Jose Mercury News

The temps aren't too bad. Well, it can get to 100 below, but then up to a sweltering 60 degrees at the equator. Even with the chill, there's something about air bubbles in your blood and low atmospheric pressure that can make your blood "boil," your eyes bug out and your head implode after about 15 seconds of exposure. That's faster than you can slather on the 5,000-SPF Coppertone needed just to walk out into the sunshine and not fry into a piece of crisp bacon."When the signal comes in, telling us if the rover landed safely, I'm gonna be on the edge of my seat," he gushed Thursday night at a brief and superfun lecture during the museum's "After Dark: Mars!" event. "The Advertisement
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descent is a treacherous, complex set of maneuvers that NASA's calling the 'seven minutes of terror,'" he gushed some more. "It's gonna be exciting!"<br />http://www.mercurynews.com/angela-hill/ci_21231402/give-em-hill-mars-stars-at-san-franciscos

Will NASA's $2.5 billion Mars rover crash on Sunday? - Christian Science Monitor

&quot;We will indeed be imaging the spot MSL is predicted to be about 60 seconds prior to landing, but the odds of capturing it are estimated at 60 percent,&quot; said Alfred McEwen at the University of Arizona in Tucson. He is principal investigator of the orbiter's super-powerful High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE). [Mars Rover Curiosity's Daring Landing in Pictures]
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<br />http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0802/Will-NASA-s-2.5-billion-Mars-rover-crash-on-Sunday

Social and Cultural Activities in University

It should be taken into account that the main goal of attending universities is to experience academic life and culture; thus, students should not only look for their degree and graduation. Instead, they should enjoy their academic life, and degree is a consequence of their studies. To this aim, it is necessary to have solid cultural programs, providing a delightful environment for students. The design of social activities should not be independent programs for students’ free times; instead they should be designed as a part of the university united program. In other words, social activities are not extra services to students, but part of their academic programs.
http://higher-education.criticpen.com/article/social-and-cultural-activities-in-university-m4z6