Hubble spies never-before-seen galaxies
WASHINGTON (AP) — The refurbished Hubble Space Telescope has spotted the oldest galaxies yet, scientists reported Tuesday. A newly installed wide field camera on Hubble this summer captured several thousand never-before-seen galaxies, which were formed 600 million years after the Big Bang. Scientists believe that massive explosion led to the creation of the universe.
UN: 2000-2009 could be Earth's warmest decade ever
COPENHAGEN (AP) — A leaked Danish document at the U.N. climate conference provoked angry criticism Tuesday from developing countries and activists who feared it would shift more of the burden to curb greenhouse gases on poorer countries. Negotiators, meanwhile, displayed charts of data that said the current decade is on track to be the hottest on record for planet Earth.
Historic EPA finding: Greenhouse gases harm humans
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration took a major step Monday toward imposing the first federal limits on climate-changing pollution from cars, power plants and factories, declaring there was compelling scientific evidence that global warming from manmade greenhouse gases endangers Americans' health. The announcement by the Environmental Protection Agency was clearly timed to build momentum toward an agreement at the international conference on climate change that opened Monday in Copenhagen, Denmark. It signaled the administration was prepared to push ahead for significant controls in the U.S. if Congress doesn't act first on its own.
Geminid meteor shower to peak this weekend
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The year's best meteor shower is coming to North America. Weather permitting, the peak time to view the Geminid (jem-uh-nid) meteor show will be around midnight Sunday Eastern time when up to 140 meteors per hour could streak across the sky.
Virgin Galactic unveils commercial spaceship
MOJAVE, Calif. (AP) — The sleek, bullet-shaped spacecraft is about the size of a large business jet — with wide windows and seats for six well-heeled passengers to take a thrill ride into space. It's billed as the world's first commercial spaceship, designed to be carried aloft by an exotic jet before firing its rocket engine to climb beyond the Earth's atmosphere.
Nobel winners helped by independence, coffee
STOCKHOLM (AP) — Intellectual freedom, independent research and frequent coffee breaks with colleagues helped this year's Nobel Prize winners make their groundbreaking scientific discoveries. The winners of the 2009 Nobel Prizes in economics, chemistry and physics on Monday praised all these factors for their success.
NASA to launch sky-mapping spacecraft
LOS ANGELES (AP) — NASA's latest space telescope will scan the sky in search of never-before-seen asteroids, comets, stars and galaxies, with one of its main tasks to catalog objects posing a danger to Earth. The sky-mapping WISE, or Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer, is scheduled to launch no earlier than before dawn Friday from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the central California coast aboard a Delta 2 rocket. If all goes as planned, WISE will orbit some 325 miles above the Earth and produce the most detailed map yet of the cosmos. It is designed to detect objects that give off infrared light or heat. Infrared light is ideal for uncovering dusty, cold and distant objects that often can't be seen by optical telescopes.
App in the hand finds birds in bushes as you roam
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — When Jory Langner finds time for a field trip during an upcoming visit to Washington, he won't have to ask local birders where to find candidates to add to his life list of birds sighted. All he'll have to do to is pull out his iPhone and fire up BirdsEye, a new bird-finding application that gives users instant access to recent reports of birds spotted near their location, tells them where to look for specific birds, and keeps track of their lists of all the birds they've ever seen.
Wolf recovery at crossroads in the Southwest
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A decade has passed since the federal government began returning endangered Mexican wolves to their historic range in the Southwest. It hasn't worked out — for the wolves, for ranchers, for conservationists or for federal biologists. And that has resulted in frustration and resentment by many involved in the reintroduction program along the Arizona-New Mexico border, a landscape of sprawling pine and spruce forests, cold-water lakes and clear streams.
Study: Missing DNA can promote childhood obesity
NEW YORK (AP) — Some children get severely obese because they lack particular chunks of DNA, which kicks their hunger into overdrive, researchers report. The British researchers checked the DNA of 300 children who'd become very fat, on the order of 220 pounds by age 10. They looked for deletions or extra copies of DNA segments.
