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By Michael Dirda
$11.16
By Peter Moruzzi
$19.80
$35
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M. Kornmesser/Eso
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European astronomers said Monday that they may have found a celestial body with the right characteristics to host life: a “Goldilocks” planet circling a star at a distance that is not too hot, not too cold, but just right for liquid water to exist.
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Angel Boligan, Cagle Cartoons, El Universal, Mexico City —
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Journal of Cosmology
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A NASA scientist claims to have found tiny alien fossils encased in meteorites that landed in Spain, sparking new interest in the possibility of life outside our planet.
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Wikimedia Commons / NASA
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A young biochemist has caused a ruckus in the scientific community with her claim that one of the basic elements in the formula that has long been considered to define the building blocks of life may be swapped out—and for arsenic, no less.
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NASA
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Our ability to evacuate to Mars once we’re done wrecking the Earth depends on a lot, but the whole idea is a nonstarter if the fourth rock from the sun is dry. Ten years ago scientists discovered evidence of flowing water on Mars and we have reason to believe there’s plenty of the frozen variety, but we still haven’t caught Mars with its gullies wet.
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Flickr / Dodo-Bird (CC-BY)
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Scientists once thought all that carbon dioxide that humans have been pumping into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution kicked off might be good for plants (even if it hotboxes the planet in the process), but recent studies show we have a lot to worry about. (continued)
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By Garrison Keillor —
The former Marine officer Matthew Hoh, who resigned his Foreign Service post in Afghanistan because he feels the war is pointless and not worth dying for, deserves all the attention he’s gotten and more.
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Wikimedia Commons/NASA/JPL-Caltech
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Seeing as we’re not doing so well with our planetary preservation program here on Earth, it might be prudent to consider the possibility of shopping around the universe for a new home at some point in the not-too-distant future. But how do we know which heavenly bodies are ripe for the human ruination treatment?
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NASA
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NASA scientists have discovered regularly replenished supplies of methane gas on the Red Planet. That raises two possibilities: The gas could be formed by geologic activity or, as anyone who has spent time around cows can tell you, it could be a sign of life.
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From Second Life (via Popular Science)
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Check out this mind-blowing story on Second Life, the simulated online world where people socialize, shop for actual products, attend legitimate university classes, even buy virtual real estate—using real-world money.
This head-spinning enmeshing of online/off-line interaction represents a new model for our Internet-addled society. It’s like “The Matrix” (Version 0.1).
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By Jabari Asim — What does it say about our culture that African-American men living in the nation’s inner cities have a life expectancy roughly equal to that of people of similar age living in West Africa?
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From Wired News
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Now this is a cool sign of the times: Musicians are playing “live” concerts streamed through virtual reality environments like “Second Life.” Above, the avatar of Suzanne Vega plays in what was billed as “the first time a major recording artist performed live in avatar form.”
Posted on Aug 18, 2006
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“Daily Show” host Jon Stewart seized upon Bush’s stem cell veto to explore the president’s “culture of life” inconsistencies.
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By Andy Borowitz — The political satirist reports that the patient asked to be made unconscious again after realizing that the person he was seeing on TV was the real president of the United States, not a “Saturday Night Live” impersonator.
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via Feministing
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On May 9, 1960, the FDA approved Enovid, the first birth control pill, for clinical use. Many court cases, a sexual revolution and a fundamentalist backlash later, use of and access to contraceptives is still very much a hot-button issue in the U.S. Read a roundup of information and opinion relating to the release of an explosive report last week connecting a spike in unwanted pregnancies among the poor to decreased contraceptive use. (h/t: Feministing)
REPORT: A Tale of Two Americas for Women: The Contraception-Abortion Connection press release | PDF (Guttmacher Institute)
Timeline: The Pill (PBS)
Posted on May 9, 2006
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From terrorismcentral.com
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The so-called 12th hijacker escaped the death penalty and was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.
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Zuade Kaufman / Truthdig
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By Blair Golson — The legendary father of New Journalism discusses his first new book in 14 years; the fallout of his wife’s publication of James Frey’s fabricated memoir; and how he may have spawned the “The Sopranos.”
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Bank of America Lied to Homeowners and Rewarded Foreclosures, Ex-Employees Say
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