Photonbelt

The next phase in non military manned spaceflight will be NASA’s Project Constallation which aims to get back to the Moon and on to Mars. There are many questions surrounding the project such as funding under the new administration and why lots of the useful scientific data from Apollo has been lost and needs to [...]

Timekeepers at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) will add a leap second at the stroke of midnight to keep GMT synchronised with the slowing spin of the Earth on it’s axis. Enjoy the one second extra countdown and have a good (gregorian) new year from all of us here on the Belt.

Channel 4 has taken the somewhat controversial step of presenting a Christmas message from president Dr Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran.
This has created some backlash in the more controlled mainstream press and a torrent of opinionated and close minded retoric on sites such as the BBC [link] much of the anger directed at Channel 4 [...]

 
NASA’s five THEMIS spacecraft have discovered a breach in Earth’s magnetic field ten times larger than anything previously thought to exist. Solar wind can flow in through the opening to “load up” the magnetosphere for powerful geomagnetic storms. But the breach itself is not the biggest surprise. Researchers are even more amazed at the strange [...]

Nasa’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has finally spotted rocks on the Red Planet that bear carbonate minerals.
The ingredients needed to make the rocks are very evident, so their absence had been a major puzzle.
One theory to explain the omission is the idea that water on Mars has been too acidic to allow carbonates.
The rocks’ identification now [...]

On the 50th anniversary of NASA, Stephen Hawking, Newton’s heir as the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, answered the question, “Are we alone?”
His answer was short and simple; probably not!

Hawking presented three options. One, being that there is no life out there, and two – somewhat pessimistically, but subsequently, a little [...]

An ancient race that lived 2,700 years ago in the Gobi Desert may have been among the first to use cannabis for medical or religious purposes.
Nearly two pounds of the plant was found stashed in the tomb of a Gushi shaman. It was high in the chemical compounds that provide its psychoactive properties.
“It had evidence [...]

 
The Huygens probe has captured an image of what may be the first drop of liquid ever observed on an extraterrestrial surface.
The photo is evidence that liquids may exist on the surface of other planets and moons, not just frozen lakes. And liquid is more likely habitat for extraterrestrial life.
Among the pictures snapped by the Huygens [...]

The following notice has appeared on Wikipedia today when many UK users attempt to edit content:
“Wikipedia has been added to a Internet Watch Foundation UK website blacklist, and your Internet service provider has decided to block part of your access. Unfortunately, this also makes it impossible for us to differentiate between different users, and block [...]

Healthy people should have the right to boost their brains with pills, like those prescribed for hyperactive kids or memory-impaired older folks, several scientists contend in a provocative commentary.
College students are already illegally taking prescription stimulants like Ritalin to help them study, and demand for such drugs is likely to grow elsewhere, they say.
“We should [...]