News Briefs 20-02-2009

Arthur C. Clarke’s 'three laws of prediction' in action…

• Creating galaxies from thin air.
• Faster than a speeding bullet -- it’s a backwards-flying comet passing by the Earth (visibly) on Monday night.
• Has Google Ocean found Atlantis off of Africa? Perhaps at first glance - but it's merely an artifact of Google's map-making process.
• The mystery of universal, self assembling molecular machines (ribosomes) has been resolved.
• Gravity holes… Because black holes are so yesterday.
• Deposits at the Longyabyen ‘doomsday’ seed vault are on the rise.
• The meteorite trifecta: For the first time *ever*, lab-coats detect an asteroid before it hits the atmosphere, observe said fireball burning across the sky -- and find pieces of said space rock in the Sudan.
• Can geo-engineering rebuild the planet?
• Are aliens already among us?
• The mystery of light pillars, explained (with photos).
• A discovery of mammoth proportions beneath an L.A. parking lot.
• And in the ‘art imitates life imitating a NASA mission imitating a Thomas Dolby song department', Jupiter’s Europa topples a Titan.
• Like molten clockwork, Chile’s Chaiten volcano spews ash into the Santiago sky.
• New, ‘green’ shock-absorbers to power next gen hybrid cars?
• Manmade snow shuts down 12 highways in China.
• Meanwhile, ‘melt-pools’ of real snow are accelerating the loss of ice in the Arctic.
• An atlas of dying languages across the globe.
• Sir Terry Pratchett gets knighted. And tells us all why we need to talk about dementia.
• Your honor, I present… the case of the People vs. George Lucas. And while you’re there, don’t miss ’chewbacca cabinet’.
• Watchmen’s epic-within-an-epic 'Tales of the Black Freighter' won’t be in theaters, but it will be included on DVD and Blu-ray.
• And last but by no means least, the video game we’ve all been waiting for… Van Halen Asteroids – The Diamond Dave Edition.

Danke to Greg, RPJ, Perceval, Bertie and Q

Quote of the Day:

“…Might as well jump.”

D. L. Roth