News Briefs 13-01-2012

“If you shoot for the stars and hit the moon... you must shoot for something.”

• Russian lunar probe may plummet to Earth on Sunday as surreal comet.
• That said, did someone just weaponize the space-race?
• $10m for the first tricorder. Trekkies start your engines…
• Circumbinary planets more common than we thought. Translation-- Tattooine is *real*.
• My god, it’s full of… planets.
• Wait-- are they planets… or bubbles?
• There goes a supernova...
• Out with the old (scientific model), in with the new-- like linking high frequency radiation to accelerated gravity.
• Cool molecules.
• Which came first, Jerry Lee Lewis or stellar mass black holes?
• Honeybee decline linked to… insecticide.
• The black hole next door.
• Milky Way lives up to its moniker.
• Electron’s negativity changed. Disposition now much sunnier.
• A long time ago, in a van far, far away.
• Oldest human fossils, found (at least until they excavate the next strata).
• 7 million year-old tooth found in Bulgaria.
• Solar system in miniature.
• Frogs in miniature.
• Magnetic data storage in miniature.
• Gag me with a hagfish.
• This week’s proof of the looming robot revolution… cyborg beetles.

Many thanks to the Camp Crystal Lake staff and J. Vorhees.

Quote of the Day:

“Learn as though you would never be able to master it; Hold it as though you would be in fear of losing it.”

Confucius