Reported and Edited by Linda Moulton Howe
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February 27, 2000 Laurel, Maryland - A human machine is orbiting an asteroid for the first time in known human history. It's a NASA satellite called NEAR for Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous. NEAR moved into orbit around an asteroid called 433 Eros on February 14th. At first the NEAR satellite was photographing at a range of 210 miles. But this past week on February 23rd, NEAR moved into about 130 miles from Eros. The satellite will keep getting closer to the asteroid over the next 12 months until its mission is completed in February 2001.
"I guess it's the equivalent of striking oil. It was enormously exciting. It was unbelievable."
- Tasios Melis, Ph.D.
Plant and Microbial Biology
University of California, Berkeley
February 25, 2000 Berkeley, California - The journal, Plant Physiology, reported in February 2000 that for the first time scientists at the University of California, Berkeley and National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado, have been able to trigger a metabolic switch in algae to turn sunlight into large quantities of hydrogen gas. A joint patent on this new hydrogen production technique from plant photosynthesis has been filed by the two institutions.
February 16, 2000 Baltimore, Maryland - It looks a bit like a 25 mile long, five mile wide potato. In one photo, it even resembles a Dutch shoe. Called 433 Eros, it's made out of iron and magnesium-bearing silicates and is now the focus of a NASA satellite called NEAR, Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous. NEAR moved into orbit around Eros on February 14 and will stay there for the next year. Eros is one of the biggest asteroids in our Solar System circling between the earth and Mars. It's almost twice the size of Manhattan, measuring about 25 miles long and nearly five miles wide.
January 30, 2000 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - First an Ohio town banned cell phone use by drivers. Now, the borough of Conshohocken west of Philadelphia has become the second community in Pennsylvania to prohibit motor vehicle drivers from using cell phones while driving. Pennsylvania's governor is even considering a legislative proposal to ban cell phone use by drivers throughout the state. Recently a 2-year-old girl was killed in a collision caused by a driver dialing a cell phone. Another child was recently killed by a distracted cell phone user. Conshohocken Police Chief James Dougherty added, "We've had problems with people driving through town talking on cell phones where they've almost hit people. They're not paying attention."
"Chandra's x-ray image of the cool temperatures in the black hole at the center of the Andromeda galaxy kind of flies in the face of what we think happens when matter falls into a black hole. It usually gets very hot.So, this is sort of a unique observation. I'm not aware of any other black hole systems where you see such cool x-ray radiation."
- Eliot Quataert, Ph.D., Astrophysicist -
January 28, 2000 Princeton, New Jersey - Observing x-ray and gamma ray emissions suggestive of a black hole at the center of many galaxies is old hat these days for astrophysicists. Our own Milky Way galaxy seems to have one and so does its nearby twin, the Andromeda galaxy. The suspected black hole at the center of the Milky Way is two and a half times more massive than our sun. But a black hole candidate at the center of Andromeda is 30 million times more massive than our sun.
January 23, 2000 Guilford, Connecticut - This week fishermen from the Connecticut Commercial Lobstermen's Association met with state and federal officials to discuss why 100,000 lobsters died this past fall in Long Island Sound. Pathologists confirmed an amoeba which invades marine animals when their immune systems are weakened was pervasive throughout the dead lobsters. But what weakened the creatures' immune systems?
"Since it was first observed thirty-seven years ago, understanding the source of the X-ray background has been the Holy Grail of X-ray astronomy. Now, it is within reach."
- Dr. Alan Bunner, Director
NASA's Structure and Evolution of the Universe
January 17, 2000 Huntsville, Alabama - NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory was launched only five months ago, but it continues to astonish astronomers with its discoveries. One of the most perplexing cosmic mysteries has been the source of x-ray radiation that seems to pervade the universe.
January 13, 2000 Boulder, Colorado - What happens to global weather systems if the earth warms up several more degrees Fahrenheit in the future? That's a question that the Pew Center on Global Climate Change in Arlington, Virginia wanted to know. So, they went to a climate expert Dr. Tom Wigley at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. Dr. Wigley received his Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from the University of Adelaide in Australia in 1967 and has become a climate expert. The past six years he has focused on computer models of earth weather systems to project the effects of ever-increasing greenhouse gasses. Recently, Dr. Wigley's computer research was released by the Pew Center.