Science: June 2004 Archive Page

Spirit has begun to negotiate her way up into the Columbia Hills where she has encountered a strange rock called Pot of God that she found contains hematite, something that may well lead to the discovery of past water there. On the other side of the planet, Opportunity has continued her descent into Endurance Crater and is now investigating some intriguing rock layers that are already expanding the water story at Meridiani Planum. A.J.S. Rayl --Spirit Finds Hematite; Opportunity Discovers Signs of More Water (The Planetary Society)

That should be "Pot of Gold," methinks. In other, completely unrelated news about pot...

Flying a foam composite rocket ship powered by laughing gas and burning rubber, Mike Melvill took off faster than a bullet over a ramshackle airport in the desert Monday and overcame serious malfunctions to become the first astronaut to reach space in a mission entirely funded by private entrepreneurs. --William Booth --Starship Private Enterprise: Rocket Plane Becomes First Civilian Craft to Reach Space  (WashPost (registration, will expire))

I don't like linking to The Washington Post anymore, since the site requires registrations and the links expire, but this is good writing, from the headline on.

Materials that could jump-start organic evolution have shown up in interstellar dust clouds and dusty planet-forming discs around many stars. These findings fuel an increasingly strong suspicion that the raw material of planet Earth was primed for life. --Robert C. Cowen
--Outer space: not so lifeless after all (CS Monitor)

A 24-foot sailboat was raised Thursday from the murky depths of Monterey Harbor by divers who filled its hull with pingpong balls. --Kevin Howe --Sunken boat raised by pingpong balls (Monterey Herald)

Researchers at Cambridge University have discovered sheep prefer smiling or relaxed human faces, over angry or stressed ones. -- Sheep like smiles say researchers (BBC)

What about sheepish grins? Okay, that was a ba-a-ad joke.

The news story says this research took place three years ago. What is the "news hook"? Is this article discussing recent research? If so, where was this recent research published? A web link or journal name would be immensely helpful. National Geographic reported on Kendrick's sheep memory research in 2001.

(Thanks for the suggestion, Rosemary.)

NASA's Mars rovers have completed their long cross-country quests and are now at two very different sites that scientists have been restlessly waiting to reach.

--Mars rovers arrive at long-awaited sites  (New Scientist)

After six years of regulations and restrictions that have cost builders, local governments and landowners on the western fringe of the Great Plains as much as $100 million by some estimates, new research suggests the Preble's mouse in fact never existed. It instead seems to be genetically identical to one of its cousins, the Bear Lodge meadow jumping mouse, which is considered common enough not to need protection.
--Research: Endangered mouse never existed (CNN/AP)

Associated Press editors were forced to retract an earlier report that a meteorite might have hit near Olympia, Wash., this morning after discovering that a source, one Bradley Hammermaster, claiming to be an astronomy professor, had perpetrated a hoax. --Joe Strupp --AP Meteor Crash Report Was a Hoax  (Editor and Publisher)