Success! Kepler lifts off to seek other Earths

NASA’s Kepler mission lifted off without a hitch just before 11 p.m. Friday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.  The launch was a bit of a nail-biter, coming on the heels of last week’s failure of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory, which plummeted (all $270 million of it) into the ocean when its casing malfunctioned. But everything [...]

Day 20: Wait, whose birthday is it?

Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday, coinciding with the 150th anniversary of his famous book “The Origin of Species,” has riveted the science community. It’s fun to read major publications, like the journal Nature, and realize they’ve been planning their stories for ages. Social networks including Twitter and Facebook are abuzz with the celebration. It’s like an Olympic [...]