Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth and later served four terms in the U.S. Senate. As a Marine fighter pilot, while flying 149 combat missions during World War II and the Korean War, he received praise for his ability to draw enemy fire and keep the plane flying with huge holes blown into its exterior. Most Americans remember Glenn for taking to space in 1962. Dubbed Friendship 7, Glenn's space capsule circled the Earth and put the United States on equal footing with the Soviet Union in the space race.

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Submitted on December 8th 2016 by ckshenn with 3 comments and with 2 Related Links:

1. American Space Legend John Glenn Has Died at 95 Added by Improbability on December 8th 2016.

2. NASA pioneer John Glenn has died Added by Improbability on December 8th 2016.

Overall, U.S. life expectancy dipped in 2015 — the first drop since 1993. That's because the death rate went up between 2014 and 2015, driven by an increase in mortality among people younger than 65.

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Submitted on December 8th 2016 by grandsalami with 4 comments

The same part of the brain that allows us to step into the shoes of others also helps us restrain ourselves. By Ed Yong.

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Submitted on December 7th 2016 by AdelleChattre with 1 comments

A Viking toolbox found in Denmark has been opened for the first time in 1,000 years, revealing an extraordinary set of iron hand tools that may have been used to make Viking ships and houses, according to archaeologists.

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Submitted on December 2nd 2016 by cone

What would your priest, rabbi, or imam say if we discovered alien life? By David A. Weintraub.

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Submitted on December 3rd 2016 by AdelleChattre with 1 comments

Some of the greatest code breakers in history have tried to unlock the mysteries of the Voynich Manuscript. No one has succeeded. The word “ink” is a child of the Latin incaustum, which means “having been burned.” In the Middle Ages, people thought that ink burned its way into parchment, because iron-gall inks go onto the page pale, then darken. This is not what’s happening, physically, but it makes sense as a metaphor: a medieval manuscript, because it was made by hand...

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Submitted on December 4th 2016 by rawlings

Better drivers switch between split- and whole-brain tasks more easily.

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Submitted on December 6th 2016 by gladsdotter

“We wouldn’t want Ouija boards in court just because people have used them a lot and they thought they were helpful.” Fingerprints. Eyewitness accounts. Bite marks. All suspect too? How Erin Morris because the first scientific researcher in a public defender’s office in the country.

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Submitted on December 5th 2016 by gladsdotter

Astrophysics suggests we will be alone in the universe for eons.

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Submitted on December 5th 2016 by andromeda with 2 comments

Studies show that for most types of cognitively demanding tasks, anything but quiet hurts performance.

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Submitted on December 8th 2016 by gladsdotter with 2 comments

English is pretty simple. Learning to speak Ubykh or !Xóõ presents more of a challenge

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Submitted on December 3rd 2016 by gladsdotter with 1 comments

Parisians can use public transport for free for the second day running due to a spike in air pollution and some cars have been barred from the roads. The city is suffering its worst and most prolonged winter pollution for at least 10 years, the Airparif agency which measures the levels said on Wednesday.

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Submitted on December 7th 2016 by weekendhobo

This view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft was obtained about two days before its first close pass by the outer edges of Saturn's main rings during its penultimate mission phase.

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Submitted on December 8th 2016 by TNY

​​A kid can understand the question, but no one can answer it. ​By Jay Bennett.

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Submitted on December 3rd 2016 by AdelleChattre

Mathematician Hannah Fry tells the intriguing story of how the number zero was ‘discovered’ – and why we couldn’t predict the future without it.

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Submitted on December 8th 2016 by funhonestdude

Radar scans showed that a San Francisco high-rise sank twice as fast as previously thought.

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Submitted on December 5th 2016 by lostwonder

Saturn's moon Titan is being used by scientists to better understand the Earth's atmosphere. One day, it could give scientist a clue about the likelihood of non-Earthlike lifeforms evolving in the universe.

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Submitted on December 5th 2016 by MNichols with 1 Related Links:

1. Titan, Saturn's Largest Moon, Explained (Infographic) Added by MNichols on December 5th 2016.

Autonomous cars will soon create significantly more data than people—3 billion people’s worth of data, according to Intel.

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Submitted on December 8th 2016 by aj0690

In 1967, a team of archaeologists led by Michael Katzev dove to the bottom of the churning Aegean Sea. They were tipped off by a sponge diver who, about two years earlier, spotted something unusual a mile offshore of Kyrenia harbor… By Lorraine Boissoneault.

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Submitted on December 7th 2016 by AdelleChattre

NASA’s Earth observation satellites provide constant real-time data on space, the atmosphere and the oceans—information critical to U.S. Navy and Department of Defense operations worldwide. By David Titley.

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Submitted on December 3rd 2016 by AdelleChattre with 1 Related Links:

1. Gutting NASA’s Earth Science Division Would Send Research Back to the Dark Ages. By Maddie Stone Added by AdelleChattre on December 3rd 2016.