Space Junk Forcing More Evasive Maneuvers – “American spacecraft had to dodge space debris four times in 2008, NASA revealed Tuesday, a fact that highlights both the extent of the space junk problem and the primary mitigation option open to NASA….”

Why Windows 7 Is Snappier Than Vista – “Most people will tell you that Windows 7 is snappier than Vista, even though the raw numbers say otherwise. But it’s not in your head. Windows 7 is more responsive than Vista. Here’s why…”

Timeline of a Car Crash – “In designing the Falcon XT, Ford engineers set out to discover the anatomy of a car crash and found that the accident is typically over before we’re even consciously aware of it happening…”

When a thief stole my laptop, I was determined to get it back – “On a recent Saturday morning, during a shower, I heard a loud bang, which I assumed came from the neighbors who had recently moved in upstairs. But when I got out of the shower and went into my living room, my front door was open. Splinters of the doorframe were on the floor, and half of a boot print was visible just above the lock. Then I looked around inside. My PlayStation 3 and Wii were gone, along with my iPod and my laptop. My apartment had been burglarized, in broad daylight, with me inside, totally oblivious….”

Changing Views on Gay Marriage, Gun Control, Immigration and Legalizing Marijuana – “Support for gay marriage, legalizing illegal immigrants and decriminalizing marijuana all are at new highs. Three-quarters of Americans favor federal regulation of greenhouse gases. Two-thirds support establishing relations with Cuba….”

50 Tools Everyone Should Own (With Tips!) – “
We need tools to build, repair and maintain the mechanical world in which we live. With these 50 tools, you’ll be ready for just about any project…”

A sneak preview of Wolfram|Alpha:

The Biology of B-Movie Monsters – “Size has been one of the most popular themes in monster movies, especially those from my favorite era, the 1950s. The premise is invariably to take something out of its usual context–make people small or something else (gorillas, grasshoppers, amoebae, etc.) large–and then play with the consequences. However, Hollywood’s approach to the concept has been, from a biologist’s perspective, hopelessly naïve. Absolute size cannot be treated in isolation; size per se affects almost every aspect of an organism’s biology. Indeed, the effects of size on biology are sufficiently pervasive and the study of these effects sufficiently rich in biological insight that the field has earned a name of its own: “scaling.” “

This Just in: Mercury More Exciting Than Mars – “Mercury was once seen as a cold, dead little world, spinning around the sun unchanged for the past 4 billion years. No longer: Observations from the Messenger spacecraft say it’s anything but…”

On early birds and night owls – “A new study utilizing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) looks at the brains of early risers and night owls and detects a physical basis for their differences…”

Stem Cell Therapy Today in the People’s Republic – “President Obama’s recent U.S. stem cell policy reversal allows federally funded researchers to use hundreds of new embryonic stem cell lines. “Our government has forced what I believe is a false choice between sound science and moral values,” Obama declared as he signed documents changing U.S. science policy in March 2009…”

The Geomagnetic Apocalypse — And How to Stop It – “For scary speculation about the end of civilization in 2012, people usually turn to followers of cryptic Mayan prophecy, not scientists. But that’s exactly what a group of NASA-assembled researchers described in a chilling report issued earlier this year on the destructive potential of solar storms…”

Earprint may be next biometric ID – “Forget face scans, eye readers and fingerprints. In the next frontier of biometric identification, where body parts serve as passwords, the future is in the ear…”

America+China = the new G2 – “Climate change knows no geopolitical boundaries. Increasingly, neither does science. So it might seem that a multilateral approach, one that capitalizes on the increasingly international structure of science, would be the best way to combat the problem. After all, as more researchers from more countries tackle global warming, the greater our chances of developing much-needed technological breakthroughs…”

How much force is required to stop the world spinning? – “How much force would be required to stop the world spinning? If you used, for example, the engines of the space shuttle to do it, how long would it take? And what would be the effect on the planet, in particular the weather and the tides?”

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