DARPA's Mad Science?
• NextGov.comBioDesign eliminates the randomness of natural evolutionary advancement primarily by advanced genetic engineering and molecular biology technologies to produce the intended biological effect.
Current News Headlines
These pages list the most recent news stories reported by the readers and editors of Freedom's Phoenix:
Aurora Borealis Photos
• arcleinThese shots were taken by photographer Bjorn Jorgensen who lives in Tromso in northern Norway. Bjorn said: “I try to capture the essence of the arctic light, and I am particularly obsessed with the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights
New Views of Pluto
• arcleinOne reason for the variability, scientists say, is Pluto's highly eccentric – or oblong – orbit, which causes strong variations in temperature. Pluto takes 248 years to make a full orbit around the sun. "Right now it's close to being springtime o
Solar Dynamics Observatory
• arclein"It's not even 11 years," says Guhathakurtha. "The cycle ranges in length from 9 to 12 years. Some cycles are intense, with many sunspots and solar flares; others are mild, with relatively little solar activity.
Spray-on liquid glass is about to revolutionize almost everything
• Phys.orgSpray-on liquid glass is transparent, non-toxic, and can protect virtually any surface against almost any damage from hazards such as water, UV radiation, dirt, heat, and bacterial infections.
Nasa mission to unravel sun’s threat to Earth
• TimesOnlineA new probe could help scientists predict the solar storms that cause chaos for us. NASA is to embark on one of its most ambitious missions in an attempt to unlock the secrets of the sun.
New Theory of Primate Origins
• arcleinFor instance, Heads suggested that at roughly the same time as intense volcanic activity in Africa about 180 million years ago, the group that includes humans, other simians, and tarsiers — altogether known as the haplorhines, or dry-nosed primates
Feathered Dinosaurs
• arcleinA meat-eating dinosaur called Sinosauropteryx likely sported a rim of colored feathers on its head, down its back and tail when it lived some 120 million years ago. The tail probably had a striped pattern of orange and white.
Daredevil Space Diver To Leap Toward World's First Supersonic Free-Fall From 120,000 Feet
• PopSci.comHere’s Felix Baumgartner’s plan: Float a balloon to 120,000 feet. Jump out. Break the sound barrier. Don’t die. Simple, right?
Haitian Fault
• arcleinThe Enriquillo fault generally moves left-laterally (horizontally, with features across the fault shifting to the left when the fault breaks in an earthquake), but vertical movements occur along the fault where irregularities in the fault line cause
A New Way to Make Useful Chemicals from CO2
• Technology ReviewResearchers have been looking for such a material for a long time, taking a cue from plants, which use atmospheric carbon dioxide to produce a wide range of useful materials.
Golden Mean and Cognition
• arcleinAlso know the divine proportion, the golden ratio describes a rectangle with a length roughly one and a half times its width. Many artists and architects have fashioned their works around this proportion. For example, the Parthenon in Athens and Leon
Fish Memory
• arclein"Fish can remember prey types for months. They can learn to avoid predators after being attacked once and they retain this memory for several months. And carp that have been caught by fishers avoid hooks for at least a year," l
Alligator Breathing
• arcleinPrevious research has suggested that dinosaurs breathed like birds, but these new findings seem to indicate that even before the dinos came along, the lungs of early archosaurs weren't waiting to exhale.
A Cannon for Shooting Supplies into Space
• PopSci.comJohn Hunter wants to shoot stuff into space with a 3,600-foot gun. And he’s dead serious—he’s done the math. Making deliveries to an orbital outpost on a rocket costs $5,000 per pound, but using a space gun would cost just $250 per pound.
Mammoth Project to Digitize the Tree of Life Could Uncover Thousands of New Species
• PopSciOver the past 20 years, Richard Pyle figures he’s discovered 100 new species of fish. But he’s identified only one fifth of them. Pyle, an ichthyologist at Bishop Museum in Hawaii, isn’t a slacker—he spent hundreds of hours tracking down those fish
Why A Volkswagen Bug's Domed Roof is Hard to Crush
• PopSciI had a 1970 VW Super Beetle that had outlived its usefulness. I had a stop watch and some tools of destruction. I had a friend with the same name as mine. In this TE Labs video, we find out that the shape and structure of the Beetle's domed roof is
Surprising Sea Slug Is Half-plant, Half-animal
• LiveScience.comA green sea slug appears to be part animal, part plant. It's the first critter discovered to produce the plant pigment chlorophyll.
Surprising Sea Slug Is Half-plant, Half-animal
• LiveScience.comA green sea slug appears to be part animal, part plant. It's the first critter discovered to produce the plant pigment chlorophyll.
Big Picture: 570-Megapixel, Intergalactic Camera
• Wired.comThe 570-megapixel shooter is being built at Fermilab by an international team of particle physicists and astronomers, who think it will help solve one of the great mysteries of the cosmos: What is dark energy?
Sitchen's Ideas
• arcleine ready for a "Planet of the Apes" scenario: spaceships and hieroglyphics, genetic mutations and mutinous space aliens in gold mines. It sounds like science fiction, but Mr. Sitchin is sure this is how it all went down hundreds of thousands of
Super Nova Fizzle
• arcleinAnd then... nothing happens. At least that's what supercomputers have been telling astrophysicists for decades. Many of the best computer models of supernova explosions fail to produce an explosion. I
Dolphins as Persons
• arcleinDolphins have been declared the world’s second most intelligent creatures after humans, with scientists suggesting they are so bright that they should be treated as “non-human persons”.
Blue Moon on New Years Eve Tonight
• arcleinDec. 29, 2009: Party planners take note. For the first time in almost twenty years, there's going to be a Blue Moon on New Year's Eve.
Dark Matter
• arcleinThe particles showed as two tiny pulses of heat deposited over the course of two years in chunks of germanium and silicon that had been cooled to a temperature near absolute zero. The detectors are place half a mile down to avoid them being effec
Comet Ammonia Link
• arcleinthe Tunguska and Younger Dryas events. In both instances, Melott's group found evidence that the Haber process - whereby a nitrogen fixation reaction produces ammonia - may have occurred on a large scale. "A comet entering the atmosphere makes a b
Mammoth Decline
• arcleinThe new view — that pockets of beasts survived to as recently as 7,600 years ago, rather than the previous end times mark of 12,000 years ago — is supported by DNA evidence found in a few pinches of dirt. After plucking ancient DNA from frozen soi
Yellowstone's Plumbing
• arcleinThe plume angles downward 150 miles to the west-northwest of Yellowstone and reaches a depth of at least 410 miles, Smith says. The study estimates the plume is mostly hot rock, with 1 percent to 2 percent molten rock in sponge-like voids within the
Dark Matter Rumor
• arcleinThe physics blogs are abuzz with rumors that a particle of dark matter has finally been found. The Cryogenic Dark Matter Search experiment is one of several designed to look for the tell-tale signature of dark matter particles passing through CDM
Deep Water
• arcleinkey aspect of the Atlantic Ocean's large-scale circulation involves the sinking of cold, dense water--called deep-water formation--in Arctic and Antarctic waters. Scientists who are trying predict how climate change will play out in different parts
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