The Daily Galaxy: News from Planet Earth & Beyond

Ancient Green Sahara Slowly Transformed to Planet's Largest Desert

The world’s largest hot desert (seeing as technically Antarctica is the largest desert, though cold), the Sahara measures in at over 9 million square kilometers, and covers the majority of northern Africa. With an intermittent history that some believe may go back as far as 3 million years, a new study questions how it made its transition from lush greenery to hot sandy desert.

Antennae Galaxies -A Preview of the Milky Way's Future

The Antennae Galaxies are among the closest known merging galaxies. The two galaxies, also known as NGC 4038 and NGC 4039, began interacting a few hundred million years ago, creating one of the most impressive sights in the night sky. They are considered by scientists as the archetypal merging galaxy system and are used as a standard against which to validate theories about galaxy evolution.

Fossil Skies: Were the Planet's Past Extinction Events Caused by Global Warming?

“If you look at the fossil record, it is just littered with dead bodies from past catastrophes,”  observes University of Washington paleontologist Peter Ward. Ward says that only one extinction in Earth’s past was caused by an asteroid impact – the event 65 million years ago that ended the age of the dinosaurs. All the rest, he claims, were caused by global warming.

New Laser Technology Aiding the Search for Exo-Planets

A laser-generated optical comb might sound like something Flash Gordon would use to straighten his hair.  It's actually a super precise measuring device, able to find the frequency of radiation more accurately than any other method.  That might sound less exciting than a new kind of paint-dryer, but has applications in little things like the measurement of time, probing the fundamental constants of the universe, and finding other planets.  You know, small stuff.

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The Future of Food: Will the World Be Eating Steaks Grown in a Petri Dish?

Last month, in Norway, the first international In Vitro Meat Symposium was held. The consensus among scientists seems to be that by the end of the decade we will be buying in vitro beef, pork and chicken that was artificially grown from stem cells in laboratories. They say it’s more humane to eat an animal that never had a head, sort of like eating a meaty vegetable. 

Woody Allen, the 70's -A Video Montage

I am thankful for laughter, except when milk comes out of my nose.
 
Don't miss this brilliant montage of Woody Allen's golden years -the films of the '70s. They're all here:  Bananas, Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask), Sleeper, and Love and Death, capped by Annie , which  marked a major turn to more sophisticated humor and thoughtful drama. Annie Hall film won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture – unusual for a comedy, which set the standard for modern romantic comedy (and started a woman's fashion trend with the offbeat, masculine clothing, such as ties with cardigans).

Allen's 70's classics reflect the influence of Bob Hope, Groucho Marx (as well as, to some extent, Harpo Marx) and Humphrey Bogart.

Woody Allen Montage

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Kepler Space Mission: Add Your Name to the DVD that will Accompany the Search for Earth-like Planets Beyond Our Solar System

"It could happen almost any time now. We now have the technological capability to identify Earth-like planets around the smallest stars."

David Latham -Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

NASA plans to launch millions of names into space as part of the Kepler Mission to find planets in a habitable zone beyond our solar system. "This mission will provide our first knowledge of Earth-like planets beyond our solar system," Kepler Mission principal investigator William Borucki said in a news announcement.

The World’s First Zero-Emissions City…In the Middle East?

"We will no longer have to guess what the city of the future looks like. In Abu Dhabi, we will be able to see it with our own eyes."

-Paul Dickerson, chief operating officer for the U.S. Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

Who would have guessed that the world’s first zero-emission city would be built in oil-rich Abu Dhabi? The world will be watching the new city, which will serve as a large-scale test for renewable energy. Abu Dhabi lies on a T-shaped island off of the central western coast of the Persian Gulf. Its approximately 1,000,000 inhabitants is comprised mostly (80%) of expatriates.

The New Space-Based Technology of Intelligence

The commander of US Strategic Command, General Kevin Chilton, told the BBC that U.S. space-based intelligence is playing an "invaluable" role in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Where in the World is Osama bin Laden? The Sequel...

Morgan Spurlock, director of the new film,  Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden? with scenes filmed in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, India, Morocco, Afghanistan and Pakistan could have saved himself a lot of work if he had first viewed Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto's interview with Sir David Frost prior to her assassination. Bhutto  said that bin Laden was murdered by a rival turncoat Al Qaeda leader. 

A Manned Mission to Asteroid 2000 SG344?

Those who keep track of such things will know that there is a lot of discussion as to where man will head next, in its continuing journey in to space. Bush wants us to head back to the Moon in 2020, and set up a lunar outpost. Experts want us to forget the Moon and head straight to Mars.

But a new report out of NASA is looking at sending a two man crew to rendezvous with 2000 SG344, an asteroid discovered in 1999 and with a diameter of 40 meters.

TGIF: The Original 1940 'Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe'

This 1940 classic opens with a deadly plague known as the Purple Death ravaging the planet. Ming the Merciless is suspected to be the evil mastermind behind the plague. Flash Gordon is sent with Dr. Zarkov and Dale Arden to the planet Mongo to find the cause of the plague, as well as a cure. It's a hoot! We give this one four spiral galaxies.

Video Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (1941)

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Bio Art: Life Imitates Art. But What Happens When the art IS life?

Well, then the bio-art starts growing out of control and has to be killed by a lone hero.  Obviously.  That might sound like the script of "Little Shop Of Horrors: The Revenge", but it actually happened in New York this month.

Ancient Lakes of Antarctica -Living Biological Labs Millions of Years Old

Buried beneath several miles of ice in Antarctica are lakes ranging in size from Lake Ontario to lakes the size of Manhattan. Lake Vostok, the largest subglacial lake on Earth, is believed to harbor ancient life that has been isolated from open exchange with the atmosphere for several million years.

Is Mars Between Ice Ages?

"Mars is not a dead planet -it undergoes climate changes that are even more pronounced than on Earth."

James Head of Brown University

The prevailing thinking is that Mars is a planet whose active climate has been confined to the distant past. About 3.5 billion years ago, the Red Planet had extensive flowing water and then fell quiet - deadly quiet. It didn't seem the climate had changed much since. Now, recent studies by scientists at Brown University show that  Mars' climate has been much more dynamic than previously believed.

“Human Nature” -How Will it Affect Our Species Chances of Long-term Survival?

It’s a given that Earth cannot survive indefinitely, if for no other reason than that the sun will eventually expand and roast the planet. Of course, many scientists believe that by the time that happens, life will have long since disappeared on this planet for other reasons—many of them involving manmade disasters. Are they just being pessimistic, or realistic, or both?