Have you ever really looked at the logo for China’s space agency?

Seem familiar?

Yes, you have seen it before.

The Mars Rover Spirit could use a couple two-by-fours, the LA Times reports, because its wheels are spinning in place… a very faraway place:

Over the last few days, controllers at JPL have tried everything they know to free the vehicle, but its wheels have sunk deeper into the sand.

Making the process more difficult is that only five of Spirit’s [...]

What might life on Mars be like? That’s the question Disney was asking TV viewers in 1957.

This has to be seen to be believed….

FANTASTIC HUNTERS WHO KILL BY CONCENTRATING THE HEAT OF THE SUN.

OMINOUS ULTRASONIC BEINGS WHO SHATTER THEIR PREY.

OUR UNTRAINED EARTH MINDS, UNABLE TO COMPREHEND THE WEIRD PHENOMENA.

You can watch more (and read an awful lot about [...]

CNN recently covered some fun physiological research from the University of Maryland that showed that music – music you like – really is good for your heart:

Miller thought, if laughter can do that, why not music? So, he tested the effects of music on the cardiovascular system. “Turns out music may be one of the best de-stressors — [...]

New Scientist examines the harmful health effects of the power of negative thinking:

The placebo effect has an evil twin: the nocebo effect, in which dummy pills and negative expectations can produce harmful effects. The term “nocebo”, which means “I will harm”, was not coined until the 1960s, and the phenomenon has been far less studied than the placebo effect. [...]

Something’s gotten in The Charleston Gazette’s blood – and ours, too. You want to know the future? One word. Plastics:

Around the world, scientists are closely examining C8 and a related chemical called PFOS. A growing body of evidence shows these chemicals are linked to a variety of adverse health effects.

In West Virginia, concern about C8 has focused on the [...]

You should know who she is.

She made NASA.

Just because we’ve swapped climate change for nuclear apocalypse in our end-of-the-world imaginings, that doesn’t mean we have to give up our terror of giant spiders. At least, the folks at The Register are letting some new research unhinge their imaginations:

Høye has spent ten years studying the flesh-eating “wolf” spider Pardosa glacialis which lives in Greenland, north of the [...]

Click to embiggen vastly

You can read the full story on Hubblesite.org; the short version – Hubble found this planet in 1998, but nobody realized it until a Canadian scientist – David Lafreniere of the University of Toronto – went back through the old data.

“We’ve shown that NICMOS is more powerful than previously thought for imaging planets,” says [...]