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Scientists are throwing cold water on yet another purported "alien" sighting by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity. Though UFO enthusiasts may beg to differ, mission team members say bright flashes of light visible in Mars photos taken by the Curiosity rover on April 2 and April 3 almost certainly have a perfectly ordinary explanation. "One possibility is that the light is the glint from a rock surface reflecting the sun. When these images were taken each day, the sun was in the same direction as the bright spot, west-northwest from the rover, and relatively low in the sky," Justin Maki, the...

We often hear talk about pressing for a constitutional convention as a means to address issues that Congress keeps avoiding, especially on debt and spending levels as well as intrusion on states’ rights. States have that option, as long as two-thirds agree on a demand for such a meeting — which hasn’t taken place since the US Constitution was put forward more than 220 years ago. Did a recent call from Michigan for action on balancing the budget hit the two-thirds mark? A similar issue came up during the debate over the Equal Rights Amendment, which stalled and died in...

Remember Julie Boonstra? She’s the single mother fighting leukemia who appeared in an anti-Obamacare television ad running in Michigan: (see video at link) Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid assailed Ms. Boonstra, and others like her, in a breathtakingly mean-spirited floor speech — going so far as to say that “all” of their negative experiences were “untrue” and “lies.” Reid now claims he doesn’t remember saying any such thing, but there’s video tape: (see Reid video at link) In his effort to discredit Boonstra, Reid relied on a Washington Post “fact check,” which effectively ruled her story half true. In fact,...

Breitbart Texas has reported extensively on the left-of-center campaign to restrict the ability of Border Patrol agents to defend themselves and on the false narratives such open-borders advocates use in their political and media attacks against the men and women of the Border Patrol. The reality being far from the false narrative of "kids throwing pebbles," the life-threatening rock attacks against Border Patrol agents often occur in remote areas when a solitary Border Patrol agent may be up to a 90-minute drive from their nearest backup. The solitary Border Patrol agent's radio often does not work due to insufficient communications...

Summary: A future computer might be a lot slimier than the solid silicon devices we have today. Researchers have revealed details of logic units built using living slime molds, which might act as the building blocks for computing devices and sensors.

Scientists have made a stunning discovery in the outer realm of the solar system — an asteroid with its own set of rings that orbits the sun between Saturn and Uranus. The space rock is the first non-planetary object ever found to have its own ring system, researchers say. The pair of space rock rings encircle the asteroid Chariklo. They were most likely formed after a collision scattered debris around the asteroid, according to a new study unveiled today (March 27). The asteroid rings also suggests the presence of a still-undiscovered moon around Chariklo that's keeping them stable, researchers said....

A NASA spacecraft has spotted a big gully on Mars, a feature that appears to have formed only within the last three years. The powerful HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) imaged the channel, which is found on the slope of a crater wall in the Red Planet's mid-southern latitudes, on May 25, 2013. The feature was not present in HiRISE photos of the area taken on Nov. 5, 2010. NASA unveiled the image on Wednesday (March 19). While the Mars gully looks a lot like river channels here on Earth, it likely was not carved out by...

Secretary of State John Kerry warned of serious repercussions for Russia on Monday if last-ditch talks over the weekend to resolve the crisis in Ukraine failed to persuade Moscow to soften its stance. Kerry will travel to London for a Friday meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov ahead of a Sunday referendum vote in the Crimea region to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation. U.S. and European officials argue that Moscow is orchestrating the referendum and waging an intimidation campaign with thousands of Russian troops controlling the region. If Russian-backed lawmakers in Crimea go through with the...

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott leads Democrat Wendy Davis by 11 points, according to a new poll Monday. Forty-seven percent of voters said they back Abbott, while 36 percent would vote for Davis, a University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll found. Seventeen percent of registered voters said they had no opinion. The new poll represents a widening gap between Abbott and Davis. In October, the survey found Abbott leading Davis by just 6 percent. Meanwhile, the poll also found that Rep. Steve Stockman poses a minor threat to Sen. John Cornyn in the Senate race. Sixty-two percent of likely Republican voters...

A pair of bald eagles joined the Alcoa Davenport community in Iowa in 2009. They built their 7-foot nest on our 400-acre facility in a tree near the Mississippi River. In the spring of 2010 they fledged a pair of eaglets and later that year we installed our first Eaglecam. Employees and the community helped name the eagle pair Liberty and Justice. Since the spring of 2010, Liberty and Justice have fledged eight eaglets from this nest. Since the camera was installed nearly 20 million visitors from around the world have tuned in to witness an American icon, the bald...

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Landing on the moon is no easy feat, and five teams competing for the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize might just get a little more money to help them send their probes to the lunar surface. Astrobiotic, Moon Express, Team Indus, Hakuto and Part-Time-Scientists are all in the running to win "milestone prizes" later this year, Google Lunar X Prize officials announced today (Feb. 19). The total purse for the awards is $6 million with the teams competing in three different categories for the funds, X Prize officials said. Each company's ultimate goal is to ready its probe for...

Fatwa reportedly issued warning Muslims not to make 'hazardous trip' to live on Mars Muslims have been warned in a Fatwa not to go and live on Mars because it would pose "a real risk to life", according to a Dubai news organization. The General Authority of Islamic Affairs and Endowment (GAIAE) in the United Arab Emirates said that anyone making such a "hazardous trip" is likely to die for "no righteous reason". They would therefore be liable to a "punishment similar to that of suicide in the Hereafter", the Khaleej Times reported. The Fatwa was apparently issued in response...

Having a Democratic president in the United States is linked with a reduction in infant mortality rates, according to a controversial new study. Researchers analyzed U.S. infant mortality rates from 1965 to 2010, a period that spans nine presidencies (four Democratic and five Republican). They found that infant mortality declined significantly during that time, dropping 75 percent over the nearly 50-year period. But when the researchers used statistical methods to focus on short-term changes during this time period, they found that infant mortality rates were about 3 percent higher during years in which a Republican was president, compared with the...

A European spacecraft set to launch toward the sun in 2017 will be protected by a paint once used in prehistoric cave art. The European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter probe will be coated in a substance derived from burnt bone charcoal — a type of pigment once used by early humans to create art on the insides of caves in France. The robust substance traditionally made from burned bones should help protect the Solar Orbiter when it flies as closer to the sun than any spacecraft before it. The probe will fly about 26 million miles (42 million kilometers) from...

Wendy Davis, the likely Democratic nominee for Texas governor, said Thursday that she supports gay marriage and called on Attorney General Greg Abbott to stop defending the Texas Constitution’s definition of marriage as between one man and one woman. Davis told the San Antonio Express-News editorial board that two people who want to marry should be allowed to do so regardless of their sexual orientation. She said that if she’s elected she would support the repeal of the voter-approved constitutional amendment that bans same-sex marriage. She spoke the day after a federal judge in San Antonio heard arguments that the...

A strange ribbon of energy and particles at the edge of the solar system first spotted by a NASA spacecraft appears to serve as a sort of "roadmap in the sky" for the interstellar magnetic field, scientists say. By comparing ground-based studies and in-space observations of solar system's mysterious energy ribbon, which was first discovered by NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) in 2009, scientists are learning more details about the conditions at the solar system's edge. The study also sheds light into the sun's environment protects the solar system from high-energy cosmic rays. The ribbon is roughly perpendicular to the...

On Tuesday, NBC News’ Shawna Thomas, observing First Lady Michelle Obama’s dress at a state dinner, tweeted out her worship for her idol: HOLY CRAP LOOK AT THE FIRST LADY'S DRESS. #BOWDOWN — Shawna Thomas (@ShawnaNBCNews) February 12, 2014 Thomas is NBC News’ White House producer; she moved into that role in July 2011. Before assuming that role, she was a reporter on the hill, covering the House of Representatives. NBC News Bureau Chief Antoine Sanfuentes celebrated her elevation, writing, “On a personal note, I know that her sharp editorial judgment, keen eye for nuance, and straightforward likeability will make...

The results of a workshop to find the best ways to find, track and deflect asteroids headed for Earth were released by NASA on Friday (Feb. 7). NASA's Asteroid Initiative, started in 2013, includes a mission to capture a small near-Earth asteroid and drag it into a stable orbit around the moon, and a challenge to devise the best ideas for detecting and defending against potentially dangerous asteroids. The agency put out a request for information to refine the objectives of the Asteroid Initiative, to generate other mission concepts and increase participation in the mission and planetary defense. NASA received...

The first detection of intelligent extraterrestrial life will likely come within the next quarter-century, a prominent alien hunter predicts. By 2040 or so, astronomers will have scanned enough star systems give themselves a great shot of discovering alien-produced electromagnetic signals, said Seth Shostak of the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute in Mountain View, Calif. "I think we'll find E.T. within two dozen years using these sorts of experiments," Shostak said here Thursday (Feb. 6) during a talk at the 2014 NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) symposium here at Stanford University "Instead of looking at a few thousand star systems,...