Morning Fog wallpaper, Unique goldmine organism discovered, Planetariums are Bridges to the Future

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Goldmine bug DNA may be key to alien life

A bug discovered deep in a goldmine and nicknamed “the bold traveller” has got astrobiologists buzzing with excitement. Its unique ability to live in complete isolation of any other living species suggests it could be the key to life on other planets.

The organism was discovered 2.8 kilometers down in a goldmine in South Africa. Its apparently very independent. It is the only organism that lives in that environment, which means that rather then feeding on other life forms – either plant or animal – it depends completely on this isolated environment to sustain itself. That environment is devoid of light (a form of energy) and oxygen.

Don’t mess with scientists

If there’s one rule in election-year politics, it’s this: Don’t mess with the science crowd. OK, labor unions and the NRA matter too, but John McCain may want to brush up on his stars and planets after Tuesday night’s debate.

In the debate, McCain portrayed Barack Obama as an excessive spender, and he punctuated his attack (twice) with this example:

“[Obama] voted for nearly a billion dollars in pork barrel earmark projects, including, by the way, $3 million for an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago, Illinois. My friends, do we need to spend that kind of money?”

Turns out, a lot of people think we do. This is no ordinary overhead projector from your 5th grade classroom. The blog Cosmic Variance sums it up:

“If you’ve ever had the pleasure of visiting the Adler Planetarium, you’d probably guess that the ‘overhead projector’ he’s talking about is the spectacular ‘Sky Theater’ — one of the most engrossing, gorgeous venues for displaying visuals about space.”

Ironically the Adler Planetarium requested federal support to get a new projector in its historic Sky Theater ( the first planetarium theater in the Western Hemisphere), but never recieved the funds. There are a lot of buzzwords in this election cycle and earmarks are one of them. Not all earmarks are bad. All the aid the U.S. gives to Israel for instance is done through earmarks. So to be against all earmarks is to be against all aid to Israel. Then earmarks are also used to supplement funding for public institutions like museums and planetariums.