Science is Cool: Mars Probe on the Ground

Image from source, SFGate

The landing of the Mars Probe on the red planet didn't have the "gee-whiz" impact of the 1969 moon landing, but it's very exciting to science geeks like myself. The probe is on a quest to determine if life ever existed on Mars. Anyone who ever read comic books or watched atomic age movies on basic cable in the 70s is hoping YES! It will also be very amusing to see--should life be discovered--how the major religions rationalize it. Where did the life go? They'll probably say there was a rapture. . .

[Excerpt]

Mars probe on the ground, now it's time for the dirty work

Only a day after the spacecraft Phoenix landed so brilliantly on an icy, pebble-strewn patch of the northern plains of Mars, scientists prepared today to start their three-month search for signs that life-giving water and chemicals were once abundant on the planet long, long ago. . .

Read more at: SFGate

Air Marshals on Fewer than 1% of Flights?

Creepy training picture from source, CNN

So, everything changed after 9/11, right? Maybe not so much.

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Sources: Air marshals missing from almost all flights

Of the 28,000 commercial airline flights that take to the skies on an average day in the United States, fewer than 1 percent are protected by on-board, armed federal air marshals, a nationwide CNN investigation has found.

That means a terrorist or other criminal bent on taking over an aircraft would be confronted by a trained air marshal on as few as 280 daily flights, according to more than a dozen federal air marshals and pilots interviewed by CNN. . .

Read more at: CNN