August 11, 2009
In 1918, magician extraordinaire Harry Houdini created a sensation when he made a 10,000 pound elephant disappear before a mystified audience of over 5,200 at New York's famed Hippodrome theatre. But a vanishing pachyderm is nothing compared to the magnificent illusion to be performed by our solar system's own sixth rock from the sun on Aug. 11. On that day, the planet Saturn, with no help from either Jupiter or Uranus, will make its 170,000-mile-wide ring system disappear.img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/sciencedaily/~4/-vtkkK-E_9A" height="1" width="1"/
Organic molecules in Mars meteorites did not originate in alien microbes.
Also in the works: A computer than can tell when you are pissed at it.
The strange Medusae Fossae Formation may be 2 billion years older than previously thought.
Dramatic changes in pressure did not appear to harm hitchhiking mollusks.
A new petition asks to make taxpayer-funded research free to everyone to read. Startups and small businesses would benefit, they say.
NASA's Cassini probe is preparing to tilt its orbit around Saturn dramatically.
According to a study done by MIT, most people smile when frustrated. They have gone on to create a computer program to differentiate between happy smiles and frustrated smiles. This research is done in part to better understand autistic behavior.
[...] Saturn To Pull Celestial Houdini On August 11 [...]