SentForever are letting people transmit free messages into deep space through their Web site to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

So you can send a message to extraterrestrials at the speed of light, some 670 million miles per hour.   Mapping its progress is cooler than anything you will write in the message.

After 8 minutes the messages pass by the sun and 5 1/2 hours later pass Pluto. In 14 hours the messages overtake the Voyager 1 probe, the most distant man-made object from Earth, launched by NASA in September 1977.

Even in the scramble to get clean energy funding, it's not a bad idea to devote money to research technology that isn't "shovel ready" science and technology, or even available everywhere, but can still help some regions pursue alternative sources that make financial sense.

A new method for capturing significantly more heat from low-temperature geothermal resources holds promise for generating cleaner electrical energy.   Next step: the scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have to determine if their approach can safely and economically extract and convert heat from vast untapped geothermal resources. 

Nintendo is trying to sell you something so they will claim in marketing that Wii 'active' video games are good exercise for kids, but are they really?

Yes, says a new study in the journal Pediatrics, though only if they are the kind of kids who are otherwise sedentary and at high risk for obesity and diabetes.

Scientists at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center found that playing active video games like the Wii can be an effective substitute for moderate exercise.   No one is saying children should stop playing outside or doing real exercise but active video games can be a suitable alternative at times.  Basically, if an obese child is going to sit around and play video games instead of exercising, something is better than nothing.

Why are terrorists like the Taliban and al Qaeda or even insurgents on their home soil harder to defeat? 

There are many considerations.   Politically, policy-makers want approval over any military operation that has consequences at home and intelligence information found by the military has to be calibrated.

In the first study of its kind to combine military intelligence, attrition and civilian population behavior in a unified model of counterinsurgency dynamics, Moshe Kress and Roberto Szechtman of the Naval Postgraduate School stress the role of obtaining intelligence about the insurgency.

A single evolutionary event appears to explain the short, curved legs that characterize all of today's dachshunds, corgis, basset hounds and at least 16 other breeds of dogs.

The research team led by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) scientist Elaine Ostrander, Ph.D., examined DNA samples from 835 dogs, including 95 with short legs. Their survey of more than 40,000 markers of DNA variation uncovered a genetic signature exclusive to short-legged breeds. Through follow-up DNA sequencing and computational analyses, the researchers determined the dogs' disproportionately short limbs can be traced to one mutational event in the canine genome - a DNA insertion - that occurred early in the evolution of domestic dogs. 

What separates us from the animals?   Some of us contend it's technology while others say it's Pynchon novels but really how we learn has to be in the top five.

Researchers in neuroscience, psychology, education, and machine learning are trying to synthesize a new 'science of learning' that will reshape how we think about education and perhaps help us imagine a new classroom for the 21st century.