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LIVE: SpaceX Craft Captured By Space Station

The historic first docking of a commercial spacecraft at the International Space Station orbiting above Earth is on track this morning, as SpaceX’s Dragon capsule brings supplies to the crew orbiting high above Earth. Just before 10 a.m. ET, astronauts aboard the space station successfully grabbed the capsule with a robotic arm. It was expected [...]

Stand Back When Snapping Turtles Crop Up In The Garden

Late spring in a New England vegetable garden is usually a time for the last asparagus, the crisp lettuce and arugula, the first pea shoots, and the first sprouting of warm-weather crops like peppers and zucchini. What you don’t expect to see planted in your beds are snapping turtles. But that’s just what turned up [...]

Do Plants Smell Other Plants? This One Does, Then Strangles What It Smells

“Plants smell,” says botanist David Chamovitz. Yes, they give off odors, but that’s not what Chamovitz means. He means plants can smell other plants. “Plants know when their fruit is ripe, when their [plant] neighbor has been cut by a gardener’s shears, or when their neighbor is being eaten by a ravenous bug; they smell [...]

SpaceX Ship Passes Close By International Space Station

Astronauts on board the international space station got a chance earlier today to see the private unmanned Dragon spaceship that was launched on Tuesday by SpaceX, of Hawthorne, Calif. NASA astronaut Don Pettit, who is living on the station, was talking to Houston’s Mission Control when he suddenly reported that he had spotted Dragon. “I’m [...]

Why Is That Undulating Blob Of Flesh Inspecting My Oil Drill?

Every so often, the Internet astonishes. Things I wouldn’t, couldn’t, shouldn’t expect, sometimes happen. Take this, for example: On April 25, somewhere in the ocean off Great Britain, a remotely operated video camera mounted near a deep sea oil drill caught a glimpse — at first it was just a glimpse — of an astonishing [...]

All Routine PSA Tests For Prostate Cancer Should End, Task Force Says

There they go again — those 17 federally appointed experts at the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force are telling American doctors and patients to stop routinely doing lifesaving tests. Or at least that’s the way some people look at the task force’s latest guidelines on prostate cancer screening, which say doctors should stop doing routine [...]

Tom Waits Salutes (I Think) An Artist I’ve Never Heard Of

Who’s John Baldessari? To judge from this wonderfully mischievous video commissioned by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Baldessari is a hugely — and I mean hugely — successful conceptual artist, whose work has appeared in hundreds of gallery shows, major museum exhibitions. You name it, he’s done it. And yet — in the [...]

Clarence Birdseye And His Fantastic Frozen Food Machine

There’s a particular pleasure in being reminded that the most ordinary things can still be full of magic. Frogs may turn into princes. Lumps of dirt can hide sparkling gems. And having just read Mark Kurlansky’s new biography of Clarence Birdseye, I now see the humble fish fillet in a whole new light. For as [...]

Trash Can May Be Greenest Option For Unused Drugs

American homes are filled with unused prescription drugs. Each year we squirrel away 200 million pounds of pharmaceuticals we don’t need anymore, according to some estimates. Left in medicine cabinets, those drugs can end up in the hands of children or others who really shouldn’t be taking them. Proper and timely disposal can avert those [...]

NASA, SpaceX Aim To Launch Private Era In Orbit

A private spaceship owned by a company called SpaceX is scheduled to blast off from Cape Canaveral in Florida early Saturday morning. If all goes well, the unmanned capsule will rocket up on a mission to deliver food and other supplies to the International Space Station, becoming the first commercial spacecraft to visit the outpost. [...]