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"Classroom Activity Pages Looking for extra-credit projects? These pages have activities, discussion questions, and quizzes based on select stories. "

"Two Americans shared this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry for deciphering the communication system that the human body uses to sense the outside world and send messages to cells - for example, speeding the heart when danger approaches. The understanding is aiding the development of new drugs. The winners, Dr. Robert J. Lefkowitz, 69, a professor at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute researcher, and Dr. Brian K. Kobilka, 57, a professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine in California, "

"Burns was one of 18 schools in the world selected to participate in a program that relies on amateur radio volunteers to help connect schoolchildren with astronauts while in orbit. The Daytona Beach Amateur Radio Association teamed up with the Oak Hill school to make the project a success. "

"The first humanoid robot in space was sent to the space station with the intention of eventually taking over tasks too dangerous or mundane for astronauts, and the first such task identified for it was monitoring air velocity. Astronauts onboard the space station generally have to measure the air flow in front of vents inside the station to ensure that none of the ventilation ductwork gets clogged or blocked. The task involves holding a gauge in front of vents in five different locations on the station and taking several measurements of the air flow every 90 days or so."

"Cleared for Mach 2 after departure, this supersonic jet of the future would yaw 90 degrees and put a new set of wings into the wind. The brainchild of Ge-Chen Zha of the University of Miami, the "supersonic, bi-directional flying wing" recently landed a $100,000 NASA grant to continue development of a concept that could cut the New York to Tokyo travel time to four hours-and perhaps significantly faster than that, Zha said."

"A jackpot of previously unknown black holes across the universe has been discovered by the infrared eyes of a prolific NASA sky-mapping telescope. The cosmic find comes from data collected by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey (WISE) telescope, which scanned the entire sky in infrared light from December 2009 to February 2011. The full catalog of observations by WISE during its mission was publicly released in March, and astronomers are still poring through this celestrial trove for discoveries."

"re-purposing two NRO telescopes appears to be a wonderful Band-Aid for a tricky space telescope problem. Also, as hardware construction consumes a lot of funds and time ahead of any space telescope mission, these two telescopes would save NASA a lot of cash."

"For decades, pioneer aviator Amelia Earhart was said to have "disappeared" over the Pacific on her quest to circle the globe along a 29,000-mile equatorial route. Now, new information gives a clearer picture of what happened 75 years ago to Ms. Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan, where they came down and how they likely survived - for a while, at least - as castaways on a remote island, catching rainwater and eating fish, shellfish, and turtles to survive."

"NASA's Jupiter-bound Juno spacecraft will carry the 1.5-inch likeness of Galileo Galilei, the Roman god Jupiter and his wife Juno to Jupiter when the spacecraft launches this Friday, Aug. 5. The inclusion of the three mini-statues, or figurines, is part of a joint outreach and educational program developed as part of the partnership between NASA and the LEGO Group to inspire children to explore science, technology, engineering and mathematics. "

"Exercises Virtual Bear and Winged Warrior use high tech tools to help Canadian Forces navigate joint operations."

These are the latest sea trials of the F-35B on the USS Wasp. They were very successful, with 74 VL's and STO's in a three week period.

"The final experiments involving Alex - a grey parrot (Psittacus eithacus) trained to count objects - have just been published. They show that Alex could accurately add together Arabic numerals to a sum of eight and three sets of objects, putting his mathematical abilities on par with (and maybe beyond) those of chimpanzees and other non-human primates"

"News that the faster-than-light neutrinos that caused a sensation in September may have a mundane explanation - a faulty cable connection - comes as little surprise. There has never been a convincing physical explanation for the result."

"Swiss scientists have for the first time succeeded in realistically simulating how an oceanic plate sinks of its own accord under an adjacent plate. At the same time they showed why only one of the plates rather than both subducts into the Earth's mantle, and how this process affects the dynamics of the Earth's interior."

"New results from the MARSIS radar on Mars Express give strong evidence for a former ocean of Mars. The radar detected sediments reminiscent of an ocean floor inside previously identified, ancient shorelines on the red planet. The ocean would have covered the northern plains billions of years ago. "

"A Russian team has succeeded in drilling through four kilometres (2.5 miles) of ice to the surface of a mythical subglacial Antarctic lake which could hold as yet unknown life forms"

"The question in astrophysics was what could have generated the current. This experiment demonstrated that such asymmetrical shockwaves could do the job."

The National Science Foundation, for example, is embracing the formula to try to increase commercialization of the university research it finances. Last fall, the foundation announced the first of a series of grants for what it calls the N.S.F. Innovation Corps. The 21 three-member teams received a crash course at Stanford in lean start-up techniques, and have been given $50,000 each and six months to test whether their inventions are marketable.

"Zero Robotics SPHERES Challenge -- a programming competition run by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Having endured months of hard work and three qualifying stages, players will fly miniature satellites aboard the space station using computer programs they've written. "

"The Intel Science Talent Search, the country's oldest science competition, encourages students to tackle challenging scientific questions and develop the skills to solve the problems of today and tomorrow. Participants are judged on both their original scientific research and on their achievement and leadership, inside and outside the classroom. The 40 finalists will gather in Washington, D.C. from March 8-13 to compete for $630,000 in awards; the top winner will walk away with $100,000."