Opit's LinkFest!: 28 May

BBC

The police commander for northern Afghanistan, Gen Daud Daud, and several others are killed in a suicide bomb attack on a governor's office.

Egypt eases Gaza border blockade

Live - Barcelona v Manchester United

Blog of Rights

This Week in Civil Liberties

ACLU Lens: Arizona Governor Challenges Her Own State's Medical Marijuana Law

Four More Years of Unchecked Spying, Surveillance and Secrecy

C Net

Patriot Act renewed despite warnings of 'secret' law

Top-rated reviews of the week (photos)

Pioneer demonstrates cool Floating Vision displays

CNN

U.S. budget ax threatens successful AIDS program in Africa

The Biblical story of Lazarus is happening again in Africa. At least it looks that way.

Egyptian court fines ousted government officials $90 million

Mysterious markings discovered at Great Pyramid of Giza

Common Dreams

No Matter How Far Wrong You've Gone/ You Can Always Turn Around

A Mess of A Child

Not Dead Yet

Current TV

Daily Galaxy

Odd Blue Star Found in Milky Way's Central Bulge (Which Stopped Making Stars Billions of Years Ago)
Posted: 2011-05-27 11:11:22 UTC
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has found a rare class of oddball stars called blue stragglers in the hub of the Milky Way -- the first detected within our galaxy's bulge. Blue stragglers seemingly lag behind other stars in the aging...

The Central Black Holes of a Trillion Galaxies --Were They Spawned by Supermassive Dark Stars?
Posted: 2011-05-27 13:29:36 UTC
Dark matter not only had a role to play in fueling early primitive stars, it may have created "dark stars" so massive that they went on to spawn supermassive black holes found at the cores of the one trillion galaxies...

"Black Holes are the Engines that Create New Universes" (Today's Most Popular)
Posted: 2011-05-27 13:31:44 UTC
“Our own Universe may be the interior of a black hole existing in another universe.” In a remarkable paper about the nature of space and the origin of time, Nikodem Poplawski, a physicist at Indiana University, suggests that a small...

3D Map of Galaxies and Dark Matter Up to 1 Billion Light-Years from Earth
Posted: 2011-05-27 11:33:04 UTC
The new 2MASS Redshift Survey (2MRS) mapCovering 95 per cent of the sky in the infrared part of the spectrum, shows the distribution of galaxies and dark matter that make up the local Universe up to 380 million light years...

Image of the Day: Robot Snaps Pics of Symbols in Secret Chamber of the Great Pyramid
Posted: 2011-05-27 13:08:17 UTC
Archaelogists are not sure if they are ancient graffiti tags left by a worker or symbols of religious significance. A robot has sent back the first images of markings on the wall of a tiny chamber in the Great Pyramid...

'The Daily Galaxy' May Contest -Win a Free $500 Apple Gift Card!
Posted: 2011-05-01 22:17:48 UTC
Use it towards a purchase of an iPhone, iPad, Apple TV or Hundreds of Other Apple Products and Accessories. Users of Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon are invited to discover, review and share Daily Galaxy posts you love on...

Cosmic Mystery --An Ancient Bygone Cluster Mirrors Young Galaxy Clusters
Posted: 2011-05-26 15:21:31 UTC
A surprisingly large collections of galaxies (red dots in center) stands out at a remarkably large distance in this composite image combining infrared and visible-light observations. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope contributed to the infrared component of the observations, while shorter-wavelength...

The Ancient Red Dot --The Oldest Most Distant Object in the Universe Discovered
Posted: 2011-05-26 13:56:41 UTC
A gamma-ray burst known as GRB 090429B for the 29 April 2009 date when it was detected by NASA's Swift satellite has been found to be a candidate for the most distant object in the Universe at an estimated distance...

Cosmic Catastrophes: NASA Maps Past and Future Galaxy Collisions
Posted: 2011-05-26 14:09:51 UTC
In five billion years the Milky Way galaxy will collide with the Andromeda galaxy. The two galaxies will lose their separate identities as they merge into one. At the same time, the building blocks of life in the Universe --...

Gigantic Star 150 Times Sun Found in Adjacent Galaxy
Posted: 2011-05-26 14:15:03 UTC
A super massive, isolated star has been discovered in the Large Magellanic Cloud, adjacent to the Milky Way. The star, VFTS 682, is one of the more massive stars ever known -- about 150 times the mass of the Sun....

Image of the Day: Giant Natural Particle Accelerators 40 Kilometers Above Earth
Posted: 2011-05-26 14:20:46 UTC
A lightning researcher at the University of Bath has discovered that during thunderstorms, giant natural particle accelerators can form 40 kilometers above the surface of the Earth -- a fascinating example of the interaction between the Earth and the Universe....

NASA to Launch Mission to Asteroid in 2016 -- Seeking Organic Molecules that may have Seeded Life on Earth.
Posted: 2011-05-26 14:26:28 UTC
NASA has selected the University of Arizona to lead a sample-return mission to an asteroid. The team is led by Michael Drake, director of the the UA's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. OSIRIS-REx will rendezvous with asteroid 1999 RQ36, extend a...

'The Daily Galaxy' May Contest -- Win a Free $500 Apple Gift Card!
Posted: 2011-05-12 09:45:29 UTC
Use it towards a purchase of an iPhone, iPad, Apple TV or Hundreds of Other Apple Products and Accessories. Users of Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon are invited to discover, review and share Daily Galaxy posts you love on...

NASA's "Opportunity" -- Now a Human Technology Artifact Abandoned on Mars
Posted: 2011-05-25 14:58:35 UTC
In this Jan. 28, 2004 photo provided by NASA/JPL of a photo shot by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit. NASA is ending efforts to revive the sand-trapped rover Spirit, which has been silent for more than a year most likely...

Is Discovery of Earth's Twin Imminent? Kepler Mission Finds Numerous Small, Rocky Planets (Sound Familiar).
Posted: 2011-05-25 11:42:11 UTC
"It could happen almost any time now. We now have the technological capability to identify Earth-like planets around the smallest stars." David Latham -- Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics One of the most intriguing results of the Kepler Mission is the...

Has a Massive Collision in the Pleiades Been Creating Earthlike Planets?
Posted: 2011-05-26 14:27:21 UTC
Rocky terrestrial planets, perhaps like Earth, or Venus, appear to be forming or to have recently formed around a star in the Pleiades star cluster, astronomers using the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii and the Spitzer Space Telescope have observed. The...

NASA's "Star Trek" Era: Unveils New Orion Spaceship for Manned Deep-Space Exploration
Posted: 2011-05-25 11:58:05 UTC
NASA on Tuesday announced a plan to develop a new deep space vehicle to send astronauts on expeditions to an asteroid, and then on to Mars. The spaceship, known as the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV), will be based on designs...

From the 'X-Files' Dept: Alien IQ -- Could We Measure the Level of Extraterrestrial Intelligence?
Posted: 2011-05-25 15:47:17 UTC
How could we assess the intelligence of an extraterrestrial civilization? A team of Spanish and Australian researchers have come up with the answer. They have taken a first step towards use a scientific method to measure the intelligence of a...

EcoAlert: Antarctica's Ozone Hole Healing -- Experts Report
Posted: 2011-05-25 12:06:03 UTC
In the 80s and 90s, a lot of effort was put into banning chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, a family of organic compounds that like to devour the ozone that's protecting us all from dying of skin cancer. A couple decades later,...

Epic Discovery: Spiral Arm at Fringe of the Milky Way -- A Vast, Star-forming Outer Extension
Posted: 2011-05-24 12:01:16 UTC
A major new discovery of a vast section of a spiral, star-forming arm at the Milky Way’s outskirts about 49,000 light-years from the galactic center, shows the galaxy to have a rare, beautiful symmetry -- one half of the Milky...

"Hubble V1" -- The Star that Exploded the Size of the Observable Universe
Posted: 2011-05-24 12:17:47 UTC
The NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has been focused in the image above on a single variable star that in 1923 altered the course of modern astronomy. V1 is a special class of pulsating star called a Cepheid variable that can...

Are Odds for Discovery of Life Unfolding Expontentially? Kepler's Prolific Discoveries of Multiple-Planet Systems
Posted: 2011-05-24 12:30:18 UTC
Within just the first four months of data delivered by NASA's Kepler Space Telescope, astronomers have found evidence for more than 1,200 planetary candidates, of which 408 orbit in systems containing two or more planets. The experts have discovered that...

Why are Supermassive Black Holes at Galactic Cores Spinning Faster than Ever in the History of the Universe?
Posted: 2011-05-24 13:13:55 UTC
British astronomers have found that the giant black holes in the centers of galaxies are on average spinning faster than at any time in the history of the Universe. Dr. Alejo Martinez-Sansigre of the University of Portsmouth and Prof. Steve...

"100 Million Collisions per Second" -- CERN's Large Hadron Collider Smashes Closer to Unlocking Secrets of the Universe
Posted: 2011-05-24 13:22:15 UTC
European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) scientists look at computer screens showing traces on the Atlas experiment of the first protons injected in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) during its switch-on operation in 2008 near Geneva. It set a new...

The Search for Habitable Planets: "Life is a Natural Planetary Phenomenon”
Posted: 2011-05-25 01:35:26 UTC
“Columbus forced everyone to rethink, redesign and rebuild their world view.That’s what we’re doing here. To put it in 15th-century terms, we’ve reached the Canary Islands." Dimitar Sasselov, professor of astrophysics and director of Harvard University’s Origins of Life Initiative...

Image of the Day: Iceland's Grímsvötn Volcano Erupts -- Ash Cloud Heading to Europe?
Posted: 2011-05-24 13:24:20 UTC
Iceland's Grímsvötn volcano erupted on Saturday with an explosion that trumped last summer's Eyjafjallajökull eruption whose ash cloud shut down the airports of Europe. Dave McGarvie, a volcanologist at the Open University in Milton Keynes, UK, says that although Grímsvötn...

Is Dark Energy "Antigravity" Leakage from an Adjacent Universe? We Might Know Soon.
Posted: 2011-05-23 00:43:53 UTC
New results from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer and the Anglo-Australian Telescope atop Siding Spring Mountain in Australia confirm that dark energy is a smooth, uniform force that now dominates over the effects of gravity. The observations follow from careful measurements...

The Pale Purple Dot -- Alien Plant Life as Sign of Habitable Planets
Posted: 2011-05-23 14:32:40 UTC
With the discovery of more and more planets outside the solar system by the Kepler Space Telescope and other ESO observatories, there is growing interest in devising methods to detect life on Earth-sized extrasolar planets. To do this, scientists rely...

Image of the Day: Most Massive Black-Hole Jets Ever Captured
Posted: 2011-05-23 07:14:00 UTC
An international team using radio telescopes located throughout the Southern Hemisphere has produced the most detailed image ever of particle jets erupting from a supermassive black hole in Centaurus A (Cen A), a nearby galaxy with a supermassive black hole...

Hyper Evolution -- Human Population Growth is Accelerating Species Change
Posted: 2011-05-23 11:55:05 UTC
"We are more different genetically from people living 5,000 years ago than they were different from Neanderthals." John Hawks -- University of Wisconsin anthropologist In a fascinating discovery that counters a common theory that human evolution has slowed to a...

Democracy Now!

The Battle for Wisconsin: Court Strikes Down Gov. Scott Walker’s Anti-Union Bill

Sandra Steingraber on the Health Crisis Surrounding Natural Gas Extraction

Eli Pariser on "The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You”

491

Irish Teen Hacker Scares Microsoft Enough to Land Him a Job
62 Comments

414

The Dirty Little Secrets Of The Pharmaceutical Industry [Infographic]
54 Comments

292

Sophie Horn is the Sexiest Female in Golf (Pics)
26 Comments

287

Could Semen Be an Antidepressant?
21 Comments

261

Why Choose? BlueStacks Lets Users Dual Boot Windows and Android
14 Comments

Discovery

A Video Game that Really Gives You the Shivers

New Disney technology gives users sensations on their skin, while playing a game or watching a movie.

Air France Jet Stalled, Plunged into Ocean

Antidepressants Kill Bacteria in Great Lakes

E !

Guess Me From Behind: Panty Flasher

Week in Review: Kim Kardashian Uses Stardom for Good, Knocks Arnold Schwarzenegger Off Front Page

Jessica Szohr on Leaving Gossip Girl: "I'm Ready for a Change"

Education

Blind man files discrimination suit over law school admission test

Trump's 'university' targeted by NY regulators

Your education is not an equal opportunity

guardian uk

Ratko Mladic deemed fit for extradition

Serbian court rules former Bosnian Serb general is healthy enough to stand trial in The Hague, despite defence's protestsEfforts to put Europe's...

WikiLeaks accused Bradley Manning 'should never have been sent to Iraq'

Gil Scott-Heron dies aged 62

Google

Obama highlights Poland as model for a changing Middle East

msnbc.com

On the last stop of his Europe tour, Obama recognized Poland's economic and democratic growth, saying it could be a template for pro-democracy movements in North Africa and the Middle East. President Barack Obama and Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk ...

Christian Science Monitor