(NEWS) Curiosity To Foreign Planet Mars Day 3

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Third Day on Mars

In this image released by NASA on Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2012, a self portrait of NASA’s Curiosity rover was taken by its Navigation cameras, located on the now-upright mast. The camera snapped pictures 360-degrees around the rover. (AP Photo/NASA)

NASA's Curiosity rover took this self-portrait using a camera on its newly deployed mast.

 PASADENA, California—The science rover Curiosity took a break from instrument checks on its third full day on Mars to beam back more pictures from the Red Planet, including its first self-portrait and a 360-degree color view of its home in Gale Crater.

The panoramic mosaic, comprising 130 separate images that Curiosity captured with its newly activated navigation cameras, shows a rust-colored, pebble-strewn expanse stretching to a wall of the crater’s rim in one direction and a tall mound of layered rock in another, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) said on Thursday.

That formation, named Mt. Sharp, stands at the center of the vast, ancient impact crater and several miles from where Curiosity touched down at the end of an eight-month voyage across 566 million kilometers of space.

A partial view of a 360-degree color panorama of the Curiosity rover's landing site on Gale Crater. The panorama comes from low-resolution versions of images taken Thursday, August 9, with a 34-millimeter mast camera. Cameras mounted on Curiosity's remote sensing mast have beamed back fresh images of the site.

Mars’ geologic history

The layers of exposed rock are thought to hold a wealth of Mars’ geologic history, making it the main target of exploration for scientists who will use the rover to seek evidence of whether the planet most similar to Earth might now harbor or once may have hosted key ingredients for microbial life.

But mission controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Los Angeles are exercising caution immediately following Curiosity’s jarring, death-defying descent to the surface on Sunday night.

They plan to spend weeks putting the nuclear-powered, six-wheeled rover and its sophisticated array of instruments through a painstaking series of “health” checks before embarking on the thrust of their science mission in earnest.

 

The Curiosity rover at its landing site inside Gale Crater. The image was taken from the rover's navigation cameras.

The $2.5-billion Curiosity project, formally named the Mars Science Laboratory, is Nasa’s first astrobiology mission since the Viking probes of the 1970s and is touted as the first fully equipped mobile geochemistry lab ever sent to a distant world.

After three full days on the Red Planet, “Curiosity continues to behave flawlessly” and has “executed all planned activities” without a hitch, mission manager Michael Watkins said.

A panoramic photograph shows the Curiosity rover's surroundings at its landing site inside Gale Crater. The rim of Gale Crater can be seen to the left, and the base of Mount Sharp is to the center-right.

 

Equipment checks

The latest round of equipment checks included an instrument designed to determine mineral composition of powdered rock and soil samples; one to analyze soil and atmospheric samples for organic compounds; one to detect traces of water locked in shallow mineral deposits; and another that uses particle X-rays to identify chemical elements in rocks and soils.

A color image from NASA's Curiosity rover shows the pebble-covered surface of Mars. This panorama mosaic was made of 130 images of 144 by 144 pixels each. Selected full frames from this panorama, which are 1,200 by 1,200 pixels each, are expected to be transmitted to Earth later.

Like Mojave Desert

The very delivery of Curiosity to the surface of Mars already has been hailed by Nasa as the greatest feat of robotic space flight.

The car-sized rover, which flew from Earth encased in a protective capsule, blasted into the Martian sky at hypersonic speed and landed safely seven minutes later after an elaborate, daredevil descent combining a giant parachute with a rocket-pack that lowered the rover to the Martian surface on a tether.

Since then, the rover has been sending a string of early images back to Earth, relayed by two Nasa satellites orbiting Mars, providing glimpses of a terrain that scientists say appear reminiscent of the Mojave Desert in Southern California.

 Two blast marks from the descent stage's rockets can be seen in the center of this image. Also seen is Curiosity's left side. This picture is a mosaic of images taken by the rover's navigation cameras.

Dark pebbles

One shot beamed back Wednesday night, the first taken by Curiosity of itself, shows the rover’s top deck strewn with dark pebbles apparently kicked up from the ground when the craft landed. Nasa scientists said the gravel does not appear to pose any risk to instruments on the vehicle.

Two separate high-resolution “Navcam” images taken of the surface show that thrust from the sky-crane rockets during descent carved out a 0.5-meter trench in the surface, exposing what appears to be Martian bedrock underneath.

When Curiosity wakes up for its fourth day on Mars early Friday (California time), mission controllers plan to conduct additional instrument checks and prepare the craft for an upgrade of its main computer software for surface operations.

All other activities will be suspended during that upgrade, which will begin on day 5 of the mission and last four days.

In this portion of the larger mosaic from the previous frame, the crater wall can be seen north of the landing site, or behind the rover. NASA says water erosion is believed to have created a network of valleys, which enter Gale Crater from the outside here.

Future missions

“It’s very exciting to think about getting there, but it is quite a ways away,” said mission scientist Dawn Sumner.

During its two-year mission, the roaming laboratory will analyze rocks and soil in search of the chemical building blocks of life, and determine whether there were habitable conditions where microbes could thrive.

As high-tech as Curiosity is, it can’t directly look for past or present life; future missions would be needed to answer that question.

Curiosity is the most complex interplanetary rover ever designed, and engineers are taking their time performing health checkups. The rover will not make its first drive or move its robotic arm for weeks.

 In this portion of the larger mosaic from the previous frame, the crater wall can be seen north of the landing site, or behind the rover. NASA says water erosion is believed to have created a network of valleys, which enter Gale Crater from the outside here.

 

Mars rover Curiosity beamed back a sweeping color panorama of the planet's surface Thursday, showing the rocky, reddish desert surrounding it and the mountain it will explore in the coming months.

 

The 360-degree view captures the landscape of Gale Crater, where Curiosity touched down early Monday, and the foot of Mount Sharp -- the rover's primary scientific target. Mike Malin, whose company built the camera used to shoot the scene, said the shot was "probably not the best pointed," but added, "We hope we'll get many others."

This partial mosaic from the Curiosity rover shows Mars' environment around the rover's landing site on Gale Crater. NASA says the pictured landscape resembles portions of the U.S. Southwest. The high-resolution mosaic includes 130 images, but not all the images have been returned by the rover to Earth. The blackened areas of the mosaic are the parts that haven't been transmitted yet.

 

The brightness of the image was boosted to compensate for the dim sunlight of the martian afternoon, but the colors were untouched, NASA said

Curiosity went through its paces "flawlessly" on its third full day on the planet, mission manager Michael Watkins said Thursday. The rover's mission is to determine whether Mars ever had an environment capable of supporting life, and its prime target is Mount Sharp, the 18,000-foot (5,500-meter) peak about 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) to the south.

 This image, taken from the rover's mast camera, looks south of the landing site toward Mount Sharp.

 

Curiosity opening Martian frontier?

Scientists hope the layers of rock that form the mountain will give them a timeline of the history of Mars. Curiosity mission planner Dawn Sumner said photographs like the ones beamed back by the rover, as well as others taken by probes in orbit, will be used to map a path to the mountain's base -- "doing the best science we can along the way, but also keeping our eyes on that beautiful layered rock," she said.

The rover is supposed to run for two years, but a previous rover, Opportunity, has been working on Mars since 2004 -- well beyond the three months NASA planned. Opportunity's sister rover, Spirit, ran from 2004 to 2010.

This image, with a portion of the rover in the corner, shows the wall of Gale Crater running across the horizon at the top of the image. The Mars rover Curiosity arrived on Mars early on August 6 and began beaming back images from the surface. See all the images as they are released here.

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(NEWS) Curiosity To Foreign Planet Mars Day 2

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Second Day On Mars

NASA rover Curiosity's second day on Mars went "flawlessly," NASA said Wednesday, confirming the antennas, communication links and generator on the $2.5 billion robot are all working well.

 "We feel very confident we have a lot of data capacity now, that we have all these links, and that was one of the major objectives of that first part of the mission," mission manager Jennifer Trosper told reporters at a press conference at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

The four main pieces of hardware that arrived on Mars with NASA's Curiosity rover were spotted by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera captured this image about 24 hours after landing.

 

She added that a pair of cameras -- set like two large eyes on the newly extended remote sensing mast -- will be used Thursday to give scientists their first full-color panoramic 360-degree view around the rover.

"The first impression you get is how earth-like this seems," commented John Grotzinger, a scientist for the mission.

"All those materials are derived from the erosion of those mountains," he added, explaining that the sediments were brought down into the crater by water that once pooled there.

 This image comparison shows a view through a Hazard-Avoidance camera on NASA's Curiosity rover before and after the clear dust cover was removed. Both images were taken by a camera at the front of the rover. Mount Sharp, the mission's ultimate destination, looms ahead.

 NASA released a low resolution black and white panoramic Wednesday that shows a vast sediment-covered plain, with low mountains in the distance.

These signs of water on Red Planet hint that some form of life was once likely -- even though Mars is now a dry place with a thin atmosphere, extreme winters and dust storms -- and they're Curiosity's reason for being.

The color image captured by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Tuesday, August 7, has been rendered about 10% transparent so that scientists can see how it matches the simulated terrain in the background.

The nuclear-powered rover is designed to hunt for soil-based signatures of life on the Earth's nearest neighbor and send back data to prepare for a future human mission.

It is the biggest robot ever built for planetary exploration -- weighing in at a ton, about the size of a small car -- and carries a complex chemistry kit to zap rocks, drill soil and test for radiation.

 This first image taken by the Navigation cameras on Curiosity shows the rover's shadow on the surface of Mars.

Grotzinger noted that the images show the rover's harrowing and complex descent on Monday "did more than give us a great ride, it gave our science team an amazing freebie."

"The thrust from the rockets actually dug 0.5 meter (1.6 feet) trench in the surface," he said. "It appears we can see Martian bedrock on the bottom."

Knowing how far the bedrock lies beneath the surface is "valuable data we can use going forward," he explained.

 

This color full-resolution image showing the heat shield of NASA's Curiosity rover was obtained during descent to the surface of Mars on Monday, August 13. The image was obtained by the Mars Descent Imager instrument known as MARDI and shows the 15-foot diameter heat shield when it was about 50 feet from the spacecraft.

In other good news, Trosper said the indications are that Curiosity's electricity generator is making "more power that was expected."

That's going to keep the rover operating longer, she explained, and added that the team was also able to resolve an anomaly that had been hindering the rover's weather-sensing equipment.

She noted that the data shows temperatures around Curiosity are a little warmer than predicted, but they "are still looking at why."

She did not give any specific temperature readings, but NASA had initially predicted frigid temperatures at Curiosity's landing site of between -90 and zero degrees Celsius.

  

 A close-up view of an area at the NASA Curiosity landing site where the soil was blown away by the thrusters during the rover's descent on August 6. The excavation of the soil reveals probable bedrock outcrop, which shows the shallow depth of the soil in this area.

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(NEWS) Curiosity To Foreign Planet Mars Day 1

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First Day On Mars

Curiosity has woken for its first day on a foreign planet. On the cool and crisp surface of Mars, the NASA rover began its first solar day, Sol 1, about 9.45am Mars time (10.45am AEST).

 

Another of the first images beamed back from NASA's Curiosity rover on August 6 is the shadow cast by the rover on the surface of Mars

"What's really exciting is the rover is in this new place and is going to teach us about this new landing site," Jennifer Trosper, a mission manager with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, said.

This image shows Curiosity's main science target, Mount Sharp. The rover's shadow can be seen in the foreground. The dark bands in the distances are dunes.

The rover's day one tasks include instrument "health checks" and communications tests with two of the rover's antennae. "We want to make sure we have as many communications links as possible," Ms Trosper said.

The rover communicates with Earth by relaying data through the Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiters, but it also has the capacity to listen and talk directly to Earth.

   
Another of the first images taken by the rover. The clear dust cover that protected the camera during landing has popped open. Part of the spring that released the dust cover can be seen at the bottom right, near the rover's wheel

This morning NASA will send a command into the rover's low-gain antenna, an "omni-directional" antenna that will be used primarily for receiving signals. "That command is going to start the activities for the day," Ms Trosper said.

This is one of the first pictures taken by Curiosity after it landed. It shows the rover's shadow on the Martian soil.

One of those activities will be deploying the high-gain antenna, which will be used to receive commands for the mission team back on Earth.

As Earth rises, the high-gain antenna will track the Earth from about 11.45am local Mars time for about 75 minutes.

"If that all goes well then we will have confirmed all our communications links work perfectly and that would be fantastic," she said.

This view of the landscape to the north of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity was acquired by the Mars Hand Lens Imager on Monday afternoon, the first day after landing.

"That's one of the main engineering objectives that we're trying out on the first few Sols."

After that, Curiosity will conduct checks on two of its 10 scientific instruments including the RAD, which measured high-energy radiation during the spacecraft's flight, but was turned off during descent and REMS, the rover's Martian weather station.

The rover has already used its descent imager, MARDI.

This image is a 3-D view in front of NASA's Curiosity rover. The anaglyph was made from a stereo pair of Hazard-Avoidance Cameras on the front of the rover. Mount Sharp, a peak that is about 3.4 miles high, is visible rising above the terrain, though in one "eye" a box on the rover holding the drill bits obscures the view.

Isn't she lovely ... Mars, as pictured by the Hubble telescope in 2003. Photo: NASA/AP

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(NEWS) Hidden Egyptian Pyramids Found?

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Pyramids Form

Two possible pyramid complexes might have been found in Egypt, according to a Google Earth satellite imagery survey.

Located about 90 miles apart, the sites contain unusual grouping of mounds with intriguing features and orientations, said satellite archaeology researcher Angela Micol of Maiden, N.C.

One site in Upper Egypt, just 12 miles from the city of Abu Sidhum along the Nile, features four mounds each with a larger, triangular-shaped plateau.

The two larger mounds at this site are approximately 250 feet in width, with two smaller mounds approximately 100 feet in width.

 

NEWS: Egyptian Pyramids Found With NASA Satellite

The site complex is arranged in a very clear formation with the large mound extending a width of approximately 620 feet -- almost three times the size of the Great Pyramid.

"Upon closer examination of the formation, this mound appears to have a very flat top and a curiously symmetrical triangular shape that has been heavily eroded with time," Micol wrote in her website Google Earth Anomalies.

Intriguingly, when zooming in on the top of the triangular formation, two circular, 20-foot-wide features appear almost in the very center of the triangle.

 

Some 90 miles north near the Fayoum oasis, the second possible pyramid complex contains a four-sided, truncated mound that is approximately 150 feet wide.

ANALYSIS: Satellite Views Reveal Early Human Settlements

"It has a distinct square center which is very unusual for a mound of this size and it almost seems pyramidal when seen from above," Micol wrote.

Located just 1.5 miles south east of the ancient town of Dimai, the site also contains three smaller mounds in a very clear formation, "similar to the diagonal alignment of the Giza Plateau pyramids," Micol stated in a press release.

"The color of the mounds is dark and similar to the material composition of Dimai's walls which are made of mudbrick and stone," the researcher wrote.

HOWSTUFFWORKS: Building the Pyramids

Founded in the third century B.C. under the Ptolemaic king Ptolemy II Philadelphus (309 B.C.–246 B.C.), Dimai was built on top of an earlier neolithic settlement.

Also known as Dimeh al-Siba, Dimeh of the Lions, the town is surrounded by a mudbrick wall that stretches up to 32 feet high and 16 feet thick, and features at its center a ruined stone temple dedicated to the crocodile god Soknopaios.

Indeed, the town's Greek name, Soknopaiou Nesos, means "Island of Soknopaios."

 

Well known to scholars for the amount of papyri and other inscribed material found among its ruins, Dimai reached its peak during the first and second century A.D. thanks to a major trade route. It was abandoned during the mid-third century A.D.

According to Micol, both sites have been verified as undiscovered by Egyptologist and pyramid expert Nabil Selim, whose findings include the pyramid called Sinki at Abydos and the Dry Moat surrounding the Step pyramid complex at Saqqara.

Selim found that the smaller 100-foot mounds at the site near Abu Sidhum are a similar size as the 13th Dynasty Egyptian pyramids, if a square base can be discovered.

BIG PIC: Man Etches Name in Sand, Visible from Space

"The images speak for themselves. It's very obvious what the sites may contain but field research is needed to verify they are, in fact, pyramids," Micol said.

The researcher has previously located several possible archaeological sites with Google Earth, including a potential underwater city off the coast of the Yucatan peninsula.

She believes the use of infrared imagery will allow scientists to see the extent of the complexes in greater detail.

The sites have been sent to Egyptologists and researchers for further investigation and "ground truthing," she said.

Photos: The site near Abu Sidhum contains four mounds with a larger, triangular-shaped plateau. Credit: Angela Micol;

-- Enhanced image of the 150 foot wide, four-sided mound near the ancient town of Dimai. Credit: Angela Micol;

-- The site also contains three smaller mounds in a formation similar to the diagonal alignment of the Giza Plateau pyramids. Credit: Angela Micol.The sites have been sent to Egyptologists and researchers for further investigation and "ground truthing," she said.

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(FAST FACTS) Top 10 Discoveries Of The Decade

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10. Pluto-Sized Eris Rocks Solar System

In January 2005, Mike Brown and his team at Palomar Observatory, Calif. discovered 136199 Eris, a minor body that is 27 percent bigger than Pluto. Eris had trumped Pluto and become the 9th largest body known to orbit the sun.

In 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) decided that the likelihood of finding more small rocky bodies in the outer solar system was so high that the definition "a planet" needed to be reconsidered. The end result: Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet. Pluto acquired a "minor planet designator" in front of its name: "134340 Pluto."

Mike Brown's 2005 discovery of Eris was the trigger that changed the face of our solar system, defining the planets and adding Pluto to a growing family of dwarf planets.

 

9. T. rex Tissue Dug from Bone

 

In 2005, Mary Higby Schweitzer and her colleagues reported in Science the discovery of what appeared to be soft tissues -– blood vessels, bone matrix and other cells –- inside the fossilized femur of a small T. rex.

Since then, the bones have revealed amino acids that resemble those of modern chickens, firming the link between dinosaurs and birds.

Schweitzer's discovery comes in a decade of other stunning revelations about the soft parts of dinosaurs.

In 2004, one of the few mummified dinosaurs ever found -- an amazingly well-preserved

66-million-year-old hadrosaur with intact, mostly mineralized skin -- was excavated from a ranch in North Dakota.

Then, in June 2009, researchers announced they had isolated molecules related to soft skin tissues from that hadrosaur.

8. Dark Matter's Existence Confirmed Directly

 

In the summer of 2006, astronomers made an announcement that helped humans understand the cosmos a little better: They had direct evidence confirming the existence of dark matter -- even though they still can't say what exactly the stuff is.

The unprecedented evidence came from the careful weighing of gas and stars flung about in the head-on smash-up between two great clusters of galaxies in the Bullet Cluster.

Until then, the existence of dark matter was inferred by the fact that galaxies have only one-fifth of the visible matter needed to create the gravity that keeps them intact. So the rest must be invisible to telescopes: That unseen matter is "dark."

The observations of the Bullet Cluster, officially known as galaxy cluster 1E0657-56, did not explain what dark matter is. They did, however, give researchers hints that dark matter particles act a certain way, which future research can build on.

 

7. New Human Ancestors Emerge

 

In 2002, researchers in northern Chad unearthed the 6- to 7-million-year-old skull of Sahelanthropus tchadensis -- known as Toumai. Only skull bones have been discovered, so it's not confirmed whether Toumai walked upright on two feet. But other Toumai remains make a stronger case that it greatly extends the human family timeline.

Then along came Ardi. In 2009, the nearly complete skeleton of  Ardipithecus ramidus, a.k.a. “Ardi,” in northeastern Ethiopia bumped the famous “Lucy” as the earliest, most complete skeleton of a human ancestor ever found.

The 4.4-million-year-old Ardi could walk on two legs, but was also a skilled tree-climber. Her teeth suggest she ate many different types of food. And scientists theorize that males and females may have paired off at this time, significantly boosting survival, since females could intensify their parenting while males provided food.

If the studies prove true, Ardi marks the closest we have come to discovering the last common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans.

 

6. Alien Planets Seen Directly

The first alien planets -- called exoplanets -- were being detected in the early 1990s, but not directly. In 2000, astronomers detected a handful by looking for a star's "wobble," or a star's slight dimming as the exoplanet passed in front of it. Today we know of 400 exoplanets.

The Keck observation was the infrared detection of three exoplanets orbiting a star called HR8799, 150 light-years from Earth. Hubble spotted one massive exoplanet orbiting the star Fomalhaut, 25 light-years from Earth.

These finds pose a profound question: How long will it be until we spot an Earth-like world with an extraterrestrial civilization looking back at us?

 

5. Humans Meld with Machines

Cyborgs are becoming reality. In the last decade, much progress has been made with people controlling robotic limbs and computers with their minds.

In 2000, researchers at Duke University Medical Center implanted electrodes in monkeys’ brains and then trained them to reach for food using a robotic arm. Such a neurochip could one day restore motor function in paralyzed patients.

A team from the MIT Media Lab Europe developed a non-invasive method for picking up brain waves and, in 2004, used those signals for the first time to control the movements of a video game character.

Robotic limbs operated with nerve signals debuted in 2001 at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. There, Jesse Sullivan, a double amputee, used the method to control both of his robotic arms.

And in 2009, amputee Pierpaolo Petruzziello learned to control a biomechanical hand connected to his arm nerves with just wires and electrodes. Petruzziello became the first person to make complex movements -- finger wiggling, a fist, grabbing objects -- with a robotic limb, using just his thoughts.

 

4. Stem Cells Found in New Sources

In 2001, President George W. Bush cut federal funding to scientists working with embryonic stem cells -- found in a tiny, hollow ball of about 70-100 human cells that could become anything in the human body -- because of ethical concerns.

Embryonic stem cells were one of the most promising medical advances in years, with the potential to cure diseases from diabetes to cancer to genetic disorders, and more.

In 2007, scientists from Kyoto University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, working separately, essentially turned back the clock for adult skin cells, allowing these mature cells, which were preprogrammed to become skin, to act like embryonic stem cells. The adult cells became pluripotent cells, or cells that could end up being virtually any other kind of cell.

These pluripotent adult cells solved two big problems. Ethical concerns and financial restrictions could be avoided, and doctors could ultimately use cells with a person's own DNA to grow replacement organs that a patient would be less likely to reject.

 

3. Mars Surface Gives up Signs of Water

In 2008, NASA's Mars Phoenix lander touched down on the Red Planet to confirm the presence of water and seek out signs of organic compounds.

Eight years before, the Mars Global Surveyor spotted what appeared to be gullies carved into the landscape by flowing water. More recently, the Mars Exploration Rovers have uncovered minerals that also indicated the presence of ancient water. But proof of modern-day water was elusive.

Then Phoenix, planted on the ground near the North Pole, did some digging for samples to analyze. During one dig, the onboard cameras spotted a white powder in the freshly dug soil. In comparison images taken over the coming days, the powder slowly vanished. After intense analysis, the white powder was confirmed as water ice.

This discovery not only confirmed the presence of water on the Red Planet, it reenergized the hope that some kind of microbial life might be using this water supply to survive.

 

2. Human Genome Mapped

Coiled up inside every human cell sit 23 molecules that, if unwound and placed end to end, would stretch about three feet. Those molecules, known as chromosomes, contain all the instructions necessary to build an entire human being.

The publicly funded Human Genome Project and its private competitor, Celera Genomics, constitutes one of the largest scientific endeavors in history, one that revealed in intimate detail just what makes up a human being.

With the information from individual genome maps, scientists can uncover new clues about everything from a person's body odor to mental disease.

Since decoding the human genome, dozens of other species have had their genomes sequenced, including pigs, dogs, bees, mosquitoes, puffer fish, chimpanzees, yeast, corn, and rice. With these maps in hand, scientists can and will discover new ways to heal diseases or improve crop yields.

 

1. Glaciers Melting Fast

When the 21st century began, scientists studying Earth’s climate thought the gigantic ice caps on Greenland and Antarctica would melt slowly around the edges and lag behind the overall global warming of climate.

But this past decade, the warmest on record, proved the climate modelers wrong.

Glaciers have been melting much faster than ever expected and researchers have been trying to understand why.

The uptick in melting ice has not been restricted to the

Arctic and Antarctic. Europe’s glaciers are now thought to be

entering their final decades.

The famous snows of Kilimanjaro and other low-latitude mountains could disappear completely. The thick, perennial sea ice of the Arctic is fast disappearing, which will likely bring ice-free summers to the Arctic Ocean.

There are global consequences to this melting. Rising seas will make more cities and islands vulnerable to catastrophic flooding like that which nearly killed New Orleans. Mountain glaciers around the world bring fresh water to billions. Any way you slice it, an Earth with less ice is a less hospitable planet.

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