March 31, 2009 (Tuesday)

• E-mail spam
  E-mail spam
  Email spam, also known as junk email or unsolicited bulk email , is a subset of spam that involves nearly identical messages sent to numerous recipients by email. Definitions of spam usually include the aspects that email is unsolicited and sent in bulk. One subset of UBE is UCE...
  
   has returned to normal levels (94% of all e-mail
  E-mail
  Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
  
  ) following the McColo
  McColo
  McColo was a San Jose-based web hosting service provider. In late 2008, the company was shut down by the two upstream providers, Global Crossing and Hurricane Electric, because a significant amount of malware and botnets had been trafficking from the McColo servers.-History:McColo was formed by a...
  
   shutdown. (NYTimes)

March 30, 2009 (Monday)

• Microsoft
  Microsoft
  Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
  
   is closing down Encarta
  Encarta
  Microsoft Encarta was a digital multimedia encyclopedia published by Microsoft Corporation from 1993 to 2009. , the complete English version, Encarta Premium, consisted of more than 62,000 articles, numerous photos and illustrations, music clips, videos, interactive contents, timelines, maps and...
  
  , its digital encyclopedia
  Encyclopedia
  An encyclopedia is a type of reference work, a compendium holding a summary of information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge....
  
  . (CNet)
• Researchers uncover a way to easily detect Conficker
  Conficker
  Conficker, also known as Downup, Downadup and Kido, is a computer worm targeting the Microsoft Windows operating system that was first detected in November 2008...
  
   infections on a network. (CNet)

March 27, 2009 (Friday)

• The nanopore
  Nanopore
  A nanopore is a small hole. It may, for example, be created by a pore-forming protein or as a hole in synthetic materials such as silicon or graphene....
  
   method of DNA sequencing
  DNA sequencing
  DNA sequencing includes several methods and technologies that are used for determining the order of the nucleotide bases—adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine—in a molecule of DNA....
  
   has been successfully tested in the lab for the first time. It is a candidate to dramatically speed up and reduce the cost of sequencing. (PhysOrg)

March 23, 2009 (Tuesday)

• A report by NASA
  NASA
  The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
  
   concludes a plasma
  Plasma (physics)
  In physics and chemistry, plasma is a state of matter similar to gas in which a certain portion of the particles are ionized. Heating a gas may ionize its molecules or atoms , thus turning it into a plasma, which contains charged particles: positive ions and negative electrons or ions...
  
   ball released from the Sun
  Sun
  The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
  
   could cause $2 trillion dollars in damage and kill millions in the developed world from the resulting long term power outage. A geomagnetic storm
  Geomagnetic storm
  A geomagnetic storm is a temporary disturbance of the Earth's magnetosphere caused by a disturbance in the interplanetary medium. A geomagnetic storm is a major component of space weather and provides the input for many other components of space weather...
  
   similar to the Carrington event
  Solar storm of 1859
  The solar storm of 1859, also known as the Solar Superstorm, or the Carrington Event, which occurred during solar cycle 10, was the most powerful solar storm in recorded history, and the largest flare, observed by Richard Christopher Carrington, became known as the Carrington Super...
  
   of 1859 could bring down the electrical grid. (NewScientist)

March 17, 2009 (Tuesday)

• Fossilized remains of small dinosaur
  Dinosaur
  Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...
  
   rediscovered in Canada
  Canada
  Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
  
  . (SciAm)
• The Safe Quick Undercarriage Immobilization Device developed by the Engineering Science Analysis Corporation, offers police officer
  Police officer
  A police officer is a warranted employee of a police force...
  
  s both a quick and safe way to end car chase
  Car chase
  A car chase is the vehicular pursuit of a suspect by law enforcement officers. Car chases are often captured on film and broadcast due to the availability of video footage recorded by police cars and police and media helicopters participating in the chase...
  
  s. (PopSci)

March 12, 2009 (Thursday)

• Apple Inc. reveals new iPod shuffle
  IPod shuffle
  The iPod Shuffle is a digital audio player designed and marketed by Apple Inc. It is the smallest model in Apple's iPod family, and was the first to use flash memory...
  
   with voice. (Reuters)
• Space debris threatens International Space Station
  International Space Station
  The International Space Station is a habitable, artificial satellite in low Earth orbit. The ISS follows the Salyut, Almaz, Cosmos, Skylab, and Mir space stations, as the 11th space station launched, not including the Genesis I and II prototypes...
  
  , astronauts temporarily evacuated. (NASAspaceflight.com)

March 10, 2009 (Tuesday)

• North Korea
  North Korea
  The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...
  
   warns airlines over satellite fears. (Reuters)

March 6, 2009 (Friday)

• NASA
  NASA
  The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
  
  's Kepler
  Kepler Mission
  The Kepler spacecraft is an American space observatory, the space-based portion of NASA's Kepler Mission to discover Earth-like planets orbiting other stars. The spacecraft is named in honor of the 17th-century German astronomer Johannes Kepler...
  
   spacecraft launches in search of Earth
  Earth
  Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
  
  -like planets. (LATimes)

March 2, 2009 (Monday)

• A Tunguska event
  Tunguska event
  The Tunguska event, or Tunguska blast or Tunguska explosion, was an enormously powerful explosion that occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in what is now Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, at about 7:14 a.m...
  
  -sized asteroid
  Asteroid
  Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...
  
   buzzed past Earth
  Earth
  Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
  
   at 72,000 kilometers. (NewScientist)

March 1, 2009 (Sunday)

• Researchers find safer way to make stem cells. (Reuters)