Curiosity

They called it the "seven minutes or terror" for the complex maneuverings and rocket blasts conducted in the final moments of a 354 million mile journey from home, but the Curiosity rover executed its landing flawlessly. Those who doubted U.S. preeminence in space exploration — or even in science and engineering in an era of outsourcing and global competition — should pay heed. Too bad there was no film crew on the surface of Mars (at least as far as we distant earthlings can tell)

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration reported this week that ancient rocks on Mars analyzed by its Curiosity rover, which landed on the Red Planet in August, show that what is today a barren and inhospitable environment might well have supported living organisms quite comfortably in the distant past. Several billion years ago, scientists say, Mars had a thicker atmosphere and warmer weather and was awash in water flowing across its surface that was safe enough to drink. Humans, of course, did not yet exist in that primeval past, which long predated even the appearance of the first dinosaurs on Earth some 230 million years ago. But microbial life could easily have flourished during that era. Though Curiosity's lab isn't equipped to detect Martian life, past or present, it can determine whether the kind of organic molecules that are essential to life - at least as we know it - are present in the Martian environment.

Nabisco was all ready with a special  Oreo cookie celebrating the successful landing of the Mars rover, Curiosity. That's some cool stuff. The Oreo Daily Twist is part of Nabisco's ongoing celebation of the Oreo centennial. The special Oreo is not available on Earth, though. It's just something cool to look at.

Nabisco was all ready with a special  Oreo cookie celebrating the successful landing of the Mars rover, Curiosity. That's some cool stuff. The Oreo Daily Twist is part of Nabisco's ongoing celebation of the Oreo centennial. The special Oreo is not available on Earth, though. It's just something cool to look at.

"What a distressing contrast there is between the radiant curiosity of the child and the feeble mentality of the average adult," Freud once wrote. Sad to say, he's got a point.In advanced societies, knowledge is the basis for almost all value. Corporations that wish to become "knowledge-intensive" must invest heavily in training and electronic networks. But to become knowledge-intensive as a matter of course calls for something that goes far beyond bits, bytes and hours in the classroom. Perhaps the management issue for the '90s, largely avoided by gurus and practitioners alike, is unleashing imagination.

BALTIMORE IS a great place to live, but you'd better have been born into the sixth generation of a local family to know its secrets. This town will not unfold itself to just anybody. I'm not sure that what I'm about to recommend will satisfy all your curiosity about old Baltimore, but it will be a fine way to spend three successive Sunday afternoons in May. I speak of a trio of interesting house tours, one tomorrow at St. Paul and 22nd streets (the Old Goucher neighborhood), another in Fells Point on May 11 and the other, just over the Baltimore County line, in Bare Hills, adjacent to Lake Roland, on May 18. I have long been a sucker for house tours.

Is there life elsewhere in the universe? It's a question that has long intrigued astronomers and science fiction buffs alike, and now the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has launched its most ambitious attempt yet to find the answer. Curiosity, NASA's 1-ton wheeled rover vehicle, blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center on Saturday for the 346 million-mile journey to Mars, where it will spend two years roaming the Red Planet's surface in search of tell-tale organic compounds that could signal the presence of life there, either now or in the distant past.

One hot, sweaty August day a few years back, my friend Tom and I decided to take in a freak show at the Wisconsin State Fair. It wasn't something we'd normally do. Tom was the kind of guy who wore bow ties, and I've never exactly been Ms. Let-It-All-Hang-Loose. For some reason, the meshing of our personalities resulted in weirdly spontaneous behavior. The sideshow was made up of several mobile homes, each containing a different attraction. We paid admission to one, and went inside. It wasn't air-conditioned, so the lights were turned off to minimize the heat.

His last name was common in South Carolina - maybe not as plentiful as "Smith" or "Jones," but it certainly wasn't unique. Then in John R. Gourdin's travels with the Marines, he began to realize he was meeting fewer and fewer people of the same name. For the next 15 years, he scoured phone books in search of other Gourdins, making contact in person or over the phone to trace their history. "Without exception, all of the Gourdins I've met, that I've run into, I've been able to trace them back to South Carolina," he said.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Michael Brown Jr. sits in a small swing, his hands clenched and legs rigid as he stares into the distance. He cries for no reason and ignores the world around him.Curiosity -- and crack -- robbed the 15-month-old toddler of a normal life.Almost five weeks ago, Michael ate pieces of crack cocaine that police say were left on a table in his mother's Pompano Beach apartment. The boy suffered violent seizures, which caused severe brain damage, and he lapsed into a coma.

Visitors to the Maryland Science Center's "SpaceLink" exhibit had an extra source to answer questions about Mars rover Curiosity on Monday -- a scientist who helped develop one of its instruments. Jennifer Stern, a space research scientist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, was on hand with a model of Curiosity and a life-size version of one of its wheels. Stern is part of a team that has worked on the  Sample Analysis at Mars, or SAM, a set of three instruments that will be used to analyze rock and soil samples from the Martian surface.

They called it the "seven minutes or terror" for the complex maneuverings and rocket blasts conducted in the final moments of a 354 million mile journey from home, but the Curiosity rover executed its landing flawlessly. Those who doubted U.S. preeminence in space exploration — or even in science and engineering in an era of outsourcing and global competition — should pay heed. Too bad there was no film crew on the surface of Mars (at least as far as we distant earthlings can tell)

Is there life elsewhere in the universe? It's a question that has long intrigued astronomers and science fiction buffs alike, and now the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has launched its most ambitious attempt yet to find the answer. Curiosity, NASA's 1-ton wheeled rover vehicle, blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center on Saturday for the 346 million-mile journey to Mars, where it will spend two years roaming the Red Planet's surface in search of tell-tale organic compounds that could signal the presence of life there, either now or in the distant past.

Florence Tan says she'll have fingers and toes crossed when NASA's latest Mars mission blasts off as early as Saturday morning from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The 47-year-old electrical engineer from Montgomery County oversaw all the wiring of an instrument package on board that was designed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center here. In the years leading up to the launch, Tan has painstakingly checked and rechecked all 2,000 pieces of wire inside the microwave oven-sized box — enough to stretch more than a third of a mile if strung together.

Terry Shepard, a reader from Otterbein, wrote me to share these thoughts: "As we review the lessons of the career of William Donald Schaefer, Maryland Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller may wish to particularly note one: Don't hang on too long. "As studies have shown, as we age, the frontal lobes of the brain atrophy. And since these help inhibit, among other things, some inner thoughts from becoming speech, their atrophy allows hidden bigotry to be revealed. (See the October, 2007, journal Current Directions in Psychological Science or the Newsweek article on it by Googling ' Why Grandpa Says Inappropriate Things ')

With a balloon, a straw, a clothespin, tape and string, a group of young scientists designed a rocket that could fly across a room on a trajectory between two chairs. During their aerodynamics experiment, the children discovered that as the balloon releases air, it will travel along the string from one point to another. Then, they tested the theory with multiple balloons and organized races in their lab at the Aberdeen Boys and Girls Club in Harford County. "I learned how to make a rocket out of a balloon today," said Jeremy Valerio, 12. "With just a little material, you can make something big. " During a 10-week, after-school program, a dozen children are pursuing informal science lessons, meeting with area scientists and engineers, and testing their own math and science skills.

There are plenty of ``Do's'' when it comes to reading aloud to your child. Here are some ``Don'ts.''* Don't start a reading if you won't have enough time to do it justice. Having to stop after one or two pages only serves to frustrate, rather than stimulate, the child'sinterest in reading.* Don't be unnerved by questions during the reading, particularly from very young children. Answer their questions patiently. Don't put them off. Don't rush your answers. There is no time limit for reading a book but there is a time limit on a child's inquisitiveness.

While wandering through Munich's Alte Pinakothek in pursuit of the paintings of Pieter Breughel the Elder, I thought about several friends and imagined what they might have done with ..TC free Sunday 3,000 miles from home.One would doubtless have mounted a birding expedition and be hefting 100 pounds of photography equipment through the nearby Alpine foothills. Another would almost certainly have played anthropologist, proceeding from coffee house to public house, striking up conversation after conversation in his passable German.

Carol Burnett wants to make one thing perfectly clear about her appearance Saturday night at the Lyric Opera House in Baltimore. "I want everybody to know that the show is about questions and answers," she said in a telephone interview last week. "I want to stress that I'm not getting up there and doing sketches or songs or anything like that. I just come out and show a few clips of some of the favorite old questions and answers on our show, and then we just bump up the lights, and for 90 minutes, we wing it."

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Normally, the Charlotte UltraSwim Grand Prix is a pretty tame affair. In a busy year, USA Swimming credentials eight to 10 media members to cover the meet, and that would probably be a generous estimate. But when Michael Phelps announced that the UltraSwim, which begins Friday, would be his first meet since he won eight gold medals in Beijing - and the first meet since his three-month suspension for being photographed with a bong ended - normal and tame got tossed out the window.