San Francisco may become the largest U.S. city to lose its main daily newspaper after Hearst Corp. threatened to sell or close the Chronicle unless it can push through more job cuts.

The publisher, already trying to sell the Seattle Post- Intelligencer, said yesterday that it would seek voluntary buyouts for a “significant” number of its 1,500 employees after the San Francisco Chronicle lost $50 million last year. The announcement follows two newspaper owners filing for bankruptcy protection since Feb. 21.

Bloomberg.com: U.S.

ON a recent Saturday afternoon, Stephanie Stern and her husband poured 1,000 wriggling red worms from a brown bag into a plastic bin outside their bathroom, looked down and hoped for the best.

If things went well, the worms, already burrowing into their bed of shredded newspapers, would soon be eating three pounds of food scraps a week, reducing the couple’s trash and producing fertilizer for their plants.

If not, the bin would stink up their one-bedroom apartment in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, and attract clouds of fruit flies.

“I’m a little nervous because I’ve heard the stories,” said Ms. Stern, 32, a museum educator.

Composting in New York City is not for the faint of heart. It requires commitment, space and sharing tight quarters with rotting matter and two-inch-long wiggler worms that look like pulsing vermicelli.

New Yorkers Try Composting With Worms - NYTimes.com

Exxon Mobil, which had long been skeptical of global warming, offered its own suggestions. One of the company’s top executives, Michael J. Dolan, said that Exxon would back a tax on carbon, while criticizing a so-called cap-and-trade approach.

Under the cap-and-trade formula, which has considerable momentum in Washington, the government would set a ceiling on how much carbon dioxide could be emitted into the atmosphere each year. It would then give or sell permits that companies would be allowed to trade to meet their limit. Emitting carbon dioxide at present involves no penalties in the United States, meaning that companies have little incentive to curb their pollution.

Mr. Dolan, a senior vice president at Exxon, said that a carbon tax would be simpler and less subject to manipulation than a trading system. “A carbon tax reduces policy risks for businesses and investors in a way that cap-and-trade schemes do not,” Mr. Dolan said during his address at the industry conference, organized by Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a consulting firm.

Oil Industry Ready to Work on Global Warming - NYTimes.com

The largest series of solar installations in history, more than 1,300 megawatts, is planned for the desert outside Los Angeles, according to a new deal between the utility Southern California Edison and solar power plant maker, BrightSource.

Biggest Solar Deal Ever Announced — We're Talking Gigawatts | Wired Science from Wired.com

This will be a very big year for SpaceX and the NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. In 2006, SpaceX won the NASA COTS competition to demonstrate transport of cargo and optionally crew to and from the International Space Station. Under that agreement, SpaceX will conduct the second flight of its Falcon 9 launch vehicle and first flight of its Dragon spacecraft in 2009. The final flight, scheduled for 2010, will demonstrate Dragon's ability to berth with the Space Station.

Call your congressmen and tell them to support funding COTS-D.

SpaceX: Support NASA Exploration and COTS Capability D | SpaceRef - Your Space Reference

The crash of Flight 1549 was many things: a “Miracle on the Hudson,” with no fatalities among the 155 people on board; a rare ditching in American aviation history; a celebrity-making event complete with heroic airline pilots and fast-moving ferryboat saviors.

What has been less talked about is how the events tested emergency response communications and coordination. A commercial jetliner, after all, one having taken off from La Guardia Airport, had crashed into the heart of the city in the middle of the afternoon.

Flight 1549 - From New York to Norad, Testing a Response Network - NYTimes.com

"We have submitted a paper to the Lunar Planetary Conference (LPSC) for presentation in March of 2009. This paper will detail the process that we used to bring the first image of the Earth as seen from the Moon back to life and the first determination of its quality as compared to the Lunar and Planetary Science database image."

Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project Update (LOIRP) 20 January 2009 | NASA Watch

But it's because of that setting that Windows 7 is less annoying. But should we accept annoyance anyway, if it means more security? I think we should.

Annoyance with more security isn't necessarily a bad thing. But Microsoft is trying to find a way to achieve less annoyance while maintaining security. That won't be easy.

"We understand adding an extra click can be annoying, especially for users who are highly knowledgeable about what is happening with their system (or for people just trying to get work done)," Ben Fathi, a Windows 7 engineer, wrote in a blog post. "However, for most users, the potential benefit is that UAC forces malware or poorly written software to show itself and get your approval before it can potentially harm the system."

In the face of all of the flak Microsoft got over UAC, I actually have a lot of respect for what they were trying to accomplish with it. Usable security remains challenging.

I'll take an annoying Windows 7, if it's more secure | The Digital Home - CNET News

On Sunday, the Los Angeles Times reported that while Barack Obama has announced significant changes to elements in the Bush terror war — shutting Guatanamo and C.I.A. black sites, ending the use of torture in interrogations — he has “left intact an equally controversial counter-terrorism tool.”

“Under executive orders issued by Obama recently,” wrote reporter Greg Miller, “the C.I.A. still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States.”

Interrogation Breakdown - The Opinionator Blog - NYTimes.com

A drug that stimulates the body's tanning response — turning pasty skin caramel for up to two months — has been approved for human trials, but not for tanning.

Suntan Drug Greenlighted for Trials | Wired Science from Wired.com