] The Hubble Ultra Deep Field images and data, released
] Tuesday at the Space Telescope Science Institute in
] Baltimore, provide the first glimpses of galactic
] activity from around 700 million years after the Big
] Bang, reaching back into our celestial history about 300
] million years further than previous observations.

Worth a look. Galaxy Soup.

Wired News: Hubble Offers Glimpse of Creation

Opportunity's Microscopic Imager found this intriguing object, looking more like Rotini pasta. Its odd shape has stirred up Mars researchers, both inside and outside of the NASA Mars Rover Exploration team. Whether or not this object is related to biology has prompted a variety of views.

Main Story:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/opportunity_news_040302.html

Martian Pasta

] The Great Barrier Reef off the east coast of Australia
] will be largely destroyed by 2050 because of rising sea
] temperatures, according to a new report.
]
] Researchers from Queensland University's Centre for
] Marine Studies said there was little evidence that corals
] could adapt quickly enough to cope with even the lowest
] projected temperature rise of 2C.

ugh...

Australia reef's days 'numbered'

] NASA's Opportunity rover sent back new images from Mars
] showing that small spheres previously found on the
] surface also exist below, in a trench the rover dug.
] Hints of salty water were also found in the trench, but
] much more analysis is needed to learn the true
] composition.

MSNBC - Have the Mars rovers struck water?

] According to De Pasquale, the circles in the cells are
] nothing but the first numbers of the Fibonacci series, in
] which each number is a sum of two previous: 1, 2, 3, 5.
]
]
] The abacus would then work on a base 40 numbering system.

sounds pretty cool, if unverifiable for the time being.

Incan Counting System Decoded?

] At the nerve center of each MER rover is a 6-by 9-inch
] electronics board containing one computer responsible for
] every process that goes into a mission, whether it be
] monitoring spacecraft health in transit, deploying
] parachutes during landing or roving about the red planet.
] The computer, called a RAD6000, is a tried and true
] component for NASA space mission that has formed the
] brains of past Mars missions in the, as well as the
] recent Stardust comet encounter.

More interesting technical details about the rovers.

Thinking on Mars: The Brains of NASA's Red Planet Rovers

] A Danish biotech company has developed a genetically
] modified flower that could help detect land mines and it
] hopes to have a prototype ready for use within a few
] years.

Yahoo! News - Flower-Power Could Help Clear Land mines

] When the Gulf Stream abruptly turned off about 12,700
] years ago, it brought about a 1,300-year cold period,
] known as the Younger Dryas. This froze Britain in
] continuous permafrost, drove summer temperatures down to
] 10C and winter ones to -20C, and brought icebergs as far
] south as Portugal. Europe could not sustain anything like
] its present population. Droughts struck across the globe,
] including in Asia, Africa and the American west, as the
] disruption of the Gulf Stream affected currents
] worldwide.
]
]
] Some scientists say that this is the "worst-case
] scenario" and that the cooling may be less dramatic, with
] the world's climate "flickering" between colder and
] warmer states for several decades. But they add that, in
] practice, this would be almost as catastrophic for
] agriculture and civilisation.

If this story sounds like the radical ranting of a crypto-communist green faction, that seems to be mostly because you're desenitized. I tried to find a counterpoint to this, and couldn't, other then more questionable commentary from "techcentral." I'll post CNN's version (where Russian politicians are arguing that they would benefit from global warming because its cold in Russia) to the thread.

Britain is likely to be plunged into an ice age

Suspecting that the problem might be with the flash memory, flight controllers radioed instructions for Spirit to start up in what Mr. Theisinger called the cripple mode, using only the RAM and not the flash memory. For the first time since Wednesday, the rover's software did not crash.

This is the first clear explanation I've read of the problems with Spirit.

Restoring a Red Rover's Spirit

Europe's Mars orbiter has detected evidence of water on the planet.

Scientists Say They Have Discovered Ice on Mars