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Stargazers spot oldest supernova yet
Astronomers from the University of California have spied a supernova which lit up the early universe 10.7 billion years ago - 1.5 billion years before the previous record holder and just 3 billions years after the big bang. A team led by Jeff Cooke spotted the event - a "type II"* supernova provoked by the core collapse of a star 50-100 times more massive than the Sun - in images from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey, which snapped the same four patches of sky over five years using a 3.6-metre telescope. FULL STORY_The Register_7/9/09

Evidence mounts that Mars was once habitable
Scientists with the University of Arizona-led Phoenix Mars Mission are publishing research today that advances the theory that water once flowed and the Red Planet was once habitable. Researchers found a lot of the basic ingredients that life needs to survive, including water in the form of ice, various minerals and a salt called perchlorate that microbes on Earth use as an energy source. FULL STORY_ The Arizona Republic_7/3/09

Hybred satellite-cell pocket phone may arrive this year

Previous attempts to create a mass-market satellite phone may have failed miserably, but a Virginia-based satellite firm believes it has a better solution that just may work this time. TerreStar Networks plans to launch a mobile phone service this year that offers a mix of satellite and cellular service. TerreStar phones will connect via the AT&T network when in cell range, and switch to the company’s satellite service when they’re not. TerreStar hopes to attract federal agencies and emergency workers who need phone service when cellular networks fail, such as during natural disasters.

FULL STORY_PC World_7/1/09

Round-the-world solar plane debut

Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard has unveiled a prototype of the solar-powered plane he hopes eventually to fly around the world. The initial version, spanning 61m but weighing just 1,500kg, will undergo trials to prove it can fly at night. Dr Piccard, who made history in 1999 by circling the globe non-stop in a balloon, says he wants to demonstrate the potential of renewable energies. He expects initially to make a crossing of the Atlantic in 2012. The aeroplane incorporates composite materials to keep it extremely light and uses super-efficient solar cells, batteries, motors and propellers to get it through the dark hours.

FULL STORY_BBC News_6/26/09

Google access disrupted in China
Access to Google has been disrupted in some parts of China, amid a row over what Chinese citizens should be allowed to view over the internet. Users reported they could not access either Google's search engine or its Chinese-language version. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang accused Google of spreading pornography and breaking Chinese law.
The move came as the US called on China to scrap its plan to put net-filtering software on all new computers.

FULL STORY_BBC News_6/25/09

Hunt for life on Saturn's moon heats up

NASA’s Cassini probe observed the salts in Saturn’s outermost ring, which is believed to be composed of material ejected from Enceladus. That news, published Wednesday in Nature, is sure to excite life-hunters hoping to find extraterrestrial microbes within our solar system.

FULL STORY_ Wired_ 6/25/09

U.S. home broadband Internet use on the rise
The American appetite for high-speed Internet hasn't been stalled by the recession. Among U.S. consumers surveyed, 63 percent now have broadband access at home, up from 55 percent a year ago. The study, released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, found that home broadband adoption has bounced back from 2008's relative period of stagnation. FULL STORY_CNET News_6/19/09

Moon mission looking at possible colony sites
A California spacecraft, bound for deliberate doom inside a crater on the moon, is scheduled to soar into space today, along with a lunar orbiter searching for safe landing sites where humans might one day establish Earth's first colony. In early October, the spacecraft will send a heavy rocket crashing into the moon's south polar region on a mission to find water that could support future crews bound for Mars. With its mission finished, the spacecraft itself then will die in its own final crash into the lunar surface. FULL STORY_ SFGate_6/18/09

Space forecast predicts satellite production boom

A 10-year forecast of satellite and launcher markets has good news and bad news for hardware manufacturers: There will be many more satellites to build and launch, but the average manufacturing and launch price will increase only marginally, if at all, and may even drop after accounting for inflation. The 12th World Market Survey of satellite construction and launch trends produced by Euroconsult of Paris looks at the likely government and commercial satellite and launch landscape for the 10 years ending in 2018 and compares it to the 10 years ending in 2008. Full Story Space.com_ 6/15/09

North Korea declares all-out push for nuclear weapons

North Korea has declared it will weaponise all its plutonium stocks and threatened military action against the United States and its allies after the UN security council imposed new sanctions to punish Pyongyang for last month's underground nuclear test. A spokesman for the country's foreign ministry today acknowledged for the first time that North Korea is developing a uranium enrichment programme and said it would be "impossible" to abandon its nuclear ambitions. The warning came a few hours after the security council unanimously passed a resolution banning all weapons exports from North Korea and the import of all but small arms. The unusual unanimous resolution reflected the extent of anger within the Chinese government over last month's nuclear test. Normally it is difficult for the US, Britain and France to persuade China, and to a lesser extent Russia, to take a tough line against North Korea. Full Story Guardian_ 6/13/09

NASA postpones launch of space shuttle Endeavour

NASA postponed the planned Saturday launch of the space shuttle Endeavour due to a hydrogen leak that developed during fueling, a space agency official said. Endeavour and its seven-member crew had been scheduled to blast off at 7:17 a.m. EDT (1117 GMT) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a mission to deliver the last part of a Japanese laboratory to the International Space Station. Endeavour will carry a Japanese-built porch that will be installed on the space station's $2.4 billion Kibo complex, Japan's primary contribution to the $100 billion orbiting research outpost. Full Story Reuters_ 6/13/09

U.S. firm Solid Oak says China stole software for web-filter

A California company alleged that an Internet-filtering program being pushed by the Chinese government contains stolen portions of the company's software. Solid Oak said Friday that it found pieces of its CyberSitter filtering software in the Chinese program, including a list of terms to be blocked, instructions for updating the software, and an old news bulletin promoting CyberSitter. Researchers at the University of Michigan who have been studying the Chinese program also said they found components of CyberSitter, including the blacklist of terms. Jinhui Computer System Engineering Co., the Chinese company that made the filtering software, denied stealing anything. The allegations come as PC makers such as Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. are sorting through a mandate by the Chinese government requiring that all PCs sold in China as of July come with the filtering software. Full Story Wall Street Journal_ 6/13/09

Betelgeuse 'shrinking', may have blown up
The red giant star Betelgeuse in the constellation Orion is shrinking rapidly. Astronomers say that it has shrunk by 15 per cent since 1993, by which they mean that it actually did so in the mid 16th century. It may, in fact, already have exploded. The huge star, one of the brightest in the sky, is thought to lie about 430 light years from our solar system, so the changes being observed now actually occurred in 1579 AD. Many astronomers believe that Betelgeuse is so vast that it's liable to go supernova - that is, blow up with stupendous, galaxy-shaking force - within a millennium or so. Indeed, it might already have exploded at some point in the last 430 years, in which case the flash wouldn't yet have reached us. FULL STORY_The Register_6/11/09

USDataNow Headlines May 16, 2009-June 16, 2009

ANTENNAS:

U.S. Senate nears deal to delay digital TV transition
FULL STORY_AP_ 1/23/09

BROADBAND:

US cuts off 'criminal' net firm
FULL STORY BBC_6/5/09

U.S. Rep Rick Boucher (D-Va.), FCC acting Chairman Michael Copps to keynote "Broadband Policy Summit V: Building Out America"

Full Story Pike & Fischer News Release_ 5/11/09

Rural America not ready for broadband? Hogwash, say ISPs

Full Story ars technica_ 5/10/09

ENERGY:

Sweden tests ways to bury nuclear waste for 100,000 years

Full Story AFP_ 6/2/09