Just some science updates.
NASA’s new space launch system has completed a preliminary design review. The engineers are saying that this means everything is on track for a 2017 launch. Basically, at this point, the plans for the engines and body are approved.
NASA says that the 2017 launch will send an unmanned Orion capsule past the moon.
Conservation efforts in India, Thailand, and Russia have greatly improved the tiger populations in these countries. India, for the first time in a long time, has a population of tigers at the carrying capacity. Young tigers are moving out of the area, through safe corridors, into new wildlife preserves. What’s really great is that villages are voluntarily being relocated to reduce human/tiger interactions.
Finally, Carl Woese passed away. Not many people know his name, but anyone who has studied Biology since the mid 90s knows his work. He was the first Biologist to propose a new level of taxonomy called “domains”. He also used evolutionary techniques and molecular biology to convince the scientific community that Archea bacteria are as different from Eubacteria as both are from plants and animals. Prior to his work (and the way I learned it), there was only one group of bacteria. I wrote about his work here.
