- Janice Voss, veteran of 5 space shuttle flights, dies at 55. (From Michael.)
- ‘Oldest living thing on earth’ discovered. (From Jim.)
- Expedition 30 astronaut Don Pettit uses knitting needles and water droplets to demonstrate physics in space.
- Erin King applied to MIT by sending her application package up to near-space.
It was actually the tube from her acceptance package rather than her application. Super cool though. I really enjoyed the orbiting droplets.
Oh man, the knitting needle-water droplet video is so cool!
“In total, Voss logged over 49 days in space, traveling 18.8 million miles while circling the Earth 779 times. Her five missions tied her with the record for the most spaceflights by a woman.” — cooler than anything I can ever even imagine accomplishing myself.
That “oldest living thing on Earth” headline is very silly. The article only claims that P. oceana is the oldest species, a very different claim.
(I’m not accusing Jen of silliness, she’s just quoting the silly headline from the Telegraph.)
The oldest living thing on Earth is one of your liver cells. Also every other living cell on Earth–all are descended from the original DNA-using cell. With no missed generations. Think about it.