io9: ap

An Experimental Rocket Soars Over The Coast, On Its Way To A Pre-Planned Disaster

Charlie Jane Anders — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:47:18 PDT

A specially designed rocket soars over Wallops Island, VA, on its way to test a new astronaut escape system for NASA's Orion spacecraft, due to start launching in 2015. Want to see the fancy new escape system? There are parachutes...

Learn more via Popular Science.

Images by AP.

The (Cute) Spawn of Clones

Annalee Newitz — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 16:09:19 PST

Now that cloned animals are having babies, as well as spawning second and third generation clones, there's no telling when the cloning madness will stop.

The kittens pictured here are the children of CC, the first cloned cat. They were born healthy and cute in 2006.

But this year, scientists in Korea announced that they created healthy cloned cats from clones. In a paper published in Theriogenology journal, the creators of the clone-of-clone kittens write:

We successfully produced second-generation cloned cats by somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) using skin cells from a cloned cat. Skin cells from an odd-eyed, all-white male cat (G0 donor cat) were used to generate a cloned cat (G1 cloned cat). At 6 months of age, skin cells from the G1 cloned cat were used for SCNT to produce second-generation cloned cats.

No word yet on whether the second-generation clones are cute, but they are definitely alive and thriving.

Think that's crazy? In Japan, scientists have successfully created fourth-generation cloned pigs. Even better than that: One of the first cloned dogs is learning Klingon. According to the San Jose Mercury News:

[Cloned dog] Kahless lives with a linguist in Boulder, Colo., where she is being taught commands in the Klingon language from "Star Trek." (In the "Star Trek" franchise, Kahless was a legendary Klingon leader who was cloned in an episode of "The Next Generation" series.)

Photo via AP Photo/Texas A&M University, Larry Wadsworth.

Massive Flood of Toxic Ash Swallows Tennessee Area, Heads to Mississippi River

Annalee Newitz — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 13:19:22 PST

A pond of fly ash sludge at a Tennessee coal plant was breached earlier this week, and the toxic ash flooded out over 2.6 million cubic yards of the local landscape. This makes it officially larger than the Exxon Valez spill in terms of sheer size, though there's a big difference between the effects of this fly ash slurry and those of liquid oil in the ocean. The levels of toxins in fly ash and liquid oil are comparable.

The fly ash, collected from airborne pollution released in the making of coal, is quite dangerous for the environment, and locals report some areas are buried in up to 6 feet of ash. The biggest concern right now in terms of cleanup is keeping the slurry from reaching the Tennessee river, which feeds into the Mississippi and provides water for Tennessee, Alabama and Kentucky.

SOURCES: Scholars & Rogues (which links to a lot of other great sources) and AP News.

Photo via AP Photo/Wade Payne.

The Mutant Cat of Minsk Initiates a Neural Connection with Its Host

Annalee Newitz — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 16:09:31 PST

AP photographer Sergei Grits caught a mutant in the act of mind control earlier this year at a cat exhibition in Minsk, Belarus. These exhibitions are a perfect cover for hyper-evolved cats planning revolution.

Stairway into a Martian Crater

Annalee Newitz — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 07:30:00 PST

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter satellite just shot this image of rippling, evenly-spaced steps leading down into four craters in the Arabia Terra region of Mars. What causes such regularity in the shapes of these rocks?

Apparently the pattern created by these "steps" corresponds to a known pattern in the tilt of Mars' rotational axis. So these perfectly-spaced ridges were created during periodic changes in the planet's tilt.

Martian Rock with Ten Beats to the Bar [via NASA]

Photo via NASA and AP.