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PASADENA, Calif. - Thrilled by the apparently flawless landing of the Spirit rover on Mars, NASA scientists pored over photos and other information Sunday, awaited a stream of even more tantalizing data and worked on the days-long process of getting the robot ready to roll. Spirit made a nerve-racking but safe landing on Mars late Saturday on what scientists believe is the rocky bed of an ancient lake that once may have harbored life. Just three hours later, the six-wheeled rover began zipping the first black-and-white images of its surroundings to Earth, 106 million miles distant at the time. Scientists...

U.S. Prepares to Assign Color Codes to Air Travelers; Critics Fear System Will Be Too Intrusive. WASHINGTON Sept. 9 — The government and the airlines reportedly will phase in a computer system next year to measure the risk of every passenger who boards a flight in the United States by using color codes. According to the Washington Post, passengers will be assigned one of three codes, based in part on their travel plans, traveling companions and the date the ticket was purchased. Sources say those coded "green" will easily pass through security checkpoints. Others will be coded "yellow" and face...

Snoop Dogg isnt wild about 'Girls Gone Wild' anymore.The rapper who appears as host on one of the raunchy strip videos, told the Associated Press that he is done with the series because it does not feature women of color.'If you notice, there hasn't been no girls of ethnicity in those tapes,' Snoop Dogg complained during a recent interview.'No black girls, no Spanish girls-all white girls and that stuff aint cool.' Snoop Dogg whose real name is Calvin Broadhus, sais he plans to do his own version of Girls Gone wild to 'bring some flavor to the table'-and to satisfy...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 May 29 Frizion Illume Credit & Copyright: Peter Wasilewski, (Goddard Space Flight Center) Explanation: Scientific images of cosmic dust clouds or even frozen water can be esthetic too. In fact, this picture of thin layers of forming ice crystals uses a scientific understanding of light's wave properties solely for artistic purposes. Titled "Illume", the picture was created by astrophysicist Peter Wasilewski. To make the picture, the crystals...

April 13, 2003 Hearing Colors, Tasting Shapes People with synesthesia--whose senses blend together--are providing valuable clues to understanding the organization and functions of the human brain By Vilayanur S. Ramachandran and Edward M. Hubbard When Matthew Blakeslee shapes hamburger patties with his hands, he experiences a vivid bitter taste in his mouth. Esmerelda Jones (a pseudonym) sees blue when she listens to the note C sharp played on the piano; other notes evoke different hues--so much so that the piano keys are actually color-coded, making it easier for her to remember and play musical scales. And when Jeff Coleman...

As the Boy Scouts of America Motto says "BE PREPARED"This is simply the very basics of what to do in each "security color condition".I am doing research into more specifics on what a community must do, what a neighborhood need to do, and what YOU MUST DO if / when we get to CONDITION RED. Orange, blue, green, purple with polka dots?! Home Security What in the world do these "terrorism threat" color codes mean? Are we going to be attacked with paintball guns? If the threat of terrorism wasn't enough to make you insane, just figuring out the warnings could!...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 March 2 In the Center of the Trapezium Credit: J. Bally, D. Devine, & R. Sutherland, D. Johnson (CITA), HST, NASA Explanation: Start with the constellation of Orion. Near Orion's belt is a fuzzy area known as the Great Nebula of Orion or M42. In this nebula is a bright star cluster known as the Trapezium, shown above. New stellar systems are forming there in gigantic globs...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 February 25 M42: Wisps of the Orion Nebula Credit & Copyright: John P. Gleason (Celestial Images) Explanation: The Great Nebula in Orion, an immense, nearby starbirth region, is probably the most famous of all astronomical nebulas. Here, glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge of an immense interstellar molecular cloud only 1500 light-years away. In the above deep image, faint wisps and sheets of dust...

U.S. TREASURY AND FEDERAL RESERVE ANNOUNCE PLANS FOR REDESIGNED NOTESNexGen notes are latest in series to add anti-counterfeiting features In keeping with their strategy of maintaining the security of Federal Reserve notes by enhancing the design of U.S. currency every seven to ten years, the Department of the Treasury’s Bureau of Engraving and Printing (Bureau) and the Federal Reserve Board today announced plans to release the next generation of redesigned notes, with improved security features to deter counterfeiting. The new design, referred to as NexGen, affects the $100, $50, and $20 notes. Circulation of the NexGen series could begin...

<p>IWALKED OUT of New York's Penn Station right into a horde of bodies that couldn't quite avoid smashing into each other along 7th Avenue near 34th Street. After about 20 minutes, I figured the driver who was supposed to take me to Queens wasn't going to show.</p> <p>So down into the subway I went, to hop one of those cars to Queens that former Atlanta Braves pitcher John Rocker said were so horrible. (The ride wasn't that bad.) My debating partner, Congress of Racial Equality national spokesman Niger Innis, picked me up in Queens, and the two of us headed for the Rev. Floyd Flake's huge church.</p>

<p>As if a year that has given us corporate criminality, pedophile priests and a new Adam Sandler movie were not already odious enough, now the notorious University of California regent is back in the headlines. You remember Connerly, the black -- and he would probably disavow that characterization -- activist who spearheaded the successful 1996 drive to end affirmative action in Golden State government and universities and, more recently, failed to do the same thing in Florida.</p>

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 July 2 The Average Color of the Universe Credit: Karl Glazebrook & Ivan Baldry (JHU) Explanation: What color is the universe? More precisely, if the entire sky was smeared out, what color would the final mix be? This whimsical question came up when trying to determine what stars are commonplace in nearby galaxies. The answer, depicted above, is a conditionally perceived shade of beige. To determine this,...

What Is A True Color Image? Image with intrinsic color relationships. Same image roughly convolved with the response of the human eye. What is a true color astronomical image? Is it what an astronaut would see if there was an eye piece on, say, the Hubble Space Telescope? Or is it one that captures the intrinsic colors emitted by the stars, nebulae, and gas clouds in galaxies? For the Hubble Heritage image of globular cluster, M15, we constructed an image which attempted to captured these intrinsic colors as closely as possible given Hubble Space Telescope (HST) data. The detail...

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Last month, police in Charlottesville, Va., charged 10 teen-agers in a series of attacks on college students. Police said the first attack, in September, was unplanned. The attackers didn’t know their victim. They just picked him out at random along the street. After that first attack came five more. In some cases, the attackers were in groups as large as eight. The victims were usually walking alone, but in a few cases, there were two or three. Almost always, they were far outnumbered by their assailants. Some of the cases turned into robberies, but in others, the only apparent goal...

Color schemeWASHINGTON, March 21 (UPI) -- In Washington, punditry is big business. For many years there have been complaints that political reporters inject their biases into their stories. Books have been written on the subject and several academics, most notably Robert Lichter of the Center for Media and Public Affairs, have become well known through efforts to prove the point empirically. The three cable news channels -- Fox, MSNBC and CNN -- provide an around-the-clock mix of news, analysis and commentary. Many of the more recognizable journalists in American today, like Bill O'Reilly and Fred Barnes on Fox and Robert...