Seven astronauts blasted off for one last dance with the Hubble Space Telescope on Monday.

Shuttle Lifts Off for Final Trip to Telescope - NYTimes.com

Software companies could be held responsible for the security and efficacy of their products, if a new European Commission consumer protection proposal becomes law.

EC wants software makers held liable for code | Tech News on ZDNet

1972 - Dennis Ritchie invents a powerful gun that shoots both forward and backward simultaneously. Not satisfied with the number of deaths and permanent maimings from that invention he invents C and Unix.

One Div Zero: A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages

The Department of Energy announced on Thursday that it will restart its program to make plutonium-238. Spokeswoman Jen Stutsman said the agency has proposed $30 million in next year's budget for preliminary design and engineering. The National Academy's study shows why it is needed, she said.

Fuel for deep space exploration running low - Space- msnbc.com

The project, spearheaded by NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, would use power produced by a windmill and solar energy cells to run a machine called an electrolyzer that splits water molecules into its base elements of hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen, in turn, would be used as fuel for specially-equipped buses.

Hydrogen Fuel Made Using Green Energy: Discovery News

The Obama Administration today announced the launch of an independent review of planned U.S. human space flight activities with the goal of ensuring that the nation is on a vigorous and sustainable path to achieving its boldest aspirations in space. The review will be conducted by a blue-ribbon panel of experts led by Norman Augustine, the former CEO of Lockheed Martin, who served on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology under Democratic and Republican presidents and led the 1990 Advisory Committee on the Future of the U.S. Space Program and the 2007 National Academies commission that produced the landmark report, Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future, as well as a number of other high-profile national commissions.

The "Review of United States Human Space Flight Plans" is to examine ongoing and planned National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) development activities, as well as potential alternatives, and present options for advancing a safe, innovative, affordable, and sustainable human space flight program in the years following Space Shuttle retirement. The panel will work closely with NASA and will seek input from Congress, the White House, the
public, industry, and international partners as it develops its options. It is to present its results in time to support an Administration decision on the way forward by August 2009.

The new administration may kill Ares.

U.S. Announces Review of Human Space Flight Plans | SpaceRef - Your Space Reference

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Vice Chairman Charles Munger said he supports an outright ban of credit- default swaps to prevent speculators from profiting on the failure of companies.

“If I were the governor of the world, I would eliminate it entirely -- 100 percent,” Munger said in a Bloomberg Television interview today. “That’s the best solution. It isn’t as though the economic world didn’t function quite well without it, and it isn’t as though what has happened has been so wonderfully desirable that we should logically want more of it.”

Berkshire’s Munger Favors ‘100% Ban’ on Credit Swaps (Update3) - Bloomberg.com

Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania said on Tuesday he would switch to the Democratic party, presenting Democrats with a possible 60th vote and the power to break Senate filibusters as they try to advance the Obama administration’s new agenda.

Specter To Switch Parties - The Caucus Blog - NYTimes.com

The Supreme Court ruled narrowly in favor of the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday in the agency’s efforts to punish television broadcasters for airing dirty words. But the court’s opinion guaranteed that the issue of obscenity in the age of modern communications would be revisited.

Supreme Court Backs F.C.C. on Indecency Rule - NYTimes.com

Some research has suggested that consumption of high-fructose corn syrup, used as a sweetener in a wide variety of foods, may increase the risk of obesity and heart disease. Now, a controlled and randomized study has found that drinks sweetened with fructose led to higher blood levels of L.D.L, or "bad" cholesterol, and triglycerides in overweight test subjects, while drinks sweetened with another sugar, glucose, did not. Both L.D.L. and triglycerides have been linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

Fructose-Sweetened Beverages Linked to Heart Risks - NYTimes.com