Senator Stalls Science Picks
from CBS News
 Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) has placed a "hold" that blocks votes on confirming the White House appointments of physicist John Holdren, and marine biologist Jane Lubchenco. Full Article
Metal Bits Self-Assemble Into Lifelike Snakes
from WiredScience
In the basement of a nondescript building here at Argonne National Laboratory, nickel particles in a beaker are building themselves into magnetic snakes that may one day give clues about how life originally organized itself. Full Article
Black Hole Constant
from Science News
More than 40 years ago, a physicist found a mathematical constant that revealed regularity in the mysterious conditions in rotating black holes. Now a similar constant has been discovered in a mild-mannered Newtonian system. Full Article
Superconductivity and Magnetism
from Ars Technica
New experimental research suggests that magnetism may play a significant role in the underlying mechanism of superconductivity. This work found a remarkable similarity between the doping phase diagram of the new pnictide superconductors and the more traditional cuprate family of superconductors. Full Article
Modeling Snowflakes
from Birmingham Star
A mathematician has made an elaborate computer model designed to replicate the wildly complex growth of snowflakes. Full Article
I'm Not Looking, Honest!
from The Economist
Since the birth of quantum mechanics in the 1920s, physicists and philosophers have grappled with the bizarre consequences that founder Niels Bohr’s theory has for reality, including the fundamental truth that it is impossible to know everything about the world and, in fact, whether it really exists at all when it is not being observed. Full Article
In a Lonely Cosmos, a Hunt for Worlds Like Ours
from New York Times
Someday it might be said that this was the beginning of the end of cosmic loneliness. Presently perched on a Delta 2 rocket at Cape Canaveral is a one-ton spacecraft called Kepler. If all goes well, the rocket will lift off about 10:50 Friday evening on a journey that will eventually propel Kepler into orbit around the Sun. The job, in short, is to find places where life as we know it is possible. Full Article
DOE's Chu: Administration Moving Ahead With 'Clean Coal' Technology
from CNN Money
U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu on Thursday said the Obama administration is moving forward on "clean coal" technology and nuclear power, trying to fend off Republican attacks over the administration's energy policies. Coal and nuclear power are two of the big pressure points in negotiations over legislation to impose mandatory reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions. Full Article
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