Canine rabies gone from U.S.
WASHINGTON -- Federal health experts declared a small victory against a fatal and untreatable virus on Friday, saying canine rabies has disappeared from the United States. While dogs may still become infected from raccoons, skunks or bats, they will not catch dog-specific rabies from another dog, the Atlanta-based U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
Accusations fly in crash
ZHEZKAZGAN, Kazakhstan -- Kazakhstan, home to Russia's Baikonur Cosmodrome, accused Moscow on Friday of not doing enough to ensure the safety of its space launches a day after a Russian rocket crashed in the Central Asian state. No one was hurt when the unmanned Proton booster, filled with highly toxic heptyl fuel, rammed into open countryside near the industrial city of Zhezkazgan in central Kazakhstan.
U.S. space dangers loom
WASHINGTON -- NASA's chief urged agency employees on Thursday to report any concerns about space flight safety, while an Air Force officer denounced the way NASA dismissed accounts of drunken astronauts. NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, appearing before a House of Representatives panel, asked employees of the U.S. space agency to trust its leadership and report problems.
Modified beet OK'd
BRUSSELS -- EU ministers and national experts are due to approve a genetically modified (GMO) sugar beet variety this month despite a long running dispute over the use of biotechnology. Officials say around 10 GMO products, mostly maize types but also cotton, soybeans and a high-starch potato, are scheduled for discussion at various levels of the EU in the next few months.
Film a bittersweet triumph
LOS ANGELES -- The nostalgic, bittersweet tone of "In the Shadow of the Moon," an acclaimed documentary about the Apollo space program, aims to remind viewers that even at its most destructive, humankind is capable of feats of breathtaking splendor. The film, which opens commercially on Friday, brings together for the first time crew members of each of the nine U.S. spacecraft that voyaged to the moon between 1968 and 1972, as the Vietnam War raged a quarter-million miles away on Earth.
Who is smarter?
WASHINGTON -- It's official: Your toddler is smarter than a chimp, at least at some things. A unique study comparing the abilities of human toddlers to chimpanzees and orangutans found that 2-year-old children have social learning skills superior to the apes, researchers said on Thursday.
Polar bears threatened
WASHINGTON -- Two-thirds of the world's polar bear population could be gone by midcentury if predictions of melting sea ice hold true, the U.S. Geological Survey reported on Friday. The fate of polar bears could be even bleaker than that estimate, because sea ice in the Arctic might be vanishing faster than the available computer models predict, the geological survey said in a report aimed at determining whether the big white bear should be listed as a threatened species.
Mars rovers ready to go
WASHINGTON -- Gusts of wind have cleared dust from the solar collectors on one of two robot rovers on the surface of Mars and both have awakened from the sleep NASA put them into, the space agency said on Friday. It said Opportunity was now preparing to drive into the half-mile diameter Victoria Crater next week and Spirit had climbed onto a formation called Home Plate, a plateau of layered bedrock.