Cell phones—The new cigarettes? (2)

Climatic Conundrum: Could wildfires chill the warming Arctic?
Alaskan residents who watched as wildfires claimed a record 10,000 square miles (25,900 square kilometers) of land in 2004 may take cold comfort in the fact that the choking smoke endured during wildfire season could blunt some of the effects of global warming. Researchers from the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) analyzed the short-term climatic impact of smoke from wildfires that swept Alaska and western Canada in 2004, burning 22,000 square miles (57,000 square kilometers) in total. They report in the Journal of Geophysical Research that the billowing clouds may have a cooling effect on the Arctic, where dwindling ice sheets have researchers worried about the potential for sudden climate changes to come. They say that smoke carried north on the wind absorbs some of the sun's rays and perhaps lessens the impact of global warming for weeks or months at a time, to a degree that depends on the soot's thickness, the sun's elevation and the brightness of the ice or water surface. They note signs that the 2004 wildfires had atmospheric effects as far north as Greenland and the islands above Norway and down south to the Gulf of Mexico. The only hitch: Particles that land on snow or ice might actually cause it to melt faster. Still, , NOAA says, it is possiblethe Arctic might benefit if wildfires intensified—a distinct possibility as global warming leads to drier summers up north.
http://climate.gi.alaska.edu/News/Fire04.html

Meet Makemake, the fourth dwarf planet
Astronomers have upgraded a distant body discovered in 2005 to the category of dwarf planet, the controversial designation created two years ago by the Paris-based International Astronomical Union (IAU) to deal with planetlike bodies far out in the solar system. The IAU decided at a meeting last week that the object formerly known as 2005 FY9 (or unofficially, "easterbunny") will henceforth be known as Makemake (pronounced MAH-kee MAH-kee) for the Easter Island Polynesian god of fertility and creator of humanity. That makes it the fourth dwarf planet, joining Ceres, Eris and Pluto, and the third "plutoid," or dwarf planet beyond Neptune. (Ceres resides in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.) Slightly smaller than Pluto and nearly as bright, reddish Makemake is one of the largest transneptunian objects in the solar system. Its discovery, along with that of Eris and similar specimens, precipitated the IAU's decision to create a separate category for round objects in the solar system that have not swept clear their regions of competing debris. This new criterion robbed Pluto of its prior status as a planet.

Not lost in space: NASA plans GPS-like system for return to the moon
NASA has coughed up $1.2 million for a navigation system that will help astronauts find their way around the lunar surface when they return in 2020. The Lunar Astronaut Spatial Orientation and Information System (LASOIS) is designed to function much the same way as a global positioning system (GPS). The major difference: the moon version will rely on signals from lunar beacons, stereo cameras and orbital imaging sensors instead of from GPS satellites to map coordinates. A group of The Ohio State University (O.S.U.) researchers are working with NASA Glenn Research Center, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California, Berkeley, to develop the LASOIS. This is old hat for Ron Li, an O.S.U. professor of civil and environmental engineering and geodetic science heading up the project, who was part of a team that developed software that helps NASA scientists guide the Spirit and Opportunity rovers as they roam the Martian landscape. NASA mapped portions of Mars by comparing images taken by a high-resolution imaging science experiment (HiRISE) camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter with those snapped by Spirit and Opportunity on the Red Planet's surface. Li explained how the system works this week during a conference held at NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif.: Images taken from space will be combined with surface shots to create maps of lunar terrain; motion sensors on lunar vehicles and clipped onto the astronauts' spacesuits will help computers pinpoint their locations; signals from lunar beacons, the lunar lander and base stations will give astronauts a picture of their surroundings similar to what drivers see when using a GPS device on Earth.