[Tuesday, August 1, 2006] This August in Monterey Bay, Calif., an entire fleet of undersea robots will for the first time work together without the aid of humans to make detailed and efficient observations of the ocean.

[Wednesday, August 2, 2006] ESA's Huygens probe successfully descended through the atmosphere of Titan, Saturn's largest moon, and safely landed on its surface on 14 January 2005. An extraordinary new world has been unveiled.

[Thursday, August 3, 2006] "Maybe our microbial brethren have the right idea; reproduce asexually. In fact, we could be a step closer to this amoeba-like way of producing progeny. Scientists have managed to create sperm in the laboratory."

[Saturday, August 5, 2006] The objective of AMASE is to characterize the geology, geophysical features, biosignatures, and possible life forms of volcanic centers, warm springs, and perennial rivers, settings thought to be analogous to sites on ancient Mars.

[Monday, August 7, 2006] "The last two days have been very busy with instrument testing, gathering last minute supplies and attending an arctic training course. The cold temperatures here pose a serious challenge to our instruments."

[Monday, August 7, 2006] In just two years of work, an international research team has discovered eight new complex, biologically-significant molecules in interstellar space using the NSF's Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia.

[Wednesday, August 9, 2006] This phenomenon of pattern formation is critical in developmental biology. New research conducted at Brown University and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences supplies another surprising answer.

[Thursday, August 10, 2006] "As a girl, I once saw a small storm of meteors (called an "outburst") while camping in California's Sierra Nevada Mountains. There were more meteors than I could count, and they fell across the sky for about 2 hours that late night."

[Thursday, August 10, 2006] Few things are stranger than quantum physics - unless it's the idea that the atoms and particles that make up the universe are also components in a giant supercomputer.

[Thursday, August 10, 2006] The launch of the Mars Phoenix Lander is just a year away. The spacecraft will be aiming for the martian north pole, and if it lands successfully it will dig in snow and ice in one of the few places on Mars where scientists think life could be preserved.

[Monday, August 14, 2006] Astronomers have long scrutinized the vast and layered clouds of the Orion nebula, an industrious star-making factory visible to the naked eye in the sword of the famous hunter constellation. Yet, Orion is still full of secrets.

[Monday, August 14, 2006] Expeditions planning to collect meteorites in Antarctica are required to submit plans for the collection and curation of the meteorites to the NSF. NSF is providing notice of availability of a meteorite collection plan and inviting comments on the plan.

[Tuesday, August 15, 2006] Dr. Carl Pilcher, senior scientist for astrobiology at NASA Headquarters, Washington, has been appointed director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) based at NASA Ames Research Center. The appointment is effective Sept. 18, 2006.

[Wednesday, August 16, 2006] Every spring brings violent eruptions to the south polar ice cap of Mars, according to researchers interpreting new observations by NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter.

[Thursday, August 17, 2006] In the next two dozen years, the Allen Telescope Array will parse the nearest thousand light-years of space. If there are other occupants of this galactic neighborhood, we could turn up a signal.

[Tuesday, August 22, 2006] Photosynthesis on Earth can occur in a diversity of organisms in the photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) range of 10 nmol of photons m_-2 s^-1 to 8 mmol of photons m_-2 s^-1.

[Tuesday, August 22, 2006] Recent data from space missions reveal that there are ongoing climatic changes and erosive processes that continuously modify surface features of Mars.

[Tuesday, August 22, 2006] We report measurements of the evaporation rate of water under Mars-like conditions (CO2 atmosphere at 7 mbar and 0°C) in which small temperature oscillations about the freezing point repeatedly formed and removed a thin layer of ice.

[Tuesday, August 22, 2006] This experimental study investigated how the dynamics of the crystallization of the evaporite mineral halite could affect the accumulation and preservation of organic macromolecules present in the crystallizing solution.

[Tuesday, August 22, 2006] Although most proteins of most living organisms are constructed from the same set of 20 amino acids, all indications are that this standard alphabet represents a mere subset of what was available to life during early evolution.

[Tuesday, August 22, 2006] Deposition of terrestrial microbes or their biosignature molecules onto the surface of Mars could negatively impact life detection experiments and planetary protection measures.

[Tuesday, August 22, 2006] Carbonates have been spectroscopically identified in martian dust. However no outcropscale exposures of carbonate have been detected anywhere on Mars to date.

[Tuesday, August 22, 2006] Several locations have been identified on Mars that expose bulk, coarsely crystalline gray hematite. These deposits have been interpreted as being sedimentary and formed in aqueous environments.

[Tuesday, August 22, 2006] Cells of the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which were genetically modified to produce green fluorescent protein, were entrapped in fluid inclusions in laboratory-grown halite.

[Tuesday, August 22, 2006] The relatively recent discoveries that liquid water likely existed on the surface of past Mars and that methane currently exists in the martian atmosphere have fueled the possibility of extant or extinct life on Mars.

[Tuesday, August 22, 2006] Two terrestrial environments that have been proposed as analogs for the iron oxide precipitation in the Meridiani Planum region of Mars include the Rio Tinto precipitates and southern Utah marble concretions.

[Tuesday, August 22, 2006] The Atacama Desert is one of the driest environments on Earth. Previous reports have suggested that low numbers of culturable bacteria, counted as biomass or species diversity, are present in Atacama sands collected from the most hyperarid regions.

[Wednesday, August 23, 2006] When space shuttle Atlantis rockets into space later this week, it will take along three kinds of microbes so scientists can study how their genetic responses and their ability to cause disease change.

[Wednesday, August 23, 2006] "My observation is that by "effectiveness", what the scientific community really means is, "the extent to which we are able to get NASA to do what we want them to do".

[Wednesday, August 23, 2006] Ancient sediments that once resided on a lake bed and the ocean floor show sulfur isotope ratios unlike those found in other samples from the same time, calling into question accepted ideas about when the Earth's atmosphere began to contain oxygen.

[Thursday, August 24, 2006] It doesn't just matter how much radiation an astronaut is exposed to, time and the order in which charged particles strike human cells are important factors as well. That's the main finding of a study simulating radiation exposure.

[Wednesday, August 30, 2006] These images, taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA's Mars Express spacecraft, show the region of Kasei Valles, one of the biggest outflow channel systems on Mars. Kasei is the Japanese word for the planet Mars.