[Wednesday, July 5, 2006] A gigantic, daisy-shaped space shield could be used to block out pesky starlight and allow astronomers using an orbiting telescope to zero in on Earth-like planets in other solar systems, according to a University of Colorado at Boulder study.

[Thursday, July 6, 2006] Astrobiology is the leading peer-reviewed journal in its field. To promote this developing field, the Journal has teamed up with The Astrobiology Web to highlight one outstanding paper per issue of Astrobiology.

[Thursday, July 6, 2006] On Tuesday, July 4th part of the Mars Institute core team arrived at the HMP Research Station on Devon Island. Today, weather permitting, one flight is scheduled to go to Devon Island carrying cargo.

[Friday, July 7, 2006] There are a few important things we know about the universe - it's 13.7 billion years old, it was once smaller than the head of a pin, and it's expanding at a pace that becomes more breakneck each second.

[Monday, July 10, 2006] If you're a microbe, looking for a place to call home in the hyperarid core of Chile's Atacama Desert, a little deliquescence goes a long way.

[Tuesday, July 11, 2006] As part of ESA's ambitious, long-term Aurora exploration programme, ExoMars will search for traces of life on Mars. The mission requires entirely new technologies for self-controlled robots, built-in autonomy and cutting-edge visual terrain sensors.

[Wednesday, July 12, 2006] Restoring funds to NASA's budget will help the science programs, including astrobiology, and we are asking you to send a fax to the chairs and ranking members of the Senate Appropriations Committee and Commerce, Justice, & Science Subcommittee.

[Wednesday, July 12, 2006] Nukuoro Atoll, Federated States of Micronesia is featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 13 crewmember on the International Space Station.

[Wednesday, July 12, 2006] NASA scientists plan to drill someday into the surface of Mars to look for water and signs of possible life. So, scientists are developing an automated, unmanned drill rig that can operate totally on its own, unsupervised for hours at a time.

[Wednesday, July 12, 2006] Astronauts lose 2% of bone mass for each month they are exposed to microgravity. So far, astronauts have not been exposed to the increased radiation of outer space, but that will change when they undertake a proposed 30-month trip to Mars.

[Thursday, July 13, 2006] When the Earth formed 4.6 billion years ago, it was a red-hot molten sphere and pulverized by meteors. In other words, not the sort of place you'd want to raise kids. In fact, Earth was hostile to life for almost a billion years after its formation.

[Friday, July 14, 2006] Scientists are getting their best understanding yet of the makeup of comets - not only of the materials inside these planetary building blocks, but also of the way they could have formed around the Sun in the solar system's earliest years.

[Friday, July 14, 2006] Thirty years after the first successful landing on Mars by NASA's Viking spacecraft, the ambitious mission continues to evoke pride and enthusiasm for future space exploration.

[Saturday, July 15, 2006] The Alps could lose 80% of their glacier cover by the end of this century, if summer air temperatures rise by three degrees C. And if temperatures increase by five degrees C, the Alps would become almost completely ice-free by 2100.

[Saturday, July 15, 2006] An team of scientists will explore the seafloor near Papua New Guinea later this month with remotely operated and autonomous underwater vehicles, investigating hydrothermal vents and the formation of mineral deposits.

[Sunday, July 16, 2006] Since we put in a couple of people early yesterday it was decided not to send any flights over today. Weather permitting we'll have a flight tomorrow with six people onboard and their cargo. There are currently 33 people in camp.

[Monday, July 17, 2006] "During our trip north in April, we installed another met station to replace the one that has been at the site since 1992. The new station sports all new sensors and the latest datalogger from Campbell as well as their enclosed digital camera."

[Monday, July 17, 2006] NASA's 'GeneBox' is in orbit inside Bigelow Corporation's one-third scale, inflatable Genesis I test spacecraft. In future flights, it will analyze how the near weightlessness of space affects genes in microscopic cells and other small life forms.

[Tuesday, July 18, 2006] MIT engineers and scientist colleagues have a new vision for the future of Mars exploration: a swarm of probes, each the size of a baseball, spreading out across the planet in every direction.

[Tuesday, July 18, 2006] I do not know who caused the President's budget to halve Astrobiology funds, or why. If the budget does not show the "A-word" explicitly, we can expect that the Astrobiology cut will remain.

[Tuesday, July 18, 2006] "This past winter was the first winter where our systems survived the winter and were operational when we arrived at camp. As usual, we learned a lot this past year to help plan for an even more robust system in the future."

[Wednesday, July 19, 2006] "The automated weather station we installed last April at M.A.R.S on Axel Heiberg Island includes an enclosed digital camera that is programmed to acquire two images per day - one at 9 am and another at 1 pm local time."

[Wednesday, July 19, 2006] Current Planetary Protection policy designates a categorization IVc for spacecraft potentially entering into a "special region" of Mars that requires specific constraints on spacecraft development and operations.

[Wednesday, July 19, 2006] New radar images from Cassini reveal geological features very similar to Earth on an Australia-size, bright region on Saturn's moon Titan. In one radar strip over Cassini provided a virtual goldmine, telling the region's complex geological story.

[Wednesday, July 19, 2006] "I wanted to put before you some carefully-considered decisions about the future direction of our science programs, and I wanted to make sure to elucidate the many various factors behind those decisions, as I seek your advice going forward. "

[Thursday, July 20, 2006] Another busy day at the Haughton-Mars Project Research Station (HMP RS). As we approach the mid-point in the field season, researchers are making significant strides on a number of fronts for their respective projects.

[Thursday, July 20, 2006] Dinos are still big, even though they vanished from the landscape 65 million years ago: it seems we just can't get enough of these economy-sized lizards.

[Friday, July 21, 2006] Which came first, nucleic acids or proteins? This question is molecular biology's version of the "chicken-or-the-egg" riddle. For those who try to understand how life originated, this once seemed an intractable paradox.

[Friday, July 21, 2006] Ten years ago, a team of scientists reported evidence that life on Earth began more than 3.8 billion years ago. A UCLA professor who was not part of that team and two of the original authors will report in July that the evidence is stronger than ever.

[Friday, July 21, 2006] Dr. Richard Léveillé, Visiting Fellow in astrobiology at the Canadian Space Agency: It's a pleasure to be back for my second year at HMP - the landscapes, geology and biology in and around the Haughton Crater are truly amazing.

[Sunday, July 23, 2006] The constellation of shapes and sizes among bacteria is as remarkable as it is mysterious. Why should Spirochaeta halophila resemble a bedspring coil, Stella a star and Clostridium cocleatum a partly eaten donut? No one really knows.

[Sunday, July 23, 2006] The molecular machinery that starts the process by which a biological cell divides into two identical daughter cells apparently worked so well early on that evolution has conserved it across the eons in all forms of life on Earth.

[Sunday, July 23, 2006] Gas escaping from the ocean floor may provide some answers to understanding historical global warming cycles and provide information on current climate changes.

[Sunday, July 23, 2006] Scientists from 60 countries will be conducting research during International Polar Year 2007-2008. For the first time during an International Polar Year, they will be armed with satellite measurements.

[Sunday, July 23, 2006] The 2005 expedition to theHMP research station on Devon Island was part of a NASA-funded project on Space Logistics. A team from MIT went to the Canadian Arctic to participate in the annual HMP field campaign from July 8 to August 12, 2005.

[Sunday, July 23, 2006] Toward the end of our summer expedition while flying from our camp, I spotted a lake with what appeared to be green ice on it. Seeing ice this color is particularly interesting since the color green tends to make an aquatic ecologist think of life.

[Monday, July 24, 2006] Researchers running computer simulations for four nearby systems that contain giant planets about the size of Jupiter have found one that could have formed an Earth-like planet with the right conditions to support life.

[Tuesday, July 25, 2006] The Cassini spacecraft, using its radar system, has discovered very strong evidence for hydrocarbon lakes on Titan. Dark patches, which resemble terrestrial lakes, seem to be sprinkled all over the high latitudes surrounding Titan's north pole.

[Wednesday, July 26, 2006] A team of international researchers using NASA satellite images compiled an updated inventory of all "marine protected areas" containing coral reefs and compared it with the most detailed and comprehensive satellite inventory of coral reefs.

[Wednesday, July 26, 2006] The ice jets of Enceladus send particles streaming into space hundreds of kilometers above the south pole of this spectacularly active moon. Some of the particles escape to form the diffuse E ring around Saturn.

[Wednesday, July 26, 2006] An unexpected radio reflection from the surface of Titan has allowed ESA scientists to deduce the average size of stones and pebbles close to the Huygens' landing site. The technique could be used on other lander missions to analyse planetary surfaces.

[Thursday, July 27, 2006] New radar images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft revealed geological features similar to Earth on Xanadu, an Australia-sized, bright region on Saturn's moon Titan.

[Thursday, July 27, 2006] Liquid methane drizzles on the surface of Titan, a moon of Saturn, according to a paper by NASA and university scientists that appears in today's issue of the journal, Nature.

[Thursday, July 27, 2006] For the last 30,000 years, our planet has been hit by a constant rain of cosmic dust particles. Scientists have reached this conclusion after investigating the amount of the helium isotope 3He in cosmic dust particles preserved in an Antarctic ice core.

[Thursday, July 27, 2006] Evidence of atomic nitrogen in interstellar gas clouds suggests that pre-life molecules may be present in comets, a discovery that gives a clue about the early conditions that gave rise to life.

[Thursday, July 27, 2006] A chronological study of extraterrestrial dust in Antarctic ice has shown that this amount has remained constant over the past 30,000 years, a finding that could help refine efforts to understand the effects of changes in the Earth's past climate.

[Friday, July 28, 2006] The Mars Institute's Arthur Clarke Mars Greenhouse on Devon Island now has two webcams online. One camera shows a view of the greenhouse and surroundings from the outside and the other shows some of the internal plant growth trays.

[Sunday, July 30, 2006] GeneBox was developed to test out new ways to perform in-flight genomic analysis of living systems. Much of what is being flown aboard this satellite is cutting edge biotech - the likes of which have yet to fly aboard the International Space Station.

[Sunday, July 30, 2006] To look for ice or especially organics on Mars, we will need to drill below the oxidized and irradiated surface, probably at least 1-2m. Hardened subsurface ice layers aren't going to be addressed with lightweight scoops on manipulator arms, drills will b

[Sunday, July 30, 2006] "Also, whether the plan to nudge Earth from its current orbit could help counter global warming, and our Hollywood skeptic raises an eyebrow at energy healers. Plus, are aliens falling to earth drop by drop? The phenomenon of red rain."

[Monday, July 31, 2006] Electricity generated in dust storms on Mars may produce reactive chemicals that build up in the Martian soil, according to NASA-funded research.

[Monday, July 31, 2006] Four university teams will provide experiments and supporting hardware for a future NASA mission to study near-Earth space radiation. This type of radiation is hazardous to astronauts, orbiting satellites and aircraft flying high altitude polar routes.

[Monday, July 31, 2006] The Planetary Society, in conjunction with UC Berkeley, is looking for good dust-spotters to join Stardust@home, a project where internet users search for microscopic interstellar dust particles captured by NASA's Stardust spacecraft.