[Friday, June 2, 2006] Planetary scientists have found evidence of a meteor impact much larger and earlier than the one that killed the dinosaurs -- an impact that they believe caused the biggest mass extinction in Earth's history.

[Sunday, June 4, 2006] "Here we report the detection of singly and doubly ionized carbon (CII, CIII) and neutral atomic oxygen (OI) gas in the Beta Pic disk; measurement of these abundant volatile species permits a much more complete gas inventory."

[Monday, June 5, 2006] Observations by astronomer Subhanjoy Mohanty of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) and his colleagues provide the first direct evidence for a dusty disk around a distant planet that in mass would be Jupiter's "big brother."

[Monday, June 5, 2006] Forget our traditional ideas of where a planetary system forms - new research reveals that planetary nurseries can exist not only around stars but also around objects that are themselves not much heftier than Jupiter.

[Monday, June 5, 2006] Researchers have found evidence low-temperature archaea might have evolved from a moderate-temperature environment rather than from their high-temperature counterparts - as most scientists had believed.

[Tuesday, June 6, 2006] It has been 2.3 billion years since Earth's atmosphere became infused with enough oxygen to support life as we know it. About the same time, the planet became encased in ice that some scientists speculate was more than a half-mile deep.

[Tuesday, June 6, 2006] Two new studies show that objects only a few times more massive than Jupiter are born with discs of dust and gas. This suggests that miniature versions of the solar system may circle objects that are some 100 times less massive than our Sun.

[Wednesday, June 7, 2006] Scientists using NASA's Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer, or FUSE, have discovered abundant amounts of carbon gas in a dusty disk surrounding a well-studied young star named Beta Pictoris.

[Wednesday, June 7, 2006] A new explanation for forming "super-Earths" suggests that they are more likely to be found orbiting red dwarf stars--the most abundant type of star--than gas giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn.

[Thursday, June 8, 2006] Rapid climate changes over the past several decades have led to heritable, genetic changes in animals as diverse as squirrels, birds and mosquitoes, according to University of Oregon evolutionary geneticists.

[Friday, June 9, 2006] A new study appearing in the upcoming issue of the journal Science suggests that, except for regions of the North Atlantic, most of the Earth did, in fact, begin warming at the same time roughly 17,500 years ago.

[Friday, June 9, 2006] This report presents that last phase with an assessment of the health of the NASA scientific disciplines under the budget requests imposed by the exploration initiative.

[Monday, June 12, 2006] The Outer Planets Assessment Group is a NASA-supported forum for scientists and engineers to discuss exploration of the outer solar system and to enhance communication between community and NASA.

[Monday, June 12, 2006] What are seven NASA Explorer School teachers doing in the Atacama desert in Chile? They are studying side-by-side with NASA scientists who search for life in extreme environments, closely approximating what they expect to find on other planets.

[Monday, June 12, 2006] Astrobiology Magazine interviewed Dr. Blumberg about hepatitis B, his current research, and the role of viruses in the evolution of life on Earth.

[Tuesday, June 13, 2006] A scientific expedition to a remote glacier field in Canada's High Arctic may help researchers unlock the secrets about the beginning of life and provide insights for future exploration of our solar system.

[Wednesday, June 14, 2006] Biomimetic devices look to nature for inspiration, mimicking the way insects, plants and animals cope with difficulties - evolution has developed clever and varied ways to solve engineering problems.

[Wednesday, June 14, 2006] Research by SwRI proposes an explanation as to why the gaseous planets display this consistency, and why the satellites of gas planets are so much smaller compared to their planet than the principal satellites of solid planets.

[Thursday, June 15, 2006] NASA/ARC has a requirement for biomedical studies related to the flight of Russia's 2007 Foton-M3 free-flyer spacecraft. These studies would be performed through pre- and post-flight ground-based investigations conducted in Russia and the U.S.

[Monday, June 19, 2006] "We arrived in Resolute Friday evening but we are still in here awaiting better weather. Its been cloudy with periods of light snow and rain along with low cloud and fog so getting north has been a bit problematic."

[Wednesday, June 21, 2006] Thousands of tiny fruit flies soon will journey into space to help NASA scientists better understand changes in the human immune system caused by space flight.

[Thursday, June 22, 2006] "The lesson that you first learned in Economics 101 is alive and kicking at NASA; there's no such thing as a free launch."

[Thursday, June 22, 2006] Geckos, snails and newts thrived on a Russian spacecraft that carried a Montana State University experiment last summer, but not bacteria, said an MSU microbiologist who is studying the long-term effects of space travel.

[Thursday, June 22, 2006] For the past two summers, a group of scientists has traveled to the largest of these islands to study an environment that sheds light on a notorious meteorite, discovered at the opposite end of the Earth, in Antarctica.

[Friday, June 23, 2006] If you're looking for life beyond Earth, Europa, beckons as one of the solar system's most promising destinations. If you're looking for a possible analog to Europa on Earth, then head for frigid Ellesmere Island above the Arctic Circle.

[Tuesday, June 27, 2006] As the space shuttle Discovery prepares to launch on July 1, researchers at the University of Minnesota have identified a way for astronauts to reduce their risk of developing kidney stones while in space.

[Tuesday, June 27, 2006] Someday, astronauts may grow food efficiently in space and use plants to clean spaceship air, thanks to a two-year experiment scheduled aboard the International Space Station.

[Wednesday, June 28, 2006] Half-million-year-old Antarctic ice, avalanche triggers, frost heaves in roads and the possibility of life in Martian ice caps are just a few of the research projects expected to find a home in a new cluster of labs planned for Montana State University.

[Thursday, June 29, 2006] The microbial composition of ancient permafrost sediments from the Kolyma lowland of Northeast Eurasia was examined through culture and culture-independent approaches. These sediments have been continuously frozen for 5,000 to 2–3 million years.

[Thursday, June 29, 2006] In the driest parts of the Atacama Desert there are no visible life forms. The soil in this region contains only minute traces of bacteria distributed in patches, and conditions are too dry for cyanobacteria that live under translucent stones.

[Thursday, June 29, 2006] Did Mars have an Earth-like internal magnetic field, and, if so, during which period and was it a requisite for life? Is there a connection between iron minerals in the martian regolith and life?

[Thursday, June 29, 2006] We investigate a new mechanism for producing oxidants, especially H2O2, on Mars. Large-scale electrostatic fields generated by charged sand and dust in the martian dust devils and storms can induce chemical changes near and above the surface of Mars.

[Thursday, June 29, 2006] Laboratory studies, numerical simulations, and desert field tests indicate that aeolian dust transport can generate atmospheric electricity via contact electrification or "triboelectricity."

[Thursday, June 29, 2006] Europa's icy surface is radiolytically modified by high-energy electrons and ions, and photolytically modified by solar ultraviolet photons.

[Thursday, June 29, 2006] In this paper we present spectra of H2O2-containing ices in the near- and mid-infrared (IR) regions. Spectral changes on warming are shown, as is a comparison of near-IR bands of H2O and H2O2-containing ices.

[Thursday, June 29, 2006] Life is generally believed to emerge on Earth, to be at least functionally similar to life as we know it today, and to be much simpler than modern life.

[Thursday, June 29, 2006] "We'll look at the role of mutations in evolution – from what wooly mammoth DNA reveals about the elephant family tree to the few tweaks in viral DNA that could turn avian flu into a human pandemic."

[Friday, June 30, 2006] A mysterious shiny coating found on rocks in many of Earth's arid environments could reveal whether there was once life on Mars, according to new research.

[Friday, June 30, 2006] Transparent jellyfish-like creatures known as salps, considered by many a low member in the ocean food web, may be more important to the fate of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the ocean than previously thought.