News

• NASA needs help hunting down killer asteroids

  NASA wants to find asteroids that could threaten Earth and figure out what to do about them. They want your help doing it.

• NASA spots sledding marks in Martian sand dunes

  NASA scientists have seen evidence that there's been sledding on Mars.

• Booz Allen fires Snowdon, leaker of NSA spy docs

  Government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, as expected, today fired an IT employee who claimed responsibility for leaking documents that described highly classified government surveillance programs to the media.

• After 10 years on Mars, NASA rover begins new mission

  After nearly 10 years since it left Earth, NASA's rover Opportunity is about to head out on a new mission -- a weeks-long trek to study a new area on Mars.

• Immigration bill could hike IT hiring, or send more IT jobs offshore, says Gartner

  The Senate immigration bill's impact on offshore outsourcing will be disruptive to outsourcers, their customers and potentially to the U.S. IT labor market, according to Gartner.

• Scope of NSA's phone data snooping is 'breathtaking'

  Although U.S. government officials said the NSA's efforts to secretly collect phone records of millions of Verizon customers is nothing new, reports about its size confirmed long-standing fears among privacy and civil rights advocates.

• NASA rover Curiosity about to start next phase in Mars exploration

  NASA's Mars rover Curiosity is approaching its biggest turning point since landing on the Red Planet last August.

• Child porn suspect doesn't have to decrypt seized hard drives -- for now

  A Wisconsin man ordered last month by a magistrate to decrypt several of his storage drives to let investigators inspect them for evidence of child porn this week won a last minute reprieve from a federal judge.

• NASA: Asteroid comes closest to Earth this afternoon

  As a three-kilometer-wide asteroid nears its closest approach to Earth this afternoon, there's no fear of a collision but space buffs are eagerly getting a close up view as it passes us by.

• 3D printing could help take humans into deep space, NASA says

  NASA scientists plan to take 3D printers into space to enable astronauts to create tools, and even food, onboard the International Space Station and later on the moon or even Mars.

• Best plan to save Earth from a killer asteroid? Nukes!

  To protect the Earth from a devastating collision with a large asteroid, one scientist says the best solution would be to nuke it.

• Soyuz rendezvous with space station in record time

  A NASA engineer was one of three astronauts who made a record-breaking journey to the International Space Station last night.

• A stinky onion blooms in the Senate, say H-1B critics

  With the H-1B fight over and lost, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) lashed out, almost flailing in the minutes before the Senate Judiciary Committee's final vote Tuesday.

• H-1B politics shifts to backroom as vote nears

  High-tech industry's leading advocate in the immigration bill fight, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), has bought himself some time, perhaps until Tuesday, to try get the immigration bill changed to the liking of the tech industry.

• Tech may sink immigration bill if unhappy, Sen. Hatch warns

  The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday began debate on more than 300 amendments to the comprehensive immigration bill, including a number of changes to sections on H-1B visas.