The Mars Curiosity Rover is proving to be a fine investment for NASA. Something new and exciting seems to be discovered by this intrepid robot on a daily basis. Will it be enough to excite a science illiterate public or inspire US Congress to invest more money in space exploration instead of throwing it all away on trying to prop up a doomed economy? One doubts it, but one can hope...
'NASA's Curiosity rover mission has found evidence a stream once ran vigorously across the area on Mars where the rover is driving. There is earlier evidence for the presence of water on Mars, but this evidence - images of rocks containing ancient streambed gravels - is the first of its kind.
'Scientists are studying the images of stones cemented into a layer of conglomerate rock. The sizes and shapes of stones offer clues to the speed and distance of a long-ago stream's flow.
'"From the size of gravels it carried, we can interpret the water was moving about 3 feet per second, with a depth somewhere between ankle and hip deep," said Curiosity science co-investigator William Dietrich of the University of California, Berkeley. "Plenty of papers have been written about channels on Mars with many different hypotheses about the flows in them. This is the first time we're actually seeing water-transported gravel on Mars. This is a transition from speculation about the size of streambed material to direct observation of it."
'The finding site lies between the north rim of Gale Crater and the base of Mount Sharp, a mountain inside the crater. Earlier imaging of the region from Mars orbit allows for additional interpretation of the gravel-bearing conglomerate. The imagery shows an alluvial fan of material washed down from the rim, streaked by many apparent channels, sitting uphill of the new finds.
'The rounded shape of some stones in the conglomerate indicates long-distance transport from above the rim, where a channel named Peace Vallis feeds into the alluvial fan. The abundance of channels in the fan between the rim and conglomerate suggests flows continued or repeated over a long time, not just once or for a few years.' (NASA Mars Science Laboratory article).
In a contest where I would normally want them all to lose, a glimmer of hope has appeared. Yes, we could have an Archbishop of Canterbury called 'Archbishop Cocksworth'! The big cheeses of the established C of E are presently gathered at a secret location (possibly to avoid a drone strike?) for 3 days to pick the new AB of C. However, my prayers are unlikely to be answered and if I was a betting man my money, sadly, would not be on the Bishop of Coventry...
'Who will succeed Rowan Williams as Archbishop of Canterbury? The Crown Nominations Commission is meeting to decide who will take his place, and at the end of its deliberations the 19-strong committee - which includes bishops, priests and lay people - will give the prime minister the name of its preferred candidate and a second choice. Here are some of the contenders to lead the Church of England.' (BBC News article).
Poor old Baroness Warsi. She's just been booted out of the cabinet in the recent reshuffle only to be resurrected as "Minister for Faith and Communities" - a position only slightly less demeaning than Chairperson of the Tory Party. Still, I am trying to understand why the Government (and the opposition for that matter) is playing the faith card so vehemently of late, when all the indicators are that most folk these days would rather pray at the temple of Tesco's on a Sunday morning. Whatever the reason, the sound people over at the National Secular Society are on the case...
'Many will write it off as red meat being thrown to the raving fundamentalists on the back bench of the Tory Party, but the appointment of Baroness Warsi as "Minister for Faith and Communities" is potentially threatening for secularism.
'She recently held a meeting with the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, in which he took the opportunity to repeat to her the patently untrue mantra that "faith plays a central role within society and in building a cohesive society."' (National Secular Society article).
Our friends over at 'Republic' have a new campaign on the go to abolish the Duchy of Cornwall. The amounts of public money being trousered by our royal parasites is breathtaking...
'The Duchy of Cornwall is a landed-estate covering over 53,000 hectares over 23 counties. It acts as a property developer and landlord and is a cash-cow for prince Charles, giving him a personal income of over £18m a year.
'The Duchy is not the property of Charles or the Queen. Parliament has decided to let Charles have the profits from the Duchy and to run the Duchy as he likes.
'Charles is well known for his political meddling, for lobbying government ministers and public officials - in secret - on a wide range of issues. His opinions are listened to.' (Republic article).
Once again our unelected and allegedly powerless (if you believe the monarchists' guff) Head of State is caught out meddling in the political affairs of our country. This time the Old Lady was waxing lyrical to a BBC journalist about a terrorist suspect over tea and crumpets. The other disturbing side to this story is the BBC's grovelling apology. Why is it that the BBC, usually sound on most issues, just collapses into fits of deference when it comes to all things royal? Of course there is a simple answer to this problem: let us elect a proper Head of State and give them proper powers so they can do a proper job for our country...
'Republic has today called on the Queen to keep out of politics and has criticised her comments on Britain’s extradition laws as a cynical PR ploy.
'The Queen has waded into the debate on extradition laws by making it known to the BBC that she raised doubts about the legal process for extraditing Abu Hamza to government ministers.' (Republic article).
For the ever dwindling band of German Catholics the harsh truth of this increasingly corrupt organisation has been brought into sharp focus. If a German Catholic opts out of paying their 'Church Tax' (at an amazing 8% of their tax bill) then the good old Catholic Church - ever quick to take a dump on any dissenters - will withdraw the 'benefits' of being a Catholic. So, effectively the Catholics are now running a protection racket (alongside child exploitation, gay-hating, etc) presided over by Mr. Ratzinger playing Godfather in The Vatican. Its a funny old world, unless of course you are misguided enough to still believe that the Catholic Church is anything other than a sinister business...
'Germany’s Roman Catholics are to be denied the right to Holy Communion or religious burial if they stop paying a special church tax.
'A German bishops’ decree which has just come into force says anyone failing to pay the tax - an extra 8% of their income tax bill - will no longer be considered a Catholic.
'The bishops have been alarmed by the number of Catholics leaving the Church.
'They say such a step should be seen as a serious act against the community.
'All Germans who are officially registered as Catholics, Protestants or Jews pay a religious tax of 8-9% on their annual income tax bill. The levy was introduced in the 19th Century in compensation for the nationalisation of religious property.' (BBC News article).
'An Australian-led research team said on Thursday they had made a technological breakthrough in the race for a quantum supercomputer that could revolutionise data encryption and medicine.
'Engineers from Sydney's University of New South Wales said they had created the first working quantum bit or qubit - the fundamental unit of a quantum supercomputer - with the findings published in the latest edition of Nature.
'Lead researcher Andrew Dzurak said the team used a microwave field to gain unprecedented control over en electron bound to a single phosphorous atom that was implanted in a silicon transistor device.
'They were able to both write and read information using the electron's spin, or magnetic orientation, which Dzurak said was a “key advance towards realising a silicon quantum computer based on single atoms”.
'Quantum computing, the next generation in information technology, harnesses the power of atoms and molecules to perform calculations and store data, with the potential to be millions of times more powerful than the most advanced modern computers.' (Independent Online article).
'Were David Cameron to announce tomorrow that some of the wealthiest landowners in the country would receive millions in subsidies from the taxpayer, there would be predictable outrage. Yet, in the form of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), such a programme already exists.
The average British household contributes £245 a year to the CAP, most of which, a New Statesman investigation has found, is handed to the wealthiest landowners. Originally established with the intention of supporting small farmers and reducing Europe’s reliance on food imports, the CAP, which accounts for 43 per cent (€55bn) of the EU budget, has become a slush fund for assorted dukes, earls and princes.
'A freedom of information request by the NS to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs found that claimants last year included the Duke of Westminster (net worth: £7.4bn), who was paid £748,716 for his ownership of Grosvenor Farms, the Duke of Buccleuch (£180m), who received £260,273, the Duke of Devonshire (£700m), who received £251,729, and the Duke of Atholl, who was paid £231,188 for his 145,000 acre Blair Castle Estate.
'It was also a lucrative year for the Windsor family. The Queen received £415,817 for The Royal Farms and £314,811 for the Duchy of Lancaster, while Prince Charles was paid £127,868 for the Duchy of Cornwall. Similarly well remunerated was Saudi Arabia’s Prince Bandar, who netted £273,905 for his 2,000 acre Glympton Estate in Oxfordshire, alleged to have been purchased with the proceeds of the 1985 Al-Yamamah arms deal between Britain and Saudi Arabia.' (New Statesman article).
'A warp drive to achieve faster-than-light travel - a concept popularized in television's Star Trek - may not be as unrealistic as once thought, scientists say.
'A warp drive would manipulate space-time itself to move a starship, taking advantage of a loophole in the laws of physics that prevent anything from moving faster than light. A concept for a real-life warp drive was suggested in 1994 by Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre; however, subsequent calculations found that such a device would require prohibitive amounts of energy.
'Now physicists say that adjustments can be made to the proposed warp drive that would enable it to run on significantly less energy, potentially bringing the idea back from the realm of science fiction into science.' (Space article).
'Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, has died aged 82. The former US astronaut, who will go down on history as the most famous pioneer of space exploration, passed away as the result of heart complications following surgery.
'As commander of the Apollo 11 mission, he became the first person to set foot on the moon, on 20 July 1969, fulfilling the longheld dream of the United States to get there before the Soviet Union. His first words as he stepped on to the surface - "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" - instantly became one of the most recognisable phrases ever uttered.
'Armstrong underwent heart bypass surgery earlier this month, just two days after his birthday on 5 August, to relieve blocked arteries.
'His family released a statement on Saturday describing him as a "reluctant American hero who always believed he was just doing his job".
'It read: "We are heartbroken to share the news that Neil Armstrong has passed away following complications resulting from cardiovascular procedures. Neil was our loving husband, father, grandfather, brother and friend. Neil Armstrong was also a reluctant American hero who always believed he was just doing his job. He served his nation proudly as a Navy fighter pilot, test pilot, and astronaut.' (Guardian article and CPA Australia video interview).
'The first images from Mars were small, grey and grainy, but they verged on miraculous for the elated Nasa scientists, who hugged, cheered and high-fived on hearing they had pulled off the most daring landing ever attempted on another world.
'The US space agency's Curiosity rover touched down on Mars at 6.14am (BST) on Monday after an apparently perfect entry and descent dubbed the "seven minutes of terror" by Nasa staff. The period referred to the anxious moments during which the spacecraft punched into the Martian atmosphere at 13,000mph, performed a series of exquisite manoeuvres, and came to a standstill on the ground, all without human intervention.' (Guardian article).
'The Reykjavík District Court has ruled that Valitor, formerly known as VISA Iceland, violated contract laws by blocking credit card donations to Wikileaks, according to a press release posted on the whistleblowers' Twitter account.
'The court also ordered that the donation gateway should be reopened within 14 days otherwise Valitor will be forced to pay a fine of $6,200 daily. Valitor CEO Vidar Thorkellsson told Bloomberg, however, that the company would appeal the ruling. He declined to comment further.
'WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said "This is a significant victory against Washington's attempt to silence WikiLeaks. We will not be silenced. Economic censorship is censorship. It is wrong. When it's done outside of the rule of law its doubly wrong. One by one those involved in the attempted censorship of WikiLeaks will find themselves on the wrong side of history."' (Russia Today article).
'A Soyuz spaceship carrying two Russians and one American astronaut has blasted off for the International Space Station (ISS) after more than a month's delay over a problem with the hull of the Russian-built capsule.
'NASA astronaut Joseph Acaba, veteran cosmonaut Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin, who is departing on his first space flight, launched in clear skies aboard the Soyuz TMA-04M rocket from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Tuesday.
'The trio will berth early on Wednesday, joining Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, Nasa's Don Pettit and European Space Agency astronaut Andre Kuipers aboard the ISS.' (Guardian article).
'This is a note to our friends across the pond, friends who may be freaking out about the news of The Pirate Bay potentially being blocked in the United Kingdom. While the news may come as a shock, especially in a country that’s so outspokenly against ACTA, all hope should not be abandoned.
'In fact, there’s an easy fix, one that clearly demonstrates the futility of uninformed government officials trying to regulate something they don’t understand. Simply put, if you want to “unblock” TPB, just switch DNS servers.
'Much like defeating SOPA measures with IP addresses (instead of domain names), users who want to access TPB but can’t, you might want to think about switching your DNS server, something that is easier than the idea may suggest. However, thanks to a quick how-to by Torrent Freak, you’ll see it’s not that complicated at all. In fact, all you need to know in order to do such a changeover is the IP address for the DNS server you’d like to use:
'For the two main alternatives, these are:
- OpenDNS: 208.67.222.222> and 208.67.220.220
- GoogleDNS: 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4
'You can configure an alternative DNS server on a per-computer basis, or for your whole network. The first one is the quickest, probably easiest solution, the last one has the huge advantage that all devices on your network will use the new DNS automatically, without the need to configure them all.' (WebProNews article & TorrentFreak tutorial).
'Notorious file-sharing site The Pirate Bay is urging users in the UK to circumvent a block on its services, after the British High Court ruled that the site infringes copyright "on a massive scale."
'The Pirate Bay's founders said that users can set up anonymous connections using a virtual provate network (VPN). Alternatively, they can use a closed private network of computers, known as a darknet, or change their DNS settings with OpenDNS. "Don't forget that we can't allow this shit to happen," said TPB in a statement on its website. "Next time they're coming for something else. And yes, there will be a next time if we don't stop them."
'Earlier this week, UK internet service providers including Sky, O2, Virgin Media, Everything Everywhere, and TalkTalk were ordered to block access to TPB, after High Court judge Mr. Justice Arnold ruled that the site sanctions the infringements of copyright committed by its users.' (PC World article).
'SpaceX is now targeting a May 19th launch of a Falcon 9 rocket and a Dragon capsule bound for the International Space Station.
'The company and NASA are completing reviews of the software that will control the Dragon’s flight during an automated rendezvous and berthing with the station, a process that has delayed the mission previously targeted for launch May 7th.
'“Thus far, no issues have been uncovered during this process, but with a mission of this complexity, we want to be extremely diligent,” said company spokeswoman Kirstin Grantham.
'The company has submitted a request to the Air Force to launch May 19th, with May 22nd as a backup date. A launch on the 19th from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station would be at 4:55 a.m.' (Florida Today article).
'New analysis of 36-year-old data, resuscitated from printouts, shows NASA found life on Mars, an international team of mathematicians and scientists conclude in a paper published this week. Further, NASA doesn't need a human expedition to Mars to nail down the claim, neuropharmacologist and biologist Joseph Miller, with the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, told Discovery News. "The ultimate proof is to take a video of a Martian bacteria. They should send a microscope - watch the bacteria move," Miller said. "On the basis of what we've done so far, I'd say I'm 99 percent sure there's life there," he added.
'Miller's confidence stems in part from a new study that re-analyzed results from a life-detection experiment conducted by NASA's Viking Mars robots in 1976.
'Researchers crunched raw data collected during runs of the Labeled Release experiment, which looked for signs of microbial metabolism in soil samples scooped up and processed by the two Viking landers. General consensus of scientists has been that the experiment found geological, not biological, activity.
'The new study took a different approach. Researchers distilled the Viking Labeled Release data, provided as hard copies by the original researchers, into sets of numbers and analyzed the results for complexity. Since living systems are more complicated than non-biological processes, the idea was to look at the experiment results from a purely numerical perspective.' (Discovery News article).
'The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is operating again after its winter break. Early on Thursday, opposing stable beams of protons were smashed into each other at four observation positions. The total collision energy in these bunches of sub-atomic particles was eight trillion electron volts - a world record.
Scientists expect the big boost in capability to significantly increase the collider's chances of discovering "new physics". The great expectation is that they will definitively confirm or deny the existence of the Higgs boson, the elusive particle that would help explain why matter has mass.' (BBC News article).
'Internet firms have warned that government plans to monitor email and social media use in Britain are liable to be used by repressive regimes elsewhere in the world to justify their state surveillance.
'No internet business was willing to offer a public criticism of the coalition's proposal on Monday, but many privately raised fears over the legalising of a power to see who is contacting whom online in real time.' (Guardian article).
'Nearly 43 years after they thrust the Apollo 11 astronauts moonwards through a blue Florida sky, the mighty engines that helped deliver man to the Sea of Tranquillity have been found in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean.
'The five engines, last seen driving the Saturn V rocket free of the Earth on 16 July 1969, were found in a search led by the Amazon chief executive and space enthusiast Jeff Bezos, who hopes to recover at least one.
'The engines took 2½ minutes to hurl the rocket 40 miles into the heavens before falling into the ocean. Four days later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to walk on the moon.' (Guardian article).
'After a descent that took roughly two and a half hours, Cameron spent about three hours conducting the first manned scientific exploration of Challenger Deep.
'For his return trip, Cameron experienced a faster-than-expected, roughly 70-minute ascent, which he described as a "heckuva ride."
'Bobbing in the open ocean, his custom-designed sub, the Deepsea Challenger, was spotted by helicopter and plucked from the Pacific by a research ship's crane.
'The expedition was designed so that Cameron could spend up to six hours collecting samples and video at the bottom of the trench. But his mission was cut short due in part to a hydraulic fluid leak that coated the window of the sub's "pilot sphere," obscuring his view. "I lost hydraulics toward the latter part of dive, and I was unable to use the manipulator arm," Cameron said this morning during a post-dive press conference held aboard the Octopus, a yacht owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, a longtime Cameron friend. (Allen was on the scene for the historic dive and posted live updates of the event on Twitter from aboard his yacht, which provided backup support for the mission.)
'Considering the daunting task of sending humans into the deep, such technical glitches are to be expected, Cameron emphasized: "It's a prototype vehicle, so it's gonna take time to iron out the bugs. The important thing is that we have a vehicle that's a robust platform - it gets us there safely, the lights work, the cameras work, and hopefully next time the hydraulics will work."
'And although he wasn't able to capture as many samples on this first dive as science teams might have been hoping for, "that just means I gotta go back and get some more," said Cameron, also a National Geographic Society explorer-in-residence.' (National Geographic article).
'Researchers have updated HadCRUT - one of the main global temperate records, which dates back to 1850.
'One of the main changes is the inclusion of more data from the Arctic region, which has experienced one of the greatest levels of warming. The amendments do not change the long-term trend, but the data now lists 2010, rather than 1998, as the warmest year on record. The update is reported in the published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.
'HadCRUT is compiled by the UK Met Office's Hadley Centre and the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, and is one of three global records used extensively by climatologists.
'The other two are produced by US-based researchers at NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).' (BBC News article).
'An experiment to repeat a test of the speed of subatomic particles known as neutrinos has found that they do not travel faster than light.
'Results announced in September suggested that neutrinos can exceed light speed, but were met with scepticism as that would upend Einstein's theory of relativity.
'A test run by a different group at the same laboratory has now clocked them travelling at precisely light speed.' (BBC News article).
'On February 26th, a little more than a month before the veteran metal group King's X was to launch their latest tour, drummer Jerry Gaskill suffered a heart attack and had to undergo emergency surgery. Gaskill has remained in a hospital ever since, and the group is offering an exclusive live recording of a vintage 1991 concert to each person who donates to help offset the drummer's mounting medical expenses.
'Available for download via the Molken Music website, Burning Down Boston: Live at The Channel 6.12.91 is an 89-minute, 14-track recording that captures the group while they were still touring in support of their most commercially successful release, 1990's Faith Hope Love, which spawned the MTV and rock radio hit "It's Love." In addition to that song, the set also includes renditions of such King's X classics as "Over My Head" and "Moanjam" among others.
'King's X bassist Doug Pinnick recently offered an update about Gaskill's condition via his Facebook page: "Saw Jerry and he smiled and gave the thumbs-up. He seemed to recognize everyone and seems on it. Really cool. He is having some difficulty with the breathing, but overall looks sharp. Feel much better about this. Very excited. Just want to share that with you guys.' (Rolling Stone article).
'On March 13, an anonymous benefactor announced the availability of Anonymous-OS, a new live-bootable Linux distribution tailored for a particular class of user. The package was posted on Sourceforge and downloaded over 20,000 times before it was taken down by the service on March 15
'Some in Anonymous had cautioned that it might be some sort of trap; others claimed it was in fact a clever socially engineered package of malware waiting to spring on whoever had the audacity to download it.
'I had the audacity to download it just before Sourceforge shut the project down, loading it up on a virtual machine and installing it to a bootable USB. And honestly, there's not a whole lot to get excited about - Anonymous-OS is nothing more than a snapshot of a system running Ubuntu 11.10 with a few minor tweaks, redistributed as a live-boot ISO, and packaged with the usual collection of "educational" security tools (some of which may in fact expose you to law enforcement attention).
'Sourceforge's move to take down the project had more to do with the shady way in which it was posted than its content. The Sourceforge community team looked at the project, and found it was "a security-related operating system, with, perhaps, an attack-oriented emphasis," the company said in its statement. But they found no evidence it was in any way connected to Anonymous, concluding that the person or persons behind the project were in fact using the name of the group to draw attention.' (Ars Technica article).
'People in their forties and fifties might mourn their changing figure or the passing of childbearing age, but these changes are key to the success of the human species, Dr. David Bainbridge said.
'Far from being over the hill, middle-aged people are arguably the "pinnacle of evolution" because they are primed to play a vital role in society which could not be filled by younger adults, he added.
'While certain physical attributes such as skin suppleness and short-range eyesight deteriorate noticeably in the fifth and sixth decades of life, more important aspects such as brain power remain virtually undiminished.
'Humans are almost unique among animals in that women lose the ability to have children roughly half way through their lives, with at least two decades of healthy life remaining beyond childbearing age. By remaining faithful, men effectively give up the ability to have children also.
'But we are such a complicated species that adults are required to do much more than simply produce and rear offspring, Dr. Bainbridge said.' (Telegraph article).
'Rebekah Brooks is among six people arrested by Scotland Yard detectives on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, as part of the investigation into phone hacking.
'The former News International chief executive was arrested at her home in Oxfordshire by detectives from Operation Weeting. Sources also said that her husband, racehorse trainer Charlie Brooks, was arrested.
'The Metropolitan Police refused to confirm the names of those arrested, but said that a 43-year-old woman and a 49-year-old man had been held. News International and the lawyer for Brooks declined to comment on the reports. This morning's arrests took place between 5 am and 7 am at addresses in London, Oxfordshire, Hampshire and Hertfordshire.' (Guardian article).
'The low-lying Pacific nation of Kiribati is negotiating to buy land in Fiji so it can relocate islanders under threat from rising sea levels.
'In what could be the world's first climate-induced migration of modern times, Anote Tong, the Kiribati president, said he was in talks with Fiji's military government to buy up to 5,000 acres of freehold land on which his countrymen could be housed. Some of Kiribati's 32 pancake-flat coral atolls, which straddle the equator over 1,350,000 square miles of ocean, are already disappearing beneath the waves.
'Most of its 113,000 people are crammed on to Tarawa, the administrative centre, a chain of islets which curve in a horseshoe shape around a lagoon. "This is the last resort, there's no way out of this one," Mr Tong said.' (Telegraph article).
'The rise of the internet, from obscurity to ubiquity in the course of a few decades, has had profound effects on our society and on us as individuals. No one could have predicted how significant it would become, and no one can predict with any certainty how it will develop.
'This is true of the underlying technologies, but it is equally and, arguably more importantly, true of the changes that the internet has on how we communicate and interact with each other. It has brought us an overwhelming range of benefits, providing a universal tool to communicate, to organise our lives and to access entertainment.
'What concerns me most is that this tool brings with it risks that we simply haven't grasped. Social networks encourage us to share every aspect of our lives with our friends, but, by providing that service, those networks see everything that we share, and use that information to categorise, profile and predict us. These services aren't "free" - we pay for them with our personal data, and the profits are huge.' (Guardian article).
'British researchers have found that that the worms, which live in ponds and lakes, could live forever after examining their ability to repeatedly regenerate.
'Experts from Nottingham University created a colony of more than 20,000 flatworms from one original by chopping it into pieces and observing each section grow into a new complete worm. They believe that it could help scientists develop new methods to allow humans to stay younger for longer.
'“We’ve been studying two types of planarian worms; those that reproduce sexually, like us, and those that reproduce asexually, simply dividing in two,” said Dr. Aziz Aboobaker from the University’s School of Biology who led the study. “Both appear to regenerate indefinitely by growing new muscles, skin, guts and even entire brains over and over again. “Usually when stem cells divide - to heal wounds, or during reproduction or for growth - they start to show signs of aging. This means that the stem cells are no longer able to divide and so become less able to replace exhausted specialized cells in the tissues of our bodies. Our aging skin is perhaps the most visible example of this effect. Planarian worms and their stem cells are somehow able to avoid the aging process and to keep their cells dividing.”' (News Medical article).