Study Milky Way 50 pct. more massive than thought

By (AP)

Take that, Andromeda! For decades, astronomers thought when it came to the major galaxies in Earth's cosmic neighborhood, our Milky Way was a weak sister to the larger Andromeda. Not anymore.

The Milky Way is considerably larger, bulkier and spinning faster than astronomers once thought, Andromeda's equal.

Scientists mapped the Milky Way in a more detailed, three-dimensional way and found that it's 15 percent larger in breadth. More important, it's denser, with 50 percent more mass, which is like weight. The new findings were presented Monday at the American Astronomical Soc...

By (AP)

Five years after the NASA rover Spirit landed on Mars, the six-wheel robotic geologist and its twin Opportunity are still on the job.

Expectations were far lower when Spirit made a bouncing landing in a cocoon of air bags on Jan. 3, 2004, followed 21 days later by Opportunity: The goal was to try to operate each solar-powered rover for at least three months.

"That's an extraordinary return of investment in these challenging budgetary times," Ed Weiler, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, said in a December statement.

Combined, the rovers hav...

By (AP)

Old mosquitoes usually spread disease, so Australian researchers figured out a way to make the pests die younger _ naturally, not poisoned. Scientists have been racing to genetically engineer mosquitoes to become resistant to diseases like malaria and dengue fever that plague millions around the world, as an alternative to mass spraying of insecticides. A new report Friday suggested a potentially less complicated approach: Breeding mosquitoes to carry an insect parasite that causes earlier death.

Once a mosquito encounters dengue or malaria, it takes roughly two weeks of incubation...

By Deron Verbeck/I (AP)

A new study of pygmy killer whales _ one of the least understood marine mammal species _ shows that those living off Hawaii tend to stay close to the islands and don't swim out to the open ocean. There are very few of the whales, probably less than 200 individuals, in this distinct pygmy killer whale population off the islands. The population's limited number make it more vulnerable than other whale populations to potentially harmful human behavior, including fishing and Navy sonar, said the paper published Tuesday in the journal Marine Mammal Science.

"It's just much more likely ...