The Official Google Blog:
SearchWiki: make search your own  —  Have you ever wanted to mark up Google search results?  Maybe you're an avid hiker and the trail map site you always go to is in the 4th or 5th position and you want to move it to the top.  Or perhaps it's not there at all and you'd like to add it.

Giant glaciers buried under the surface of Mars at much lower latitudes than any previously known ice are a potential source of drinking water for future astronauts. The discovery, made using ground-penetrating radar on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, offers new...

Today, Ted Stevens — Alaska’s defeated Republican senator and a convicted felon — was granted time on the Senate floor to deliver his farewell speech. Stevens said that he still can’t believe that he’s “privileged to speak on the floor of the United States Senate.” He also added that he “doesn’t have a rear-view mirror. [...]

The Politico:
Senate GOP in big funk  —  A day after losing Ted Stevens' seat, along with their best hope for getting Joe Lieberman to cross over, Senate GOP leaders preached party unity as the key to surviving the Obama years.  —  If that doesn't work, there's always psychotherapy.

AP - Researchers said Thursday they have identified the remains of Nicolaus Copernicus by comparing DNA from a skeleton and hair retrieved from one of the 16th-century astronomer's books.

CNN’s Rick Sanchez highlighted yesterday that during last weekend’s G20 Economic Summit, leaders from around the world refused to acknowledge or shake hands with President Bush as they walked on stage for a photo-op. As Sanchez explained, everyone was “greeting each other and shaking hands, but Bush walks with his head down like the dejected [...]

AP - Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, an early Barack Obama supporter from the southwestern part of the country, is the likely choice for the job of secretary of homeland security, a top Obama adviser said Thursday.

Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano has been chosen to be secretary of the vast and troubled Department of Homeland Security.

For the first time, astronomers have taken a visual image of a multiple-planet solar system beyond our own. Using the Gemini North telescope and the W. M. Keck Observatory on Hawaii's Mauna Kea, researchers observed in infrared light three planets...

Since the GOP’s dismal electoral performance on Nov. 4, many conservatives have been engaged in a massive game of cover-up, arguing that despite the results, America is still a “center-right” country. (But it’s not). During a recent interview with Time magazine, House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) was the latest to take up the baton, [...]

The Associated Press reports today that, as part of its long-fought campaign to gut the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the Bush administration is pushing a last-minute regulatory change that would significantly weaken the ESA: The rules would eliminate the input of federal wildlife scientists in some endangered species cases, [by allowing] the federal agency in charge [...]

Late last month during the heated negotiations over the U.S.-Iraq security agreement, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki took issue with the pact’s terminology. “We don’t call it a security pact but an agreement to withdraw the troops and organize their activities during the period of their presence in Iraq,” Maliki said. Now that an agreement has [...]

New claims for unemployment jumped unexpectedly to a 16-year high last week, the Labor Department reported, with 542,000 new claims for jobless benefits being filed. “Claims above 400,000 are generally considered a sign of recession, and claims have been above that level for 17 weeks,” the AP reports, adding that last year, “claims stood at [...]

Politico reports that President-elect Obama has chosen Gov. Janet Napolitano (D-AZ) to serve as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Napolitano is a border governor who “brings law-and-order experience from her stint as the Grand Canyon State’s first female attorney general.” A Texas judge has set a Friday arraignment for Vice President Dick Cheney, former [...]

Conservative talker Bill Bennett interviewed Mike Huckabee on his radio show this morning. In the course of their interview, Huckabee falsely claimed that in approving Prop. 8, California did not “ban” or “prohibit” marriage equality, but rather simply affirmed the definition of marriage as between one man and one woman: HUCKABEE: I refuse to use the [...]

Ever since Iraq’s cabinet “overwhelmingly approved” a proposed security agreement that mandates the full withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Iraq by the end of 2011, the White House has been engaged in a rhetorical dance — in large part due to President Bush’s long-held opposition to “artificial timetables.” On Monday, White House press secretary [...]

In a sign that he may adopt a comprehensive approach to solving the health care crisis, President-elect Barack Obama has chosen former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-SD) to head the Department of Health and Human Services. Ezra Klein points out, “you don’t tap the former Senate Majority Leader to run your health care bureaucracy. That’s not [...]

Today, the CEOs of the Detroit Big Three returned to Capitol Hill to ask for $25 billion in loans. Testifying before the House Financial Services Committee, General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner insisted, “We’re all slashing back” on non-essential expenses, promising, “We’re going to be dramatically leaner.” The other executives echoed Wagoner’s pledge to be “leaner” [...]

Drawing was a terribly important part of science until the mid-19th century. Without photography, scientists, particularly in the life sciences, had to document what they saw with painstaking illustrations. The clarity and "realness" of photographs eventually relegated scientific drawing to...