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 [...]

Our guest blogger is Andy Grotto, a Senior National Security Analyst at the Center for American Progress Action Fund. According to data in a new IAEA report, Iran appears to have acquired enough enriched uranium for a single crude nuclear bomb on the Bush administratrion’s watch. Here’s the back-of-the-envelope math for all you geeks out there: [...]

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 [...]

It might not make sense to pull woolly mammoths from the Ice Age into an age of global warming, but resurrecting that lost species became a bit less far-fetched. Using hair from 20,000-year-old specimens preserved in Siberian tundra, an international...

A new experiment may have found the first direct evidence of dark matter particles, a discovery that could begin to unravel one of the biggest mysteries in physics. Theorists believe that dark matter, made up of of weakly-interacting massive particles,...

The House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee voted 25-22 earlier today to recommend House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) take over as chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee from Rep. John Dingell (D-MI). A final decision “will most likely be made by the full Democratic Caucus Thursday,” according to CongressDaily. As the [...]

Everybody knows a forgetful stoner, but research suggests that low doses of marijuana could be good for memory, and even help prevent Alzheimer's disease. When given a compound similar to THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, rat brains displayed reduced...

Today, a Senate floor spokesperson read out loud Barack Obama’s resignation letter. The letter read: “To the President of the Senate: This letter is to inform you that I resign from the United States Senate effective November 16, 2008, in order to prepare for my duties as President of the United States.” Sen. Barbara Mikulski [...]

Roll Call reports that Former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD), who is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, “has been offered the job of Health and Human Services secretary by President-elect Barack Obama and has accepted the job.” Daschle is also set to take on the position of ?health care [...]