A drop in pollution levels in Europe over the last 30 years, resulting in cleaner and clearer skies, is apparently contributing to rising temperatures in the region, as more of the Sun's radiation is now reaching the Earth's surface. Since 1980, average air temperatures in Europe have risen 1°C: much more than expected from greenhouse-gas warming alone. Christian Ruckstuhl of the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science in Switzerland ... Read full entry

Does a boomerang thrown in space return to its pitcher? Yes. If it is thrown inside an air filled area, such as a space station, as was the case last week aboard the International Space Station, for Japanese astronaut Takao Doi. If, however, the boomerang had been thrown outside the space station in the vacuum of space, there would be no aerodynamic forces to make it return to its thrower, ... Read full entry

There's Not Enough In The Air. Or more precisely, there's not quite enough hard disk space on the new MacBook Air. Even more unfortunately, it's only one and a half specs that completely kill the proposition for me: the 80 gig hard drive (huge deal) and the 2 gigs of RAM (somewhat huge deal). I don't care about the slower processor, the lack of swappable battery, the minimal connectivity options, ... Read full entry

MacBook Air: First Lab Tests. So the new MacBook Air ultra-slim laptop computer isn't the fastest model on the lot. That's not a big problem really, it is intended for use as a second computer after all. It was clear from the moment the MacBook Air was unveiled at Macworld Expo that it was a Mac laptop unlike any we've seen recently, if ever. In exchange for dramatically lighter ... Read full entry