Quick! What’s the one fact you know about the elephant? Well, they have those cool trunks they use like hands and we don’t get ivory from their tusks anymore (at least not legally) and . . . and . . I know! Elephants can’t jump! Well, they may not be able to jump, but researchers have recently uncovered some surprising facts about elephant locomotion. MORE>>

The first attempt to land humans on Luna -- Apollo 11 -- was a triumph that almost ended in disaster. At just 400 feet from the lunar surface, with only about a minute's worth of fuel remaining, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin saw that their ship's computer was taking them directly into a crater the size of a football field, strewn with SUV-sized boulders. They quickly took control from the computer, flew over the crater and touched down in a smoother area beyond, cutting the engine with just 30 seconds of fuel on the readout. MORE>>

Although I still talk about global warming and strange new animals and space discoveries, it seems that more and more my attention is turned to the human animal and its failings and foibles. So once again, this week we turn to some medical breakthroughs that just may affect your life or the lives of those close to you. We'll start today with a familiar but mostly mysterious local litany.MORE>>

Although the causes of global warming are still in dispute, there's very little argument about the fact that it's actually happening. And the current drop in gas prices is just a blip on the radar because no matter how you look at it, oil is a finite resource and sooner or later (and the house money is on 'sooner') it will be gone. Our grandchildren will live in a very different world. In this column, I thought I'd peer into the future and talk about some of the new innovations that just could change our lives.MORE>>