Water Found On Planet Mercury!

The Messenger spacecraft orbited the planet closest to the Sun, Mercury, in March 2011 and now an analysis of some of the data found by that device indicates that a lot of water has been found on another planet in our Solar System.

Mercury may be a scorching hunk of rock just next door to the sun, but planetary scientists have discovered nearly pure frozen water and even some organic material in the planet's frigid polar regions. 

The findings from the Messenger spacecraft orbiting the planet cap the decades-long search for water on the second-hottest planet in the solar system and may help scientists better understand the origins of the molecular building blocks for life on Earth. 

The new research "doesn't mean we have life on Mercury," said UCLA planetary scientist David Paige, lead author of one of three papers published Thursday by the journal Science. "But it is relevant for the question of life in the solar system in general." 

As much as 1.1 trillion tons of ice could lie on or just beneath Mercury's surface in the nooks and crannies of craters that never see sunlight, according to scientists working on the Messenger mission. Much of that ice may be protected by a dark layer of carbon-rich organic material several inches thick, they said.

I wonder if someone will ask Marco Rubio about this discovery?

The Bitter Battle Over Sweeteners

A few weeks ago the New York Times has a fun article entitled "Makers of Artificial Sweeteners Go to Court" about the lawsuit by Equal™ against Splenda™. Not surprisingly, the market for artificial sweeteners in the United States is a one-and-a-half billion dollar industry.

Equal had once dominated the market, finding its way into more than 6,000 consumer products like Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi, the two biggest buyers of artificial sweeteners in the world.

But since Splenda was introduced in late 1999, Equal has steadily been elbowed aside and Splenda is now No. 1, with 62 percent of the market in the United States.

It is unusual for a dispute over advertising claims to go to a jury trial. The case centers on Splenda’s tagline “Made from sugar, so it tastes like sugar” — a claim that Equal mocks as an “urban myth” on its Web site.