Though we may often think of cholera as a disease of the past, virtually eradicated when John Snow famously linked an 1854 outbreak of the epidemic in London to an infected water well on Broad Street, it still poses a threat in almost every single developing country in the world. Over 150 years after Snow essentially founded modern epidemiology, a team of American scientists are using remote satellite imaging to predict cholera outbreaks before they occur.

[ Read Full Story ]

The sands of Harrat Khaybar, in the Saudi Arabian desert, weren’t always so parched. Evidence on the ground, such as fossilized hippo teeth, has led geologists to conclude that this dessicated lava field was once a lush grassland. But the case is even clearer from space, as seen in this photograph, taken from the International Space Station in March.

[ Read Full Story ]

Along with satellites and space stations, Earth is surrounded by tens of millions of pieces of floating space debris. Like any landfill, the trash is diverse, ranging from dead satellites to castaway rocket parts to flecks of paint. On average, over the past 40 years, one piece of space junk has fallen to Earth every day.

[ Read Full Story ]

Asteroid 2008HJ is not only a "superfast rotator," it's the fastest of the superfast. According to the British amateur astronomer Richard Miles, who clocked the asteroid using the remotely operated Faulkes Telescope South, 2008HJ makes a full rotation every 42.67 seconds—almost twice as fast as the previous record holder.

[ Read Full Story ]

In the first ever instance of a spacecraft photographing the landing of another craft on Mars, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured this incredible image of NASA's Phoenix Lander making its descent on Sunday. Phoenix landed successfully and has already begun transmitting images from its landing zone in Mars's northern polar region, where it will be conducting meteorological and geological surveys over the course of its three-month mission.

[ Read Full Story ]

If it weren’t for the landmines, Lingapura would be a great place to dig. For part of the 10th century, this pocket of northwestern Cambodia was the capital of the famed Angkorian empire, a sprawling city studded with homes, irrigation channels, and more than 1,000 temples crowned with stone lingam, or phalluses. But ever since Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge dotted Cambodia with millions of landmines in the 1970s, Lingapura’s ruins have sat mostly untouched.

[ Read Full Story ]

There is a scene in Dances with Wolves after Costner's character has arrived at the deserted Dakota base in which he discovers the company's garbage pile. He gives it a disappointing, scrutinizing look as he recognizes it's another harbinger of what is to come for the plains and its people. Fast forward 150 years to a different kind of frontier: space, in near-Earth orbit. There, we find a similar garbage pile, only this one is traveling at 30,000 miles per hour and threatens all the satellites and telescopes and space stations floating about.

[ Read Full Story ]

European travelers may soon have a chance to chat away on their own phones while in flight. For the new system to work, planes would be outfitted with small mobile base stations known as pico cells. The cells would be switched off during take-off, and turned on once the planes reach a given altitude, which would be a minimum of 3,000 meters. Phone signals would be routed to the mobile base stations, which would in turn dispatch signals to ground-based networks through a satellite link.

[ Read Full Story ]

Six weeks ago, the Monterey Bay Aquarium released a young white shark into the ocean, and the swimmer has already cruised down the coast to the waters off Mexico.

The shark, which spent 162 days at the aquarium after it was accidentally caught by a local fisherman, is the first to carry two different tracking tags.

[ Read Full Story ]

By now you've probably heard the strange story of USA 193, the out-of-control military satellite slated to be shot out of the sky this evening. Amidst controversy over the safety and necessity of the mission, the U.S. Navy is planning to launch a $10-million missile from the USS Lake Erie somewhere west of Hawaii as early as 9:30pm EST and take the school-bus-sized sat down.

Launched in December 2006 by the ultra hush-hush National Reconnaissance Organization, the rogue satellite sported a powerful imaging sensor and a central computer that failed almost immediately. Its orbit began to decay, gradually and then suddenly. And when it became clear that the satellite would plummet to Earth this week, the government grew concerned that its 1,000 pounds of onboard fuel would survive the plunge and pose a health risk to anyone who came in contact with the hydrazine gas. That's their side, anyway—and their explanation for preparing three SM3 anti-ballistic missile interceptors to shoot the bugger down from an Aegis destroyer.

[ Read Full Story ]

It started out as a 10-ton satellite packed with hazardous materials plummeting towards Earth. Then it dropped down to 4 tons, and the materials turned out not to be hazardous. Details are still sketchy, but it now seems clear that the NROL-21 USA-193 satellite that failed just hours after its December 2006 launch is now on its way back down to Earth. Should we be worried?

[ Read Full Story ]

XSS-11 is an experimental Air Force technology demonstrator designed to track other satellites. Controllers simply tell the spacecraft where to look for a piece of orbiting hardwareanother U.S. satellite, for instanceand the XSS-11 autonomously plots a course, accelerates to the object, and begins to orbit and observe. It's the first step toward automatic satellite inspection and repair.

[ Read Full Story ]

In 2004, Matthew Teague traveled to Arthur C. Clarke's Sri Lankan home for a Popular Science profile. They candidly discussed Clarke's incredible legacy as well as his insatiable thirst—even at age 87—for the next Big Idea. Here we present again this feature in tribute to a man whose visions still continue to profoundly influence the world of science and technology today.

The gate to Arthur C. Clarke's compound stood tall, white and blast-proof. We ran our hands over its surface, poking around for some secret doorbell. "Hello? Can anybody hear us?"

I wasn't trespassing—I'd called ahead, and Clarke agreed to see me, apparently curious why an American would track him down to this doorstep in Sri Lanka, the tiny, troubled island nation off the coast of India. But the place spooked Thilac, my Sri Lankan driver. "Maybe wrong house," he said, looking around. "OK?"

[ Read Full Story ]