Greenland
Latest
Some of Earth's oxygen escapes to the moon every month
The Earth and the moon share more than an orbit around the Sun. Turns out that bits of atmosphere manage to travel the 240,000 miles out to our nearest celestial neighbor, and have been for more than 2 billion years, according to data gathered by Japan's moon-orbiting Kaguya spacecraft.
NASA maps the thawed parts of the Greenland ice sheet
NASA has created the first map of the bottom of the Greenland ice sheet, showing which parts have begun thawing and which remain frozen as ever. This is the first time what's underneath the surface of the massive block of ice has been mapped, because the only access scientists have to it is a few bore holes. They've been trying to find out what's going on underneath for a long time, since it's essential for predicting the sheet's movements in the future. "If the ice at its bottom is at the melting point temperature, or thawed," said NASA Goddard glaciologist and team leader Joe MacGregor, "then there could be enough liquid water there for the ice to flow faster and affect how quickly it responds to climate change."
NASA's GROVER eco-rover to examine Greenland's ice sheet (video)
It may be fun, but sending NASA scientists on snowmobiles to survey ice floes isn't the most productive use of their time. That's why the agency has sent GROVER to do the job instead. The solar-powered Greenland Rover is an autonomous vehicle with ground penetrating radar that's been designed to examine how the ice flow has changed over time. As the Arctic sun will never drop below the horizon, GROVER will be able to work 24 hours a day, give or take the odd social media break. [Image Credit: Gabriel Trisca, Boise State University]
New Goo.gl URL shortener API lets third party developers in on the outrageous fun that is Google URL shortening
Just a quick note, because we know how much you love APIs: Google has opened its URL shortening service to third party developers. That's right -- not only can you use Goo.gl to generate QR codes, but now you can build it into your own software. As well as support for URL shortening and expanding, the API will also let you track your history and analytics. Says Ben D'Angelo of the URL shortening team: "You could use these features for a wide variety of applications, enabling behaviors ranging from auto-shortening within Twitter or Google Buzz clients to running regular jobs that monitor your usage statistics and traffic patterns." The team is also working to improve spam and malicious site detection for the service. Since the government of Greenland seems to be a bit more stable than that of a certain Muammar al-Gaddafi, we're sure that Google won't run into the same problems that vb.ly did (although we wonder if things would change if Kuupik Kleist got his own voluptuous Ukrainian nurse). Hit the source link to get coding.
