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Mars' veins were created by vanishing ancient lakes
Scientists just produced stronger evidence that Mars once had water lakes that might have nurtured life. After combing over Curiosity rover data, the researchers determined that veins in places like the planet's Gale Crater were likely created by evaporating lakes whose sediments were buried, heated and corroded. The discoveries also suggest that the water in these areas would have been habitable, if not exactly pleasant to drink -- it would have had about 20 times more sodium and sulphate than your bottled water back on Earth. There were likely "multiple generations" of water, NASA adds.
iTunes U tops 600 million downloads
Launched in 2007, iTunes U is an Apple service that lets teachers distribute classroom content to students easily over the Internet. It's available at over 1,000 universities in 123 countries. In the four years since launch, the program can boast of 600 million downloads, with more than 300 million occurring in the last year. Unlike many online services that are US-centric, iTunes U is decidedly international with 60% of users residing outside the US. Among the participating schools, Open University and Stanford University are at the top of the download list with over 30 million downloads each. The bulk of the downloads are done on a desktop, but a growing percentage (30%) are gaining access to content from an iOS device.
