Giant Hawaiian eye
The world鈥檚 most powerful digital camera has been installed on a telescope atop Haleakala in Maui, the University of Hawaii revealed on 31 August. The 1.4-gigapixel camera will allow the Pan-STARRS-1 telescope to see stars 10 million times fainter than can be seen with the naked eye, and scan the skies for killer asteroids on a collision course with Earth.
Smallpox vaccine approved
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A vaccine against smallpox was approved on Monday by the US Food and Drug Administration, the first biodefence vaccine passed since the 9/11 attacks. Made by Acambis of Cambridge, UK, almost 200 million doses have already been stockpiled.
It鈥檚 getting hot in here
Human-produced greenhouse gases have caused more than half the warming seen in the US, which last year came within 0.5 掳C of the highest recorded annual temperature, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration study suggests. It also estimates that there is a 1 in 6 chance that random temperature fluctuations will lead to the record being broken this year (Geophysical Research Letters, ).
Space scientists sue
Scientists at NASA鈥檚 Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Ca帽ada Flintridge, California, are suing the US government in a bid to prevent it conducting background security checks on them. The 28 employees say the checks are an invasion of their privacy.
Chinese river purge
A crackdown on water pollution in China resulted in the closure of 400 factories, the State Environmental Protection Administration reported on Tuesday. Of 1162 factories investigated during July 鈥� along rivers including the Yangtze and the Yellow river 鈥� a further 352 were ordered to clean up or face closure, the state-run China Daily reported.
