In Detroit, Is There Life After the Big 3?

Detroit is one of America’s most troubled cities, and its problems sometimes seem intractable. But a new effort to envision a future for Motor City could offer hope to other declining urban centers.   Detroit epitomizes shrinking Rust Belt cities. The once-vibrant hub of the U.S. auto industry has already lost more than 60 percent of its population and about 40 percent of its housing stock, leaving roughly 20 square miles vacant – almost as much as all of Manhattan.  

PARIS (AP) — The Geneva Motor Show has long had a reputation as one of the glitziest stops on the global auto show circuit — the place to unveil luxury models and out-of-this-world fantasy concept cars. But this year the dire state of the European auto industry will hang over the exhibition halls. Hit by fleeing customers, struggling economies and idle production lines, the region's carmakers need to make tough decisions if they are going to survive.

The U.S. auto industry may be showing some signs of life, but civic leaders in Detroit are looking to another sector to revive the Motor City: the health care industry. A deal to buy the city's largest health system would mean $850 million in improvements and 10,000 new jobs.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

LOS ANGELES — When the sun fired off a massive flare late on Sunday, it was the strongest solar eruption this year. That was until another, even stronger flare followed it a few hours later. Soon a third flare, almost twice as powerful as the first blasted out of the sun.

The sun unleashed a colossal Mother's Day solar flare on Sunday (May 12) in what has become the most powerful solar eruption of the year.

It’s the job of NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory to keep an eye on the sun, a job the SDO has presented in a new video showing off three years’ worth of solar activity.

It might not get you all the way to Cardassia Prime, but NASA hopes its newly launched solar-sail Sunjammer program will lead to a future where propellantless space craft are used for a multitude of functions beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. “Once proven, solar sail technology could enable a host of versatile space missions, including flying an advanced space-weather warning system to more quickly and accurately alert satellite operators and utilities on Earth of geomagnetic storms caused by coronal mass ejections from the sun,” NASA said in a release.

LOS ANGELES — Curiosity hunkered down after the sun unleashed a blast that raced toward Mars. While the hardy rover was designed to withstand punishing space weather, its handlers decided to power it down as a precaution since it suffered a recent computer problem. “We’re being more careful,” project manager Richard Cook of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory said Wednesday. While Curiosity slept, the Opportunity rover and two NASA spacecraft circling overhead carried on with normal activities.