The moon shots that researchers and the public have gazed at over the years are mainly copies--or copies of copies--that don't match the originals in clarity, color, or contrast.

But at last, we all will get to see the originals. Arizona State University (ASU) in Tempe, the Lunar and Planetary Institute, and NASA are posting high-resolution scans of the 35,000 photos from the Apollo missions--from film that has been chilling out in a freezer in Houston, Texas, for more than 30 years.

The digitized images will enable researchers to draft more precise topographic maps of the lunar surface, for example, and to evaluate possible landing sites for future moon missions, says geologist Mark Robinson of ASU. The archive is just gearing up but will have several hundred images by next month.

Volume 317, Number 5840, Issue of 17 August 2007

Homeopaths, advocates of untested herbal remedies, and credulous reporters who promote them take a beating at British doctor Ben Goldacre's Bad Science blog.

Pharmacologist David Colquhoun of University College London hammers similar targets at DC's Improbable Science.

Although both sites have a British emphasis, the quackery they expose is often international.

Volume 317, Number 5839, Issue of 10 August 2007

Homeopaths, advocates of untested herbal remedies, and credulous reporters who promote them take a beating at British doctor Ben Goldacre's Bad Science blog.

Pharmacologist David Colquhoun of University College London hammers similar targets at DC's Improbable Science.

Although both sites have a British emphasis, the quackery they expose is often international.

Volume 317, Number 5839, Issue of 10 August 2007

The Weekly World News, the supermarket tabloid that once claimed 12 U.S. senators were space aliens, is ending publication this month. But there are enough purveyors of pseudoscience, anti-science, and quackery to keep the following three Web sites in business.

Crank Dot Net* furnishes a taxonomy of crackpot Web sites. Erik Max Francis, a computer programmer in San Jose, California, rates the entries on how far they've strayed from reality. For instance, a page on the possibility that the sun has an unobserved twin merits only a "fringe" classification, whereas a site that dispenses advice on conducting diplomacy with aliens earns the highest ranking.

Volume 317, Number 5839, Issue of 10 August 2007

Whether the subject is trends in housing sales or trials of a new cancer drug, news reports often have to grapple with applications of statistics and probability. ChanceWiki from Dartmouth College turns such items into lessons on statistical thinking.

Originally a newsletter penned by math professors, the site now lets readers post discussions and exercises based on media stories, papers, books, and other sources. Recent contributions have investigated possible explanations for why Europeans are now taller than Americans (a reversal of the situation 60 years ago) and slammed a 2001 report that claimed Oscar winners live nearly 4 years longer than mere nominees. The longevity boost is illusory, the entry's author concludes, the result of a statistical gaffe called selection bias.

Volume 317, Number 5838, Issue of 03 August 2007

It took a century to go from Mendel's plant-breeding experiments to the genetic code. The Molecular Genetics Explorer can help biology students make the same intellectual journey by connecting changes in an organism's DNA to alterations in its appearance.

The free virtual lab comes from Brian White and Ethan Bolker of the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Students begin by setting up plant crosses and gene mutations to decipher the inheritance of color in fictional flowers. They then move to the protein level, tinkering with amino acid sequences to see how changes alter a protein's shape and the flower color it produces. The final exercises let users determine the consequences of manipulating DNA.

Volume 317, Number 5837, Issue of 27 July 2007

A neuroscientist might describe a nightmare differently, but an 1810 image by the English engraver Jean Pierre Simon certainly captures the terror. It's one of thousands of medically themed photos and art housed at Wellcome Images, a new gallery from the British biomedical charity the Wellcome Trust.

The site's contemporary collection is the place to search if you want, say, a spectacular photo of dividing cells caught at the moment of parting or an electron micrograph of influenza viruses barging into tracheal cells. To trace changes in medical knowledge and practice, browse the historical collection, whose holdings include rarities such as 15th century Chinese anatomical drawings and a 1920s Soviet propaganda poster on the dangers of typhus. If your intentions are pure (that is, noncommercial), you can download the images free.

Volume 317, Number 5836, Issue of 20 July 2007

What happens when you zap a chemical solution is the electrochemist's bailiwick. However, general readers can charge up their brains on the field's applications and history at the Electrochemistry Encyclopedia,* edited by retired chemist Zoltan Nagy of the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. The subjects of the 25 expert-written chapters range from electroplating to electric fish to pioneering electrochemists. Read about electrochemical machining, which uses a current to shape hard-to-work alloys, or explore the life of the Italian scientist Alessandro Volta, who sparked the nascent discipline more than 200 years ago by building the first battery.

If your memory short-circuits over unfamiliar terms, click over to the linked dictionary dag that furnishes 800 definitions.

http://electrochem.cwru.edu/ed/dict.htm

Volume 317, Number 5835, Issue of 13 July 2007