Some of the other planets in the solar system have several moons, while the Earth only has one. If you envy other planets because of this fact, then here's something that may soothe your anxiety: the Earth may have had several other moons in the past. Hit the full article to find out exactly why.

Imagine Earth not as the blue and green orb we know today. Imagine it as a psychedelic purple planet. According to microbial geneticist Shil DasSarma from the University of Maryland, ancient purple microbes dominated early Earth.

Today's plants are green because of chlorophyll - the pigment that makes photosynthesis possible. Green leaves absorb the reds and blues in the electromagnetic spectrum (or wavelengths of light) and reflect the greens. The fact is that the sun transmits most of its energy on the greens - so why did today's plants evolve not using the precious green light?

According to DasSarma, the explanation might be simple. There might have been another light-sensitive molecule that takes the green and reflects the reds and blues which causes it to emit a purple color. This ancient light-sensitive molecule was dubbed "retinal" and can be found today in another photosynthetic microbe called halobacteria.

DasSarma speculates that the retinal microbes dominated early Earth (imagine a massive clump of them making a purple spot on the Earth). The chlorophyll using microbes came later and evolved to harness the reds and blues that the retinals did not use since they couldn't complete with the then big boys. So how did chlorophyll become the dominant color? It may have been that the greens were simply more efficient than the purple retinals. According to William Sparks, an astronomer for the Space Telescope Science Institute in Maryland, "Chlorophyll may not sample the peak of the solar spectrum, but it makes better use of the light that it does absorb." DasSarma's theory is still based on speculation but the information fits with what scientists already know. The evidence that shows that retinal developed earlier that chlorophyll:

• Retinal has a simpler molecular structure than chlorophyll, which made it easier to produce in oxygen deprived early Earth
• Retinal production followed a process that resembles that of fatty acid and scientists think that the acid is essential in the development of cells.
• The halobacteria (misnomer since it's not a bacteria but a mibrobe) comes from an ancient group called archaea which dates back to a prehistoric Earth sans the oxygen atmosphere.

The full article awaits after the jump!

Google and NASA Ames Research Center, two entities that are seemingly worlds apart, have recently signed a Space Act Agreement, resulting to a partnership formed between said agencies. With this new partnership, they plan to tackle various technical problems that both parties struggle with: data management and computing, and human-computer interface.

First off, Google and Ames plan to focus on having NASA's most useful information available on the Internet. There are a lot of interesting things that will hopefully be available in the near future, like real-time weather visualization and forecasting, high-resolution 3-D maps of the moon and Mars, and real-time tracking of the International Space Station and the space shuttle.

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin says,

This agreement between NASA and Google will soon allow every American to experience a virtual flight over the surface of the moon or through the canyons of Mars. This innovative combination of information technology and space science will make NASA's space exploration work accessible to everyone.

NASA and Google have other plans to work together in a number of different collaborations which includes joint research, products, education and many others.

But are they really worlds apart? On one hand is Google, a private company that specializes on innovative search technologies and connects users to information they seek. NASA on the other hand, is a federal agency that has more information about our planet and space than any other entity in the world. On second thought, this might just be a perfect match.

Waiting for the PS3 was crazy. And we all expected the launch to be far more crazier. What we didn't expect was that the launch would go way beyond just crazy. It was simply insane! If you thought racing for chairs to get a PS3 is crazy, wait 'til you check out the video here.

Entitled 'PlayStation 3 Dash - Ames Best Buy', it shows a throng of people racing each other to the wall. At first, we couldn't quite grasp what was going on, until we heard someone say he's touching the wall. So we guess the object of the game is for people to race, and then, whoever gets to touch the wall first, they'd be the ones eligible for a PS3. Or something like that.

For a phenomenon like this, strange as it is, there really can be no sufficient explanation. So just enjoy the vid.