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Veteran journalist and news anchorman Walter Cronkite died today. Often called "the most trusted man in America", Cronkite set a high standard for television journalism in the 20th century. He was 92 years old.

Mr. Cronkite anchored the “CBS Evening News” from 1962 to 1981, at a time when television became the dominant medium of the United States. He figuratively held the hand of the American public during the civil-rights movement, the space race, the Vietnam war and the impeachment of Richard Nixon. During his tenure, network newscasts were expanded to 30 minutes from 15.

And that's the way it is, July 17, 2009.

Link -via YesButNoButYes

See also: A collection of memorable reports from Walter Cronkite.

Forty years later, you can still see the lunar modules, and even footprints, left on the moon by the Apollo missions. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO took new pictures between July 11th and 15th.

"Not only do these images reveal the great accomplishments of Apollo, they also show us that lunar exploration continues," said LRO project scientist Richard Vondrak of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "They demonstrate how LRO will be used to identify the best destinations for the next journeys to the moon."

NASA officials say the next round of photographs, to be taken during the final mapping orbit, will have even greater resolution. Link -via Bad Astronomy Blog, where these pictures caused great excitement.

(image credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/Arizona State University)

Nine squirrels regularly visit this home in Santa Monica, Cailfornia. The resident sets out toys and other objects for the squirrels to interact with, then trains a webcam on them for your entertainment. This site has both live streaming video and a slideshow of highlights of the squirrels in action. Link -via the Presurfer

17-year-old Zac Sunderland arrived home in California Thursday after a year of sailing around the world solo in his 36-foot sailboat named the Intrepid. He is now the youngest person to ever pull off such a stunt. Sunderland covered 27,500 miles and dealt with pirates and severe storms.

"The hardest constantly was the tiredness," he said. "I mean, you get over the loneliness, but tiredness, it's an ongoing thing. Half the time I haven't slept in 48 hours and it's just hard to get enough rest."

Sunderland said he made some good contacts along the way.

"It's interesting just thinking back to the different places in the world because I have so many friends in different parts of the world that are like family, you know, and all these different experiences," he said.

Link to story. Link to website. -via J-Walk Blog

(image credit: Lisa Gizara)

Mawgan spent a long time scribbling over a cute kitten calendar a relative had received as a gift. Now he/she has scanned the best of the resulting works for all of us to enjoy. Link -via b3ta

Can you tell your Harry Potter characters from hideous skin diseases? That's the challenge today in the Lunchtime Quiz from mental_floss. Despite a slight knowledge of Latin, I only scored 58%, which is in the range of complete chance. Surely you will do better! Link

A mysterious mass of black goo has been observed oozing through the Chucki sea off the coast of Alaska. It was first observed neat Wainwright and moved toward Barrow, where samples were collected for testing.

Nobody knows for sure what the gunk is, but Petty Officer 1st Class Terry Hasenauer says the Coast Guard is sure what it is not.

"It's certainly biological," Hasenauer said. "It's definitely not an oil product of any kind. It has no characteristics of an oil, or a hazardous substance, for that matter.

"It's definitely, by the smell and the makeup of it, it's some sort of naturally occurring organic or otherwise marine organism."

No one in the area remembers ever seeing anything like the sea blob before. http://www.adn.com/2835/story/864687.html -via reddit

Update: The tests are back. The blob has been identified as algae.

National Geographic takes on conspiracy theorists over the Apollo moon landing. Each accusation is countered by spaceflight historian Roger Launius of the Smithsonian Institution or astronomer Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy Blog.

You can tell Apollo was faked because ... only two astronauts walked on the moon at a time, yet in photographs such as this one where both are visible, there is no sign of a camera. So who took the picture?

The fact of the matter is ... the cameras were mounted to the astronauts' chests, said astronomer Phil Plait, author of the award-winning blog Bad Astronomy and president of the James Randi Educational Foundation.

In the picture above, Plait notes, "you can see [Neil's] arms are sort of at his chest. That's where the camera is. He wasn't holding it up to his visor."

Link

Robotic Technology is developing a robot called EATR, which stands for Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot. It's more than just an acronym. The machine will be able to go on long range and long distance missions and refuel itself by foraging and consuming "biomass" as well as conventional fuels. This biomass could theoretically include dead bodies.

That "biomass" and "other organically-based energy sources" wouldn't necessarily be limited to plant material — animal and human corpses contain plenty of energy, and they'd be plentiful in a war zone.

EATR will be powered by the Waste Heat Engine developed by Cyclone Power Technology of Pompano Beach, Fla., which uses an "external combustion chamber" burning up fuel to heat up water in a closed loop, generating electricity.

The advantages to the military are that the robot would be extremely flexible in fuel sources and could roam on its own for months, even years, without having to be refueled or serviced.

Link to story. Link to website. -Thanks, Brother Bill!

40 years ago today, Apollo 11 lifted off from Cape Canaveral. The Big Picture celebrates with a collection of large images of the mission. This photograph was taken by astronaut Michael Collins as the Eagle approached the Command Modeule to rendezvous for the trip home. Link -via the Presurfer

(image credit: NASA)

Scientists have announced the discovery of a giant dinosaur in Utah. The fossil skeleton belonged to Nothronychus graffami, which stood 13 feet tall and had claws nine inches long!

Its skeleton, described in the current issue of Proceedings of the Royal Society B, represents the most complete remains ever excavated of a therizinosaur, meaning "reaper lizard." It is one of only three such dinosaurs ever found in North America.

Lead author Lindsay Zanno told Discovery News that therizinosaurs, including the new Utah species, "are unusual in that they have small heads with a keratinous beak at the front of the mouth -- the same material as the beak of modern birds -- and small leaf-shaped teeth."

"Their bellies are proportionally enormous, supporting large guts," added Zanno, who is a researcher in the Department of Geology at The Field Museum. "They have greatly enlarged claws on their hands, short legs and tails, and four-toed feet."

The dinosaur's anatomy suggests it ate both plants and animals. Link

(image credit: Victor Leshyk)

At a wedding in Suvereto, Italy, the plan was to have the bride's bouquet thrown from an microlight plane flying over the wedding party. A line of women were waiting for the bouquet below. Then things got weird.

... the flowers were sucked into the plane's engine causing it to catch fire and explode.

The aircraft plunged into a hostel. One passenger on the plane was badly hurt.

But about 50 people who had been in the hostel escaped unscathed, as did the pilot.

Isidoro Pensieri, who tossed the bouquet from the plane, suffered multiple fractures and was taken to a hospital in Pisa. Link -via Arbroath

(image credit: Flickr user godutchbaby)

The object of this physics game is to remove all the red blocks without removing any of the green blocks. There are 45 levels. Some seem impossible, but there must be some way to pass them all. If I didn't have work to do, I'd still be playing this! Link

A 400 million-year-old fossil fish with a reproductive organ resembling a penis has been identified by Australian scientists. This is the earliest known structure used for sexual reproduction as we know it. The bone attached to the pelvis is called a clasper, and was used to penetrate a female during mating. The fish was a member of the extinct class of armored fish called placoderms.

Study author and palaeontologist Dr Kate Trinajstic, of Curtin University in Perth, says the clasper was discovered in a fish specimen uncovered in the Gogo region of Western Australia in 2001.

She says the team originally discounted the bone as the reproductive organ because they thought it was part of the pelvic gurdle.

On closer inspection, Trinajstic says they realised it was a sexual organ.

"We were surprised because it's so big," she says. "We were expecting something smaller."

Link -via Digg

(image credit: John Long)

Sometimes talent is sparked, or maybe just revealed, in the strangest ways.

Imagine having a stroke, a severe brain injury or a tumor and suddenly waking up one day to find you’ve developed artistic talents to rival Picasso. It sounds impossible, but the brain is a mysterious organ, and sometimes, damage causes it to rewire itself in ways that reveal new talents even in people who could barely doodle a stick figure. From the engineer on disability who became a sought-after digital artist after a stroke to a woman whose dementia spurred remarkable creative output, these 10 artists were all transformed by neurological trauma or disorders.

Pictured is Alison Silva, who chose not to have a brain tumor removed because it improved her painting talent. Link -via Buzzfeed