NASA’s Dawn Spacecraft Is Approaching Asteroid Vesta

Schoolchildren by the thousands wept when Pluto was officially banished from the ranks of the major planets back in 2006, but for the asteroids, demotion to the interplanetary minor leagues is very old news. When Ceres was discovered in 1801 during a search of the mysteriously empty space between Mars and Jupiter, astronomers were convinced they’d found a new planet.

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Study: Running Not so Bad for Your Joints After All

Perhaps because it seems intuitively true, the notion persists that running, especially when done long-term and over long distances, is bad for the joints. Indeed, it would be hard to think otherwise when with each foot strike, a runner’s knee withstands a force equal to eight times his or her body weight — for a 150-lb.

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Malcolm Gladwell, Author of Tipping Point, Outliers

With three best sellers to his credit, Malcolm Gladwell is one of the brightest stars in the media firmament. A British-born, Ontario-raised New Yorker staff writer and 2005 TIME 100 honoree, Gladwell’s clear prose and knack for upending conventional wisdom across the social sciences have made The Tipping Point, Blink and Outliers, as well as his lengthy magazine features on topics ranging from cool-hunting to ketchup, into must reads.

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Newlywed won’t tolerate ‘overt racism’ by Louisiana official

The woman who was denied a marriage license by a Louisiana justice of the peace because he refused to marry interracial couples said the official should lose his job. Beth McKay said she never could have expected what she heard from Tangipahoa Parish’s 8th Ward Justice of the Peace Keith Bardwell when she called his office a week ago to officiate her marriage to her African-American fiance, Terence.

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