News

A newly discovered strain of bacteria found in Canada's far north has increased the odds of finding microbial life on other planets or moons within our solar system, say the Canadian research team.

The team discovered the microbes under permafrost on Ellesmere Island in the far reaches of the Canadian Arctic in temperatures colder than they'd ever thought possible. The existence of these microbes not only sets a new record for extreme environment microbial life on Earth, but also raises questions about the potential for microbial life to evolve in other extreme climates beyond Earth, such as on Mars or the moons of Jupiter or Saturn.

The newly discovered strain, which is called Planococcus halocryophilus OR1, can stay alive in temperatures as low as minus 13 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 25 degrees Celsius). The samples were procured from a permafast core drilled by NASA on Ellesmere Island in 2004. NASA had been testing robotic drilling techniques for future use in missions to Mars.

Cleveland Browns player T.J. Ward and his celebrity friends will host May 31st Cleveland Cares fundraiser to benefit Gina DeJesus, Michelle Knight and Amanda Berry. Event Co-Chairs include T.J. Ward, Jacob Wallace & Terry Travis.

“T.J. Ward’s Celebrity Cleveland Cares Fundraiser” is a benefit with professional athletes, local celebrities and media personalities serving as Celebrity Bartenders to raise money to support the futures of Gina DeJesus, Michelle Knight and Amanda Berry via the Cleveland Courage Fund. All money raised through the fund will benefit the survivors and their families. Representatives from the Cleveland Domestic Violence Center will be on site providing attendees with information and discussing ways to prevent situations like this from happening again.

Cleveland Browns player T.J. Ward (#43) will be enlisting fellow Browns players, and reaching out to Cleveland sports, media and entertainment icons, to join together at Cleveland Cares to raise money to support the courageous acts and futures of Gina DeJesus, Michelle Knight and Amanda Berry.

Cleveland chef Rocco Whalen is planning to expand his popular Fahrenheit restaurant and will be opening up a second location in early October. However, Fahrenheit 2 will be opening out of state, in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Whalen says that the new Fahrenheit restaurant will be the first open-air rooftop restaurant in Charlotte, located "20 floors above the city skyline." The restaurant will be located on top of The Skye Condominiums, a luxury mixed-use building at the corner of Third and Caldwell streets in Center City, Charlotte. This building also includes a seven-story Hyatt Hotel, a tower of luxury condo living, and six floors of parking.

The 9,000-square-foot restaurant will seat 200 and will feature a pair of linear pits. About 80 percent of the new location's menu will replicate that of the original Tremont location. The restaurant will provide room service to the Hyatt's guests, as well as meals-to-order for tenants in the building, in addition to being open to the public.

Actor Leonardo DiCaprio is planning to fly to space on Virgin Galactic's new commercial spaceline and will be taking with him the winning bidder in a charity auction held at the Cannes film festival. The opportunity to fly with DiCaprio sold for 1.2 million Euros ($1.5 million USD) at the amfAR Cinema Against AIDS Charity on Thursday night.

The trip was listed as a "once-in-a-lifetime trip to space with a mystery guest" in the auction booklet. The mystery guest's identity was not revealed until after the auction ended. The event took place at Hotel du Cap-Eden-Rock during the festival on the French Riviera.

Standard tickets aboard SpaceShipTwo sell for $250,000. To date, 550 people have paid either in part or in full, despite the fact that the vehicle hasn't yet flown to space.

A researcher from the Missouri University of Science and Technology has developed a new screening method utilizing urinalysis to diagnose breast cancer as well as to determine its severity, before it can be detected with a mammogram.

A second study to confirm the effectiveness of the technique is now under way at Mercy Breast Center in Springfield, Mo.

Dr. Yinfa Ma, Curators' Teaching Professor of chemistry at Missouri S&T, uses a device known as a P-scan to detect the concentration of specific metabolites known as pteredines in urine samples. These biomarkers are present in the urine of all humans, but abnormally high concentrations can indicate the presence of cancer. It is Ma's believe that as the cancer progresses, the concentration of the metabolites increases.

A strong earthquake struck today off the coast of Russia's Far East. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the earthquake's preliminary magnitude was a powerful 8.3.

The quake shook the country all the way to Moscow and sparked a tsunami warning, but caused no casualties or major damage.

The epicenter of the earthquake was located in the Sea of Okhotsk off the Kamchatka Peninsula

Charles Ramsey, the Cleveland man who made a name for himself earlier this month when he helped to rescue kidnapping victim Amanda Berry, has now earned himself free burgers for life. More than a dozen Ohio restaurants and at least one in Pennsylvania have pledged free burgers for life for Ramsey.

Ramsey had mentioned in a number of interviews this month that he had been eating a McDonald's burger when he heard the screams from the house across the street, which spurred McDonald's to tweet out that they would "be in touch."

Hodge's Cleveland, the downtown restaurant where Ramsey works, was the first to pay homage to Ramsey by naming a Big Mac- like burger after. The Ramsay Burger started out as a temporary addition to the menu, but has since become permanent. The idea has also spread to other restaurants.

Fans of John Q's Steakhouse in downtown Cleveland may want to make one last stop in to enjoy the restaurant's food and atmosphere, as next month the historic Cleveland restaurant will close its doors for good. After decades of service to Clevelanders, owner Rick Cassara says that John Q's will close on June 15.

Cassara says that the closure was a "business decision", and that it was a very sad day for many of his longtime employees.

A number of vials of moon dust that were brought back to Earth by the first men to set foot on the moon had been lost for about 40 years, but were recently found inside a lab warehouse in California.

The samples, which were collected by Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, were discovered last month by an archivist who was reviewing artifacts at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Karen Nelson made the surprising discovery, and said in a statement:

"We don't know how or when they ended up in storage."

Nelson discovered the roughly 20 vials, each which featured handwritten labels dated "24 July 1970", packed inside a vacuum-sealed glass jar. She also found with the jar an academic paper which was published in the Proceedings of the Second Lunar Science Conference in 1971 titled "Study of carbon compounds in Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 returned lunar samples."

NASA has announced that it is funding research into 3D-printed food. Mechanical engineer Anjan Contractor recently received a $125,000 grant from NASA to build a prototype 3D printer with a goal of automating food creation.

NASA's interest in a 3D food printer is obvious. The space agency hopes that such a system could provide astronauts food during long distance space travel, but the printer's creator has a much loftier goal of helping to solve increasing world food shortages by cutting down on waste.

Software for the 3D food printer will be open-source, and the hardware is based on the open-source RepRap Mendel 3D printer.

The concept behind the 3D food printer involves using basic "building blocks" of food in replaceable powder cartridges. By combining each block, a wide range of foods should be able to be created by the printer. The cartridges will also have an incredible lifespan of 30 years, which is more than sufficient for long distance space travel.

Contractor will first prove that his system works on a basic level by printing chocolate, then he will begin his project in the next few weeks by attempting to print a pizza.