Links for Thursday, August 20, 2009

• Jet Propulsion Lab: NASA Researchers Make First Discovery of Life’s Building Block in Comet – “*NASA scientists have discovered glycine, a fundamental building block of life, in samples of comet Wild 2 returned by NASA’s Stardust spacecraft. *“
• Starts With A Bang: Hell Yeah, Hubble – “The first thing we did was take a patch of sky that was relatively empty. No bright stars, no large galaxies or clusters, no planetary nebulae, just a little tiny patch of black, empty sky. And then we point Hubble at it. And what do we do? We sit there. And wait. Collecting tiny, miniscule amounts of light. First, for minutes on end. And then the minutes turn into hours, and the hours turn into days. All the while, Hubble just patiently sits there, pointing at the same patch of empty sky. Over 10 days, Hubble took a photograph of the same exact patch on the sky 342 times.“
• Lifehacker: 10 Must-Dos for the First Week of College – “With the start of the academic year, it’s time to switch out of vacation mode—pronto. What you do the first week of classes can majorly impact your grades four months from now, so don’t skip these first week must-dos.“