A piece of Isaac Newton’s infamous apple tree is set to visit space as part of the Royal Society’s 350th anniversary celebrations.

The section of wood, from the original tree from which the apple fell that inspired Newton’s theory of gravity, is normally held in the Royal Society’s archives.

It was lent to British-born astronaut Dr Piers Sellers, who will be taking it into orbit, as part of the academic institution’s 350th anniversary celebrations.

The tree sample will be accompanied on its trip into space by an image of Sir Isaac, also donated by the Royal Society.

Dr Sellers said: ”We’re delighted to take this piece of Sir Isaac Newton’s apple tree to orbit. While it’s up there, it will be experiencing no gravity, so if it had an apple on it, the apple wouldn’t fall.

”I’m pretty sure that Sir Isaac would have loved to see this, assuming he wasn’t spacesick, as it would have proved his first law of motion to be correct. After the flight, we will be returning the piece of tree and a flown picture of Sir Isaac Newton back to The Royal Society.”

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California has just named the remains of the Apollo 11 mission a state historical resource.

There is an unwritten law in America’s national parks: Carry out what you bring in.

When they visited the moon, though, the Americans weren’t nearly as considerate or in touch with nature. Astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong left behind more than 100 items when they left the moon on July 21, 1969, at 5:54 p.m., Earth Time. The items included four urine containers, several airsickness bags, a Hasselblad camera, lunar overshoes and a complete moon-landing step.
The mission was historically significant. But are the urine containers?

California historic preservationists think so. They recently registered the remains of the Apollo 11 mission in the so-called Sea of Tranquility as an “Historical Resource.” The designation gave a boost to an academic discipline that has been considered irrelevant until now: space archaeology.

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An international panel of experts have come to the conclusion that a space impact was responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs.

They reached the consensus after conducting the most wide-ranging analysis yet of the evidence.
Writing in Science journal, they rule out alternative theories such as large-scale volcanism

The analysis has been discussed at the 41st Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) in the US.A panel of 41 international experts reviewed 20 years’ worth of research to determine the cause of the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) mass extinction, around 65 million years ago.

The extinction wiped out more than half of all species on the planet, including the dinosaurs, bird-like pterosaurs and large marine reptiles, clearing the way for mammals to become the dominant species on Earth.

Their review of the evidence shows that the extinction was caused by a massive asteroid or comet smashing into Earth at Chicxulub on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.

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An Italian art collector has found a tooth, thumb and finger which belonged to Galileo Galilei who died in the 17th century.

The body parts, along with another finger and a vertebrae, were cut from Galileo’s corpse by scientists and historians during a burial ceremony held 95 years after his death in 1642.

Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti, a science historian who cut away the parts and wrote about the ceremony, “confessed he had found it hard to resist the temptation to take away the skull which had housed such extraordinary genius,” the museum said.

he newly-found relics had passed from one collector to another until they went missing in 1905. The remaining finger and the vertebrae have been conserved since 1737 in a mummified state in museums in Florence and Padua.

All the organic material extracted from the corpse has therefore now been identified and is conserved in responsible hands,” the museum said in a statement.

On the basis of considerable historical documentation, there are no doubts about the authenticity of the items,” it added.

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A scarf worn by Amelia Earhart will be making a journey into orbit with the astronaut grandson of her personal photographer.

Earhart’s scarf accompanying Bresnik on STS-129 is on loan from the Museum of Women Pilots in Oklahoma City, which displays the history of the Ninety-Nines, the international organization of female aviators founded in 1929 by 99 women pilots led by Earhart as president.

“It has the Ninety-Nines’ symbol, the intertwined nines in the center of it,” described Carolyn Smith, chairman of the Ninety-Nines’ Board of Trustees for the museum, of the red and white scarf.