President Bush’s plan to refocus NASA on missions to the moon and Mars means the Hubble Space Telescope won’t get a new lease on life. But the orbiting observatory hasn’t pooped out just yet and is still doing some great science. According to the BBC, an international team of astronomers using the Hubble has announced the first direct detection of oxygen and carbon in the atmosphere of a planet outside our solar system. The planet orbits a yellow star 150 light-years away in the constellation Pegasus.

That above-mentioned HowStuffWorks site is a great resource, but I sometimes wonder who else is checking it out. Three of the site’s top 10 most popular topics appear to be "lock picking," "nuclear bombs," and "tattoos."

Yesterday, I mentioned that TradeSports, an Ireland-based betting market, was predicting an easy win for John Kerry in the New Hampshire Democratic primary, despite polls showing that rival Howard Dean was closing fast. As it turns out, Kerry won by a comfortable, double-digit margin. Betting markets, also known as "idea" markets, have gained attention in recent years for their forecasting prowess.