The 8.8 magnitude earthquake that struck near the city of Concepcion, Chile over the weekend is the largest recorded quake in 50 years. Though more people were killed and left homeless after the Haiti earthquake in January, this quake was about 500 times more powerful.

Cameras captured the earthquake as it happened on Saturday.

The earthquake triggered tsunamis up and down the Chilean coast and warnings went out to places as far away as Japan and the west coast of the U.S.

Islands off the coast of Chile felt the full impact of the big temblor as 30-foot tsunami waves crashed through coastal villages, ripping homes apart and sending residents fleeing into the hills. Over 700 people are confirmed dead and more than two million are left homeless as aftershocks continue to keep the nation on edge.

Nearly 4,700 miles away a standing wave or seiche formed in Lake Ponchatrain near New Orleans, Louisiana, believed to be caused by the earthquake in Chile, which ties for the fifth strongest quake recorded since 1900. Chile also experienced the largest quake ever recorded — a 9.5 magnitude in 1960.

An iceberg about the size of Luxembourg, which struck a glacier off Antarctica dislodging another massive block of ice, could lower oxygen levels in the world’s oceans, affect ocean currents and even change global weather patterns.

With the equivalent of the world’s annual freshwater consumption frozen in these slow moving islands of ice, scientists believe it could take up to 30 years to reach warm enough waters where the bergs will melt away.

Right now, the freshly-calved iceberg that broke off from the Mertz Glacier in eastern Antarctica, is floating in the Southern Ocean with the larger iceberg which broke off in 1987. Both icebergs are heading in the general direction of Australia and New Zealand.

During the International Polar Year, scientists outfitted the new iceberg with GPS beacons so they can study the calving of large icebergs and measure their environmental impact. The two-year study is called Cooperative Research into Antarctic Calving and Iceberg Evolution or CRACICE.

With California’s governor and a former Secretary of State on hand, Bloom Energy held its official launch. The clean-energy startup revealed some of its plans for making fuel-cell technology affordable enough for people to buy for their homes.

With roots in NASA’s Mars program, here’s what Bloom Energy says about its solid oxide fuel technology.

Derived from a common sand-like powder, and leveraging breakthrough advances in materials science, our technology is able to produce clean, reliable, affordable power,… practically anywhere,… from a wide range of renewable or traditional fuels.

The initial rollout is underway at big companies like eBay, Google and Bank of America but the plan is to get these generators to power homes in the near future.

Each year, scientists at NASA’S Goddard Institute for Space Studies analyze global temperature data. The past year, 2009, tied as the second warmest year since global instrumental temperature records began 130 years ago.

Worldwide, the mean temperature was 0.57°C (1.03°F) warmer than the 1951-1980 base period. And January 2000 to December 2009 came out as the warmest decade on record.

Cookbook author David Joachim shows how his book The Science Of Good Food can fix most any kitchen mess. And in this video you’ll learn how to turn a basic custard into a delicious orange flan.

Joachim says you can turn to the book when you are baking a cake and something goes wrong. He’ll show you how to use science to fix a food disaster. He and his co-authors offer 100 recipes and over 1,600 tips on using science to cook.

A cancer patient is helping doctors at the Mayo Clinic unlock a few genetic secrets. Rose Ellen Heley allowed oncologists to decode her DNA and map her genome.

Mayo Clinic researchers have learned something about her bone marrow cancer in the process that could help others suffering from cancer.

Dr. Keith Stewart says we are entering into the era of individualized medicine and using genetics will help treat all sorts of diseases including cancer.

NASA launched a new satellite, called WISE, which stands for Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer. It’s mission? Find asteroids or comets that could potentially hit Earth and map the whole sky by October. KMGH reporter Corey Christiansen has the story.

NASA Medley of WISE Images

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA

It’s every 15 year old boy’s dream — to be able to break things and not get into trouble. At the Fears Lab at University of Oklahoma, scientists and engineers come from all over the world to squeeze, shake, break and shatter all sorts of things. And it’s all in the name of science.

Most people go through work and daily life hoping nothing catastrophic happens. But at this unique laboratory researchers break very big things all the time and measure the results.

With the recent extension of the World Wide Web outside of this world, space is just a click away. And taking full advantage of the new ability to live stream to astronauts orbiting Earth on the International Space Station, President Obama congratulates the team for installing the last piece of the U.S. portion of the space station.

During the mission, astronauts installed the Tranquility node and a cupola with seven windows that provide a panoramic view of Earth, celestial objects and visiting spacecraft. The Tranquility installation and its cupola mark reaching the 90 percent point in fully building out the space station.

The president is also joined by 12 students on the live call to space whom he hopes will be inspired to pursue careers in math, science and engineering.

Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

For years, people thought the Egyptian king was murdered but new DNA evidence is pointing to a different killer. the 3,300-year-old pharaoh King Tutankhamun likely died from complications of a broken leg that was exacerbated by malaria, according to a two-year study of his mummy and family members.

They found that the young king had a club foot and cleft palate and probably walked with a cane.

San Francisco Bay area teachers are using the 2010 Winter Olympics to teach kids about math and science.

The Silicon Valley Education Foundation teamed up with NBC Learn — the educational arm of NBC News — and the National Science Foundation to provide free lesson plans and video clips.

For more information, visit Lessonopoly.org.

It’s a rare occasion when a scientist can test a theory outside the confines of a laboratory. So when Paul Zak got a call from New Scientist reporter Linda Geddes to take her blood at her wedding, he just couldn’t say no.

Dr. Zak is an ocytoxin researcher who studies social indicators of the love hormone.

Geddes and her groom-to-be offered their wedding (and a few guests) as guinea pigs in this science experiment. The goal? See if oxytocin is released by friends and family witnessing this momentous event or if the hormone release is limited to bride and groom being bonded.

Geddes writes about the experiment in a New Scientist editorial.

Photo by John Hurst, courtesy of New Scientist.

Agricultural scientists in India say they have developed a variety of rice that requires no cooking and can be eaten simply after being soaked in water.

An ice-free Arctic in the summer may just be a few years away, according to preliminary Canadian Research that began during the International Polar Year.

And less sea ice this winter allowed the coast guard icebreaker Amundsen to spend the whole winter research season in the Arctic, studying the climate changes at are changing life in the high latitudes.

Music is a powerful medium to convey big messages. But few have successfully spun science-themed songs into big hits.

John Boswell has created a new art form, merging the spoken word from superstar scientists with his own original music. And his Symphony of Science has become a big hit on YouTube.

We Are All Connected

A Glorious Dawn

Our Place in the Cosmos

The Unbroken Thread

The Robonaut2 is being jointly developed by NASA and General Motors to help humans in space and on Earth. It’s the first step toward having supervised yet autonomous robots performing tasks in outer space and in automotive factories.

The R2 can lift four times as much as other robots and with fully functioning hands and fingers it is more dexterous than other bots.

The federal agencies submitted their budget requests to Congress this week, marking a big moment for all things science. According to preliminary reports about $148 billion of the Presidents full $3.8 trillion budget is heading for scientific research programs.

Photo courtesy of Brookhaven National Laboratory

The man who is planning to send tourists to space is diving into the world of ocean exploration. The first underwater plane is designed for use by Sir Richard Branson’s guests who visit his private Caribbean island.

This fun toy could be the beginning of a new Virgin brand — this called one Virgin Oceanic.

After taking possession of the new Necker Nymph later this month Branson will continue on adapting jet-fighter technology for a new class of submarine, capable of plumbing the depths of the 35,000-foot Mariana Trench.

Astronauts can order books on Amazon or watch movies on Netflix, even while orbiting the Earth on the International Space Station. NASA just hooked up the Internet last week and already the astronauts have been tweeting up a storm.

NASA also unveiled live streaming aboard the space station, starting today.

President Obama’s first State of the Union address was long as these speeches go but short on science. With only a few mentions of science, science education and innovation, the Monday morning science quarterbacks criticized the President for not including more science.

But two teenage future scientists — Gabriela Farfan and Li Boynton — proudly sat near the First Lady during the State of the Union, representing the President’s commitment to science and science education.

Next week, the true science state of the union will become clear as the National Science Foundation and NASA release their budget requests for 2011.

Photo: 19-year-old Stanford University Freshman Gabriela Farfan and 18-year-old Houston High School Senior Li Boynton, the day after the State of the Union. Courtesy of Intel.

President Barack Obama’s first State of the Union Address, January 27, 2010.

Millions of tilapia, an invasive fish species, have been wiped out. It has put a temporary dent in commercial fishing, but now biologists say other fish will have a chance to flourish. The tilapia has made its home in Florida lakes for decades since being first brought in to control out of control vegetation.

But the recent cold blast in the Sunshine state wiped out most of the tilapia in Polk County when water temperatures in Lake Hancock dipped below 50 degrees, leaving behind a stinky reminder of the harsh winter.

A two-day conference at the Royal Society in London called The Detection of Extra-terrestrial Life and The Consequences for Science and Society gathered top astronomers to discuss the possibility that some life form on another planet will likely be discovered within our lifetime.

The all-star lineup included Dr. Frank Drake, the NASA radio astronomer has been listening to the Universe for signs of life as the founder of the SETI project. He’s been listening for 50 years but all that we’ve heard is eerie silence.

That puzzles some scientists who believe the universe is teeming with life. Paul Davies from Arizona State University thinks the problem could be that we’ve been looking in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and in the wrong way.

He offers a new roadmap for the future of SETI, arguing that we need to be far more expansive in our efforts, by questioning existing ideas of what form an alien intelligence might take, how it might try to communicate with us, and how we should respond if we ever do make contact.

A group of geoscientists from leading research universities just received a grant to travel to Haiti to study the aftermath of the 7.0 Haiti earthquake that devastated the capital of Port-au-Prince on January 12.

Led by Eric Calais from Purdue University, the team will take measurements of the changes along the fault line that ruptured during the quake and they will learn whether a bigger quake may be on the way.

Eric Calais talks about Haiti’s recent earthquake

You can follow along as they detail their experience in the Geophysicists in Haiti blog.

The sun is one-stop shopping when it comes to finding an unlimited supply of power. But harnessing light and turning it into electricity has proven to be a tricky and expensive proposition.

But if we could squeeze our huge thirst for power from the sun, one way to go may be something called “solar chemical“.

It uses a chemical process to break the bonds of molecules like water or carbon dioxide in order to create a solar fuel. Using solar energy to turn a greenhouse gas like carbon dioxide into electricity and fuel would be a simple way capture that nuisance greenhouse gas and create a clean fuel at the same time.

Some people, including Bill Gates, are suggesting more funding for basic solar chemical research as one way to solve the ever present solar storage problem.

Here’s your chance to make scientific history. NASA is inviting the public to help choose sites on Mars to point a high-powered camera as part of a visual survey of the Red Planet.

The HiRISE camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has shot over 13,000 images already. Now NASA is opening up the opportunity to the public.

Use the new HiWish online tool to study the Mars map, decide what would be a worth target and why. Then submit your suggestion to the mission and wait to see if it gets selected.

The yellow dot pinpoints the landing site of Viking Lander 2 on Utopia Planitia. Viking 2 landed within the ejecta of 65-mile wide Mie Crater.

REALscience submitted a target suggestion — the southern crater wall of the Mie Crater, seen above. This giant crater, likely made by a big asteroid or comet impact, could reveal clues to early Mars and probably hides some of its icy secrets in the shadowy part of the crater.

The top predators in every animal niche are disappearing. Development and other forces are pushing these animals toward the brink of extinction.

New research shows that conservation efforts and a plan to return apex predators to the wild may be more cost-effective than trying to control the predators in waiting — called mesopredators.

Long a science fair project staple, this potato powered calculator is easy to recreate yourself. Batteries not necessary.

The school bus sized chunk of space rock hurtled past Earth last week and a Utah astronomer caught the dot on video. It didn’t get dangerously close but did come within 80,000 miles.

Haiti sits on the edge of two tectonic plates — the North American and the Caribbean. These plates are constantly in motion in this very active part of the world. Haiti sits on the west end of the island of Hispanola with two big faults running right through the country.

The southern fault, which triggered Tuesday’s 7.0 earthquake cuts right through the nation’s capital city, Port au Prince. The earthquake this week was also very shallow at just over five miles down so the quake was more powerful.

Much of the country and for that matter the Northern Hemisphere has been locked in an icy weather pattern that sent records tumbling and even forced Florida produce growers to seal oranges and strawberries in ice to protect them from frigid temperatures.

Some scientists are saying this is yet another sign of the extreme temperature fluctuations that climate change is bringing. Others are quick to dismiss this cold stretch as evidence of anything but a cold winter.

But there is a climate force at work. Called the Arctic Oscillation, scientists noticed that the air pressure that usually remains high at the top of the world weakened and became very low in December. That allowed the coldest Arctic air to flow south and cover large swaths of the Northern Hemisphere.

Mars is far away. For a manned spaceship to get there now under current rocket power, it would take about a year. But riding a plasma rocket will shorten the trip considerably — to just 39 days.

While Hacketts Cove, Nova Scotia is not the hotbed of aerospace technology, a company there is building a radio frequency sensor unit that will heat argon gas enough to turn it to plasma. Nautel is building a plasma generator the size of a golf bag that will be attached to the next generation of high-powered rockets.

NASA will likely test a plasma-powered rocket to move the International Space Station in 2013 before it starts sending missions to Mars.

The head of the Russian space agency surprised scientists recently when he announced that his country needs to start figuring out how to deflect a big asteroid that will pass very close to Earth in about 20 years.

When Apophis was discovered in 2004 NASA thought there was a slight chance that the big rock could hit Earth when it passes by in 2029 and again in 2036. But studies since then have allowed scientists to rule out a direct hit in 2029 and they say it is highly unlikely that the country-busting asteroid will pose a threat in 2036 either.

With so many asteroids floating out in deep space, some do pose a threat to Earth. And, now scientists are going to take a closer look at ways to nudge dangerous rocks away from our planet.

Update: The asteroid known as 2010 AL30 zipped past Earth on January 13, staying about 80,000 miles away. But a Utah astronomer did capture the whole transit on video.

One thing is for sure. Science doesn’t do certainty. No matter how close a researcher gets to complete certainty there is always room to know more. Therefore uncertainty is a scientific fact. And we need to get comfortable with it.

From taxonomic tussles over classifying the giant panda to more controversial science like climate change and genetics, uncertainty is a driving force pushing science forward and opening up the opportunity for insight and breakthrough discoveries.

Dedicated environmentalists, or eccentric architects? Nearly a decade ago, the Jimenez family moved from the Colombian city of Cali to a humble home in the jungle made entirely out of paper.

They keep cool, cook, do laundry and demonstrate how to live off the grid by generating their own energy.

The International Cancer Genome Project is the largest genetic undertaking since the Human Genome Project. It is trying to sequence the DNA of 50 types of cancer over the next few years.

Researchers decoded the genome for lung and skin cancer in mid December. CBC reports.

Fun fact: Scientists discovered one mutation per every 15 cigarettes smoked in lung cancer patients.

For centuries, champagne makers considered pent-up carbon dioxide a hazard that could make their bottles explode. But the bubbles are so pleasing to the palette, it’s no wonder 322 million bottles of champagne were sold world-wide last year. WSJ’s Robert Lee Hotz reports.

There are growing signs that outer space is going to become the domain of private enterprise. Since the U.S. space program began, it has been largely controlled by the federal government. But that’s all changing.

The first spaceport just broke ground in New Mexico. The first commercial spaceline is being built and citizen-astronauts are ponying up a lot of money for a ride to sub-orbital space. There is even one hotelier just waiting to start building space resorts.

The personal spaceflight industry kicked off five years ago when Burt Rutan won the Ansari X PRIZE, the first in a series of commercial competitions to solve big human problems. X PRIZE founder Peter Diamandis has been pushing for private enterprise to join the space race and now it appears NASA may be more open to outsourcing some parts of the space program to commercial interests.

Photo of Dr. Stephen Hawking with Peter Diamandis in zero gravity, courtesy of Diamandis

The last time a big volcano in the Philippines rumbled to life like this was in 1991. Within 60 days Mt. Pinatubo exploded sending the largest sulfur dioxide ever observed into the stratosphere. And that eruption alone offset global warming by cooling the average air temperature by one degree for almost 18 months.

The Philippines’ most active volcano could have a huge eruption within days, officials warned on Sunday. Thousands have been evacuated, and red-hot lava has already started to flow down the mountainside.

The Hubble Space Telescope snaps new images of the oldest galaxies ever seen. A senior scientist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, explains to WSJ’s Robert Lee Hotz and Simon Constable how he did it-and what it means.

The new infrared camera that was loaded onto the Hubble Telescope earlier this year snapped these photos with an extraordinarily long shutter speed time — four days. And with this new capability astronomers can begin to see 13 billion years back in time to when the universe was just 600 million years old.

The James Webb Space Telescope will launch in 2014 to replace Hubble and to peer back even further in time, when some of these barely visible galaxies were just forming.

Many scientists are disappointed after two weeks of climate change negotiations resulted in a toothless agreement that didn’t limit carbon dioxide, the main culprit of global warming. The new Copenhagen Accord(PDF) did not cut emissions as previously thought, dimming some hope that a global treaty would help improve the climate.

Some are calling for Plan B just in case reducing emissions ends up being too little, too late. Intervening in the climate is considered a last-ditch effort if we find ourselves in dire climate straits. But now geoengineering is starting to get some attention as several top scientists are calling for new research initiatives and its inclusion as part of broader climate solutions.

Even former Microsoft technology guru and physicist Nathan Myhrvold thinks we need to start preparing for every eventuality.

Owning the Weather, panel discussion on geoengineering, from COP 15 in Copenhagen.

Artist rendering of blimps spewing sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, courtesy of The Atlantic.

The endangered turtle is now settling into her new home at the Hidden Harbor Marine Environmental Project’s “Turtle Hospital”.

At first vets thought she was injured after being hit by a boat and suffering some nerve damage. A new evaluation questions that theory but a full evaluation won’t be complete for a few weeks.

At the hospital Anita swims in a 650 gallon saltwater tank for an hour each day to build up strength and to learn to swim correctly. a hyper-inflated lung prevents her from diving so specialists hand feed her.

She is one of about 5,000 female hawksbill turtles left in the wild. If she can be rehabilitated turtle specialist Tara Vickery says, “She can be 5,001.”

See the turtles swimming live on the “Turtle Hospital” Web cam.

Photos courtesy of Alina Szmant.

Anita the Hawksbill Turtle

Matschie's Tree Kangaroo courtesy of Woodland Park Zoo

Climate negotiations over how to limit carbon dioxide emissions are heating up in Copenhagen. But one other important area negotiators are addressing — how to sequester existing CO2.

Climate sinks — like oceans, forests and permafrost — are natural solutions. But tropical rain forests are falling faster than they can be preserved.

One cute and cuddly (looking) tree kangaroo may become the unwitting ambassador for forest conservation.

Biologist Lisa Dabeck, from the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, is the director of the Tree Kangaroo Conservation Project, which has been able to set aside almost 200,000 acres of pristine forest, where the matschie’s tree kangaroo lives.

Here is the National Geographic tree kangaroo critter cam.

Here is the Lincoln Zoo tree kangaroo critter cam. (Sad news. One of the twin joeys died in September after falling from a branch in the exhibit.)

Nightline followed Dr. Dabeck to New Guinea in search of tree kangaroos. Here’s a link to Dan Harris’ report, which includes a roo named Dan.

Australian scientists discover a species of octopus which use tools to protect themselves in Indonesian waters. The veined octopus has figured out how to select, stack and transport coconut shells to use as shelter. This is the first time scientists have seen any evidence of tool use among invertebrates.

An octopus in a New Zealand lab learned how to open glass jars and bottles with its tentacles to retrieve food inside.

But this is the first evidence of octopus showing an ability to use tools, something usually associated with animals higher up the evolutionary ladder.

The hit ABC television drama Grey’s Anatomy revolves around the fictional Seattle Grace Hospital and follows the lives of surgical residents. Portland, Oregon medical correspondent and author Andrew Holtz wondered where the line between fact and fiction is being drawn when it comes to training future surgeons.

His new book, The Real Grey’s Anatomy follows a group of Oregon Health and Science University surgical residents through their rotations and helps to separate fact from fiction.

Holtz visited Seattle last week and at an appearance sponsored by the Northwest Science Writers Association and the Pacific Science Center, he shared some of those secrets, complete with clips from the TV show.

Here’s what he had to say.

Two Yeshiva University students are introducing science to religion in the wind tunnel of New York where powerful blasts of air rip down skyscraper lined streets. Wind power offers a new way to power Hanukkah.

VSS Enterprise

December 7 is a day that will now live in a new kind of infamy. It was the day that Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic space company unveiled its new Space Ship 2 and almost blew 800 guests away — in hurricane-force winds — in the process.

Video of the destruction in the Mojave Desert where 105 mph winds ripped through site where VIPs celebrating the new spaceship had to be quickly evacuated.

Photo by: Alan Radecki, MojaveWest Media Works.

The world has gone nuts for five robotic hamsters, called Zhu Zhu Pets. While the cute and cuddly creatures race around on a surfboard, skateboard or in a car, the “it” toy of 2009 has some heavy metals that are within safety limits but beg the question: Do toys need to have these toxic ingredients at all?

Consumer products safety organizations measure the presence of dangerous elements two ways. One uses an XRF scanner to determine if a metal is present at all. The other dissolves the product in a solution to measure the presence and quantity of heavy metals.

New rules go into effect in 2010 that will require Zhu Zhu Pet maker Cepia and other toy manufacturers to follow stricter standards to ensure lead and other heavy metals don’t creep into toys and other goods.

Essco Safety Check, a Redmond, WA company is offering consumers free testing of any household item they bring to the Seattle-area retail location until mid January.

On November 19, a computer hacker penetrated the internal e-mail system at the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit and began posting 13 years worth of internal correspondence and documents online, in an effort to show that a small group of climate scientists has been deliberately suppressing important data and trying to block publication of papers that called their work into question. The resulting political firestorm is now being referred to as ClimateGate.

Most scientists agree that this controversy does not endanger the well-established theory that global warming is real and is already under way. But for those who deny global warming altogether this event has given them more fuel for their fire.

Here’s what primary British climate denier, Lord Christopher Monckton says in a summary of a new booklet he’s already written. And here is a reasoned response to those accusations from leading climate scientist Dr. Judith Curry, the Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech.

As the Copenhagen Climate Conference opens tomorrow, it’s a good time to look at the information or misinformation that is flowing fast and furious across the online world and coloring the overall discussion of climate change.

NBCLA 4 interview with Dr. Stephen Schneider, a Stanford University climate scientist and author of Science as a Contact Sport. Dr. Schneider received the 2007 collective Nobel Peace Prize. Here he talks about the politics of climate change and the important role dissenters have played in advancing science for hundreds of years. He also distinguishes between climate skeptics — who have legitimate scientific questions — and deniers — who ignore a vast amount of evidence to push an agenda.

The Wallstreet Journal editorial page has taken the e-mails at face value and elevated this illegal hack attack to the level of an international scandal. Unfortunately, WSJ’s Kelsie Hubbard gets it wrong, including the name of the university that was hacked. It’s East Anglia not East Anglican. Dan Henniger says, “I think their stature and credibility has fallen and the rest of the scientific community has to realize what’s going on.”

Here is a CNN report that provides some background on the e-mail hack attack that send hundreds of private e-mails into the public domain and put new heat on scientists, who are now accused of faking climate data to make global warming seem worse than it is.

Here is a searchable database with all the hacked e-mails. Look for yourself and be sure to comment below on what you find.

Composite image of Pluto, courtesy Eliot Young (SwRI) et al., NASA

For three years, Pluto–the ninth planet–has been given the cold shoulder by the astronomy community, which demoted it to dwarf planet in 2006.

What is it about Pluto that tugs at our heartstrings?

MSNBC.com Science Editor Alan Boyle explores our fascination with Pluto in his new book, The Case for Pluto.

Over the course of the next few weeks we are going to be hearing a lot about carbon emissions–the gas released into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels and a whole host of other human activities. While the catch-all is called “carbon emissions” they aren’t confined to carbon dioxide gas.

During the Copenhagen Climate Conference we are going to be hearing a lot about what will follow the Kyoto Protocol, the global treaty aimed at reducing carbon emissions to help reduce the effects of man-made global warming.