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British-born astronaut Nicholas Patrick has taken part in a spacewalk to provide a cooling system for the newest room on board the International Space Station. Patrick was hit by a small amount of ammonia after undoing a connection, but none of the toxic substance stuck to his suit. The spacewalk ended slightly early as a result, so he and Robert Behnken could go through safety checks.

The lowest number of chinook salmon in recorded history made their way up the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers last fall, turning what was already a disaster for the fishing industry into what some are calling an environmental and economic catastrophe.It is the second year in a row that there have been record low numbers of spawning salmon, a situation that has created a political conundrum as the battle among farmers, fishermen and various municipalities over water rights heats up. Only 39,530 fall-run chinook spawned in the once-thriving salmon factory known as the Sacramento-San Joaquin River system. That's compared with 64,456 in 2008 and 87,940 the year before that. It is the worst three-year period in the watershed since records were first compiled in the 1970s, biologists said. "It is bad," said Michael O'Farrell, a fisheries biologist for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration fisheries service. "This is the lowest number of adult spawners that we have observed in the Sacramento system and it is continuing a three-year pattern of decline. Certainly we're going to take a very close look at this situation

Reporting from Washington - As record snowfall buried the nation's capital this week, the quickest joke around town was, "So much for global warming." The quip was timely, given the recent controversies over Climategate -- the release of e-mails allegedly showing some leading climate scientists trying to suppress criticism -- and new questions about the integrity of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. After 55-plus inches of snow fell in the Washington area, critics are delighting in the irony, and those who warn of climate change are taking pains to say the snow fits the pattern of a warming world. So who's right? If the earth is warming, why all the snow? Snow and global warming aren't mutually exclusive, climate scientists say. For starters, the amount of recorded warming over the last century, about 1 degree Fahrenheit above preindustrial levels, is nowhere near enough to eradicate winter in the mid-Atlantic. Also, weather is variable: The planet would have extreme highs and lows with or without an overall warming trend. And for all the recent snow in Washington, it hasn't been that cold -- mostly in the 20s or low 30s. The average temperature in Washington in January, according to the National Climatic Data Center, was about a degree warmer than the average for the last 40 years. But the reverse is also true: The fact that Vancouver, Canada, is experiencing record-high temperatures and importing snow for the Winter Olympics doesn't prove a warming trend

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Astronauts swung open the door to the International Space Station's newest room Friday night, using flashlights to illuminate the shadowy chamber and wearing goggles and masks to keep themselves safe from any floating debris. The two skippers were the first to enter Tranquility, Europe's $380 million contribution. Station commander Jeffrey Williams floated in first, followed closely by shuttle Endeavour's George Zamka and then several other members of the combined crews. Williams looked around the empty, virtually powerless 23-foot-long chamber for two minutes as colleagues documented the event with cameras, then came back out to report to Mission Control. "The module is beautiful," he radioed, "and the atmosphere is very clean

































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































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