Friday, June 13, 2008

Meet Pluto, the Plutoid

· Pluto, demoted from planet status in 2006, has been reclassified. It and other dwarf planets like it will be called plutoids. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) gave a full definition of what counts as a plutoid.

In short: small round things beyond Neptune that orbit the sun and have lots of rocky neighbors.

The two known and named plutoids are Pluto and Eris, the IAU stated. The organization expects more plutoids will be found.

· Americans spent $11 billion on doctors' bills, prescription drugs and other treatments for allergies in 2005, according to government statistics. Sneezing, itchy eyes and other miseries caused by allergies sent 22 million Americans to a doctor that year.

· And in more space news . . . after days of struggling with sticky Martian dirt, the Phoenix Mars lander has finally succeeded in getting its first soil sample into an onboard laboratory for analysis, NASA scientists said. The breakthrough came after the lander spent days shaking the sample over a screen in hopes that the soil would break loose and fall into the onboard ovens. The scientists were caught by surprise when the trick worked on the seventh, and likely last, try.

· Stay away from those tomatoes. U.S. health officials say they are still receiving reports of people falling ill from eating salmonella-tainted tomatoes, and they have more than 160 reported cases from 17 states. Salmonella (sal-muh-NELL-uh) is a type of bacteria that can cause food poisoning.