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No Life on Mars by Jean Thilmany, Associate Editor H ydrogen peroxide can bleach hair, propel rockets, and wipe out microbes. And that's why a University of Michigan professor of atmospheric and space science believes that we shouldn't expect to meet a Martian anytime soon. Mars is thought to have been formed with the same ingredients that, on Earth, created molecules that led to plant and animal life. Those molecules haven't yet been detected on the Martian surface, and they probably won't be, according to Sushil Atreya, a professor in the department of atmospheric, oceanic, and space sciences at the Ann Arbor campus and director of the university's Planetary Science Laboratory. Atreya attributes the lack of life on Mars to fallout from extensive dust storms on the planet. The storms can be dense and can cover wide areas. A particularly large storm, for instance, erupted more than a year ago, at the end of October 2005, when Mars and Earth were closer to ...

After much speculation and guessing Team India was selected for the World Cup. Selectors didn’t throw any surprises this time around and selected a more predictable team. As always this selection process is also marred by controversies. Front runner is inclusion of Virendra Shewag, who got a boost in confidence from the selectors and the captain. All others players select for themselves with few exceptions. I predicted the world cup team couple of months back, my team came closely to what selected with exception of Uthappa, I had Gambhir in it. Given a chance I would also select Robin. Robin Uthappa has played couple of solid knocks and he often plays with straight bat which will be asset in West Indies . Gautam Gambhir is also a flamboyant player with variety of strokes in his armory but I think he gets carried away and throws his wicket casually; it’s a primary reason why he is not included in the squad. Inclusion of Dinesh Karthik might have not gone well with some people, who ...