Starbucks listens – at last (by Jeff Jarvis)
Following Dell’s Ideastorm, Starbucks has no opened a forum — also powered by Salesforce.com — where customers can make suggestions then discuss and vote on them… Already, there are clear themes coming out in the Starbucks discussion. Many customers are suggesting — and many more are agreeing — that our frequent-sipper cards should have our regular orders embedded in them so we could swipe the card at the door, make the order, pay for it, and avoid that damned line (making that damned line shorter for everyone else). Others are also suggesting they want to do the same with their iPhones. This genius comes not from MBAs or executives but from customers. If you’ll just listen.
Sounds like a great idea.  I wish Microsoft would listen to its customers.

After 38 years, Israeli solves math code
JERUSALEM – A mathematical puzzle that baffled the top minds in the esoteric field of symbolic dynamics for nearly four decades has been cracked — by a 63-year-old immigrant who once had to work as a security guard.

Gene Linked to Form of Parkinson’s Disease
Finding could lead to better understanding of the incurable neurological disorder

New Rheumatoid Arthritis Drug Works for Adults, Children
But the real test for tocilizumab lies in head-to-head drug trials, expert says.

Tweaking Insulin Might Help Fight Aging
Studies in worms are shedding new light on the hormone’s role in lifespan

Monkey Brain Gives Clues to Human Interaction
Neurological responses to sexual, social cues may mimic those of people, scientists say

When did our ancestors first stand up?
A nearly six-million-year-old thigh bone may provide some of the earliest evidence for human ancestors walking on two legs.

Early era: Lots of sex, no predators
Sexual reproduction may be nearly as old as animal life itself, according to researchers who discovered a new species of organism that lived 540 million years ago.

Gas-belching volcanoes may have killed dinosaurs
LONDON (Reuters) – Gas-belching volcanoes may be to blame for a series of mass extinctions over the last 545 million years, including that of the dinosaurs, new evidence suggested on Thursday.

Full Moon Heralds Early Easter
Friday, March 21 brings us the first full moon of the new spring season, the vernal equinox having already occurred on March 20 at 1:49 a.m. EDT (or on March 19 if you live in the Mountain, Pacific or Alaskan-Hawaii time zones).

NASA: Tile Repair Test a Huge Success
HOUSTON (AP) – Like handymen caulking a bathtub, two spacewalking astronauts squirted pink putty into deliberately damaged tile samples to test a new technique for repairing the space shuttle’s fragile heat shield. NASA declared the experiment a huge success.

Mars Probe Spots Ancient Salt Deposits
PASADENA, Calif. (AP) – A Mars probe has spied what appear to be ancient salt deposits in the southern highlands of the planet, giving scientists another place to study whether the environment could have supported primitive life.

Saturn Moon May Have Ocean of Water
PASADENA, Calif. (AP) – Scientists say they have found the best evidence yet that an ocean of liquid water may be hidden below the surface of Saturn’s giant moon Titan. If the results are confirmed, it would be a starting point for further study into whether the ocean could be capable of supporting life.

Cosmic blast 7.5 billion years old, seen with naked eye
WASHINGTON (AFP) – NASA has detected the brightest cosmic explosion ever recorded — a massive burst of energy 7.5 billion light years away that could be seen with the naked eye from Earth, the US space agency said Thursday.