Science

The Pawlenty administration and others watching the Minnesota economy see biotechnology as one bright light on the horizon. And no single place better captures Minnesota's biotech dreams than a sprawling, abandoned building on the western edge of St. Paul. The city bought the building this month to serve as a non-profit "incubator." Officials hope the empty space will nurture fledgling biotech entrepreneurs into tomorrow's powerhouse corporations.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty leads a trade delegation to Montreal this weekend to focus on biotechnology, as the governor tries to promote Minnesota as a place for biotech companies. Pawlenty and other biotech boosters say Minnesota is well poised to compete in the rush for biotech business. Skeptics say the state doesn't have the resources to become a major biotech player.

What's that flying by Duluth's Hawk Ridge? A bird? A plane? No! They are dragonflies, migrating south by the thousands. And now there's a new field guide so you can tell them apart.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of manned flight, and to celebrate this landmark, we hear former astronaut and former Ohio Sen. John Glenn at The City Club of Cleveland.

The Columbia accident has renewed the debate over manned space flight, and whether it's worth the risk and expense to send astronauts rather than robots into space. Former astronaut Katherine Sullivan says manned space flights--and other types of exploration--should continue. Katherine Sullivan was a member of the very first space shuttle astronaut class. She flew three shuttle missions and was the first American woman to walk in space. We hear a speech she gave this summer at the Chautauqua Institution.

A Minnesota teen arrested for unleashing a variant of an internet virus says he is guilty. The attacks are considered one of the worst outbreaks this year.

Eighteen-year-old Jeffrey Parson begins this week confined to his parents' home in Hopkins, prevented from any contact with computers. Parson was arrested Friday on charges he modified and spread a computer worm that slowed Internet traffic around the globe this summer. If Parson indeed did what is alleged, his work is unlikely to win him much respect inside or outside the computer hacker community. Far from a mastermind, experts say Parson is just an especially unlucky example that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

A Fridley company is wooing Duluth to help build its Personal Rapid Transit certification facility. Duluth is listening.

Early Wednesday morning--at 4:51 a.m.--Mars will be a mere 34.6 million miles from earth: the closest it's been in 60,000 years. The grandmaster of science fiction, Ray Bradbury, recently said he hopes that one night, 100 years from now, a youngster will stay up late reading his space exploration classic, "The Martian Chronicles," with a flashlight under his blanket--on Mars. We hear a speech from Ray Bradbury, who has also written "Farenheit 451," and more than 500 other published works. He celebrated his 83rd birthday on Friday. The speech was from the Pen Pals Lecture Series sponsored by the Library Foundation of Hennepin County.

Adolescent boys pose a real challenge for choir directors. Their changing voices are difficult to place in a choir. At the beginning of year a young man may be an alto, a few months he could be a tenor. The time in between can be awkward and uncomfortable for young singers. A group at St. John's University in Collegeville is spreading the word about the science of changing voices.