Links and news
In Mars news, it looks like there may be standing pools of water on Mars. If this is confirmed, it might shake a long-held perspective that liquid water on the surface is impossible due to Mars's thin atmosphere.
Weta Workshop, the people who did the physical effects (costumes, armaments, etc) for the Lord of the Rings movies (among others) have created a line of limited edition steampunk ray guns: "Dr. Grordborts Infallible Aether Oscillators". They are absolutely beautiful.
Today's coolest news, for me, is that the Safari browser is being released for Windows. That means that it will now be possible to test all of the major browsers on Windows (although system-specific tests remain useful due to (for example) differences in font rendering). Cross-browser, cross-platform support is a difficult proposition, but this is a major step towards making that goal achievable.