LOS ANGELES. ---- Scientists are " Flabbergasted." Nasa scientists said that Martian soil appeared to contain the requirements to support life, although more work would be needed to prove it.

Scientists working on the Phoenix Mars Lander mission, which has already found ice on the planet, said preliminary analysis by the landers instruments on a sample of soil scooped up by the robotic arm had shown it to be much more alkaline than expected.

We basically have found what appears to be the requirements, the nutrients, to support life, whether past present or future. It is the type of soil you would probably have in your backyard, very alkaline, you might be able to grow asparagus in it really well.

Since 2005, U.S. energy policy has mandated that billions of gallons of corn-based ethanol be mixed into gas every year. Last year, more than $3 billion of tax payers money was spent on subsidies to achieve that goal, and 20% of the corn crop went into making the biofuel. Now, a new U.N. report cites our emphasis on ethanol as a contributor to high food prices.

Scientists also believe that an expanding " dead zone " in the Gulf of Mexico, which is killing aquatic life, is caused by increased fertilizer runoff from Corn Belt States. Whats more, " the U.S. focus on corn ethanol has taken precious financial resources away from efficiency and conservation options.

Kristin Brekke of the American Coalition for Ethanol disagrees? ( The Ethanol Coalition is getting all those subsidies...) She says, " high oil prices, global crop shortages, speculation, and rising global demand have much more to do with food prices than ethanol does. Ethanol can significantly reduce our dependence on oil for transportation fuel.

LONG DISTANCE DOCTORS.

The next doctor who sees you could be 100 miles away at a video terminal, reviewing your blood work on a computer. To combat the physician shortage, clusters of American hospitals are turning to the e-ICU, in which a critical-care specialist in a high tech command center can monitor up to 150 patients at multiple hospitals. In late 2005, Dr. Marc Zubrow, director of critical care for the Christiana Care Health System in Delaware, started a virtual-care program in order to handle staff limitations and improve safety at two hospitals.

" In the old system, if a patient had a change in kidney function at 2 a.m., a doctor might not learn that until the next day. Now, software is constantly gathering data, and for the physician, its like being by the bedside." His e-ICU is staffed by critical-care specialists, of which there are only 6000 in the U.S., not enough to have one at every hospital. We are trying to prevent problems rather than just treat them.

Monitoring has helped reduce death rates, but some worry that relying on virtual care and not having more physicians may end up creating more critical-care patients, because small health problems will fail to be treated before they become big ones. Phil Miller, co-author of a book on the medical staffing deficit in the U.S., found that 200,000 additional doctors are needed in the next 12 years. Miller says that while e-ICUs are useful, the only thing that will really fix the shortage is more doctors. High tech can't replace high touch.

According to a recent survey, fewer than half of American high school students know when the Civil War occurred. Pulitzer prize-winning historian David McCullough weighs in about why this ignorance is a problem.

HOW IMPORTANT IS HISTORY IN THE UNITED STATES ??

For at least 25 years, we have been raising young Americans who are, by and large, historically illiterate. The founding of our nation, the Civil War, World War ll, they all should be common knowledge, but they are not. History has not just been pushed to the back burner, it's been pushed off the stove.

WHY DOES HISTORY MATTER??

Amnesia is as detrimental to society as to an individual. The historian Daniel Boorstin put it very well, " Trying to plan for the future without a sense of the past is like trying to plant cut flowers."

WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THE PAST??

That there is no such thing as " a self-made man or woman, we all are influenced by people around us. That every action has consequences, and we have to be very careful about leaping to conclusions from first impressions. And that integrity and character do count in the long run. The idea that no one has ever lived in more difficult or dangerous times is untrue. Others have weathered more horrendous storms, we can take heart from them.