American Morning
E.T. phone Rome?
Our galaxy is so large that, if traveling at the speed of light, it would take 100,000 years to cross it and it's not the only galaxy in the universe. The vastness of the universe causes many people to wonder, is anybody else out there?
The Vatican asked the same question in a recent five-day summit on the possibility of alien life.
Chris Impey attended the summit and spoke to T.J. Holmes on CNN's American Morning Friday.
End of the world in 2012?
The upcoming movie '2012' is based on what happens when the Mayan calendar ends. The film predicts chaos on earth in the title year.
Scientists said the idea of the world ending in 2012 is nonsense but that hasn't stopped the doomsday chatter.
Jim Gargin, the chief scientist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center spoke to T.J. Holmes on CNN's American Morning Friday.
H1N1: A look inside the emergency room
CNN took cameras into a the emergency room of the Children's National Medical Center to see first hand how swine flu made an impact.
See what the doctors and nurses who deal with H1N1 every day have to say.
H1N1: Life in the emergency room
Hospitals across the country have been hit hard by the H1N1 virus. Federal health officials recently said that nearly 4,000 people have died from the virus and around 22 million people have had it.
Drs. Sanjay Gupta, Becky Roberts, Christina Johns spoke to Kiran Chetry on CNN's American Morning Friday about how emergency rooms have been affected by swine flu.
Meet 'Cady' Coleman, astronaut mom
Editor's note: This is the first in a yearlong CNN series, "Counting Down Cady," that follows NASA astronaut and mother Catherine "Cady" Coleman as she prepares for a November 2010 trip to the international space station. Watch the first "Counting Down Cady" TV segment Monday morning on CNN's "American Morning." Follow her story on the amFIX blog.
By Kim Segal and John Zarrella, CNN
Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts (CNN) - At her home in this woodsy town east of the Berkshires, Catherine "Cady" Coleman often steps outside with her husband and son to peer at the night sky.
But they're not just stargazing. They look up to catch a glimpse of the international space station as it passes 250 miles overhead.
"We watch it together," Coleman adds wistfully. " I like to think about that fact that [son] Jamey and [husband] Josh might do that when I'm up there."
That's right. A year from now, if everything goes according to plan, Coleman will blast off on a Russian Soyuz rocket for the station, where she will live for the next six months.
It's a tricky balancing act. One day Coleman is cooking dinner and picking up Jamey's toys; the next, she's a NASA astronaut in Houston, Texas, preparing to orbit the Earth at 17,000 miles per hour.
Taking on this mission to space, Coleman says, was a family decision.
"To decide to go and fly on the space station is basically a five-year commitment for me to stay down in Houston, and not live in the same place as these guys," she tells CNN.
Is our military too 'P.C.'?
By Carol Costello and Ronni Berke
Did “political correctness” allow Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan to escape detection and allegedly kill 13 people? Some conservative commentators and politicians are claiming that.
Arizona Sen. John McCain has already done what the military is urging Americans not to do , "speculate" about the motive in the Fort Hood killings. Calling the killings “an act of terror,” he said, “this may sound a little harsh but we ought to make sure that political correctness will never impede national security.”
McCain is expressing concern about allegations that Hasan's superiors played down his extremist views because they didn't want to alienate a Muslim soldier. McCain is not alone. Conservative columnist Ann Coulter said on Baltimore's WBAL radio, “It's just I think the constant increasing menace of liberalism ... we're certainly getting it from the commander-in-chief.”
In reference to Gen. George Casey, Coulter said, “It’s pretty shocking ... and here I thought they didn't allow gays in the military ... shocking!”
Others, like Democratic Representative Joe Sestak, a former Navy admiral, dispute that view. Sestak insists the military should be diverse and its leaders sensitive to minority soldiers. He said critics like Coulter are doing soldiers a disservice, at least until all the facts of the case are known.
Watch: Is our military too 'P.C.'? 
“If there’s anything they should be advancing, it’s, wow, think about the stress they’ve gone under,” Sestak said. “That’s what we should be highlighting. Not going off into right or left field, until we know."
The U.S. Marine Corps rejects the notion Muslim extremists are hiding in its ranks for any reason. First Lt. Josh Diddams told CNN the Corps, “has not seen any trends that indicate individuals are any more ... likely to be involved in an incident based upon their religion."
A look at history seems to bear that out. In March 2003, Sgt. Hasan Akbar, a Muslim, killed two fellow officers in Kuwait and court documents indicated religion was a factor. But there are many instances of solider-on-soldier killings where religion is not considered a factor.
In May 2009 Sgt. John Russell allegedly killed five fellow soldiers. In 2004, Senior Airman Andrew Witt killed a fellow airman and his wife. In 1995, Sgt Will Kreutzer killed one soldier and wounded 18 at Fort Bragg. Those incidents weren't seen by our country's leaders as potential impediments to our national security although some say they should have been.
What do you think? Is our military too 'P.C.'?
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