His first sensation of Earth was the smell of spring after landing in the Kazakh steppe on Tuesday, he said.

BBC: Chris Hadfield: 'Space was too good not to share it'

Just when it seems like all the beasts have been captured, a hundred more types spring up from the radioactive earth every few years without fail.

FORBES: The End is Nigh: The Ten Best Post-Apocalyptic Video Games

Just 10 companies have access to this upper echelon, but everyone else can spring for the more down-to-Earth Pro tiers today -- and with the new discounts, that's not a far-fetched possibility.

ENGADGET

As luck would have it, a project called NOvA, which should start collecting data in the spring of 2013, will send neutrinos through the Earth's crust from Batavia to an underground detector 810km away in Minnesota.

ECONOMIST: The future of physics (1)

It started with Rachel Carson's popular 1962 book on the dangers of pesticides, "Silent Spring, " and the eye on the planet increased with a photo of the Earth taken from Apollo 8 as it orbited near the moon in 1968.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Then later, when the Earth gets away from the sun and starts to slow down, that's the time of year we call spring and summer.

NPR: Not All Seasons Are Created Equal

When we think of Earth Day, many of us think of good ol' hippies bent on living off the electrical grid, drinking spring water from somewhere and recycling everything -- bottles, shoes and lint maybe.

CNN: 'The Science Guy' says: 'Save the Earth'