The most hype-filled shopping day of the year will soon be upon us. Here’s a roundup of alternately eye-opening, quirky, and confounding facts and figures about Black Friday 2011. At least 2 Number of retailers subjected to protests by employees upset that their Thanksgiving dinners will be ruined because they have to work that night. [...]

NASA launches the Mars rover “Curiosity” on Saturday, a daring bid to find clues that the Red Planet has the essential chemical ingredients needed for life. An artist’s rendering of the Mars rover as it might appear on the planet. Despite that goal, space agency officials behind the $2.5 billion rover, formally known as the [...]