Polls have opened on the final naming of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover. The non-binding poll to help NASA select a name opened on Monday will stay open until Sunday Mar. 29.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

The names, submitted by students from across the USA are:

• Journey
• Amelia
• Adventure
• Vision
• Pursuit
• Sunrise
• Wonder
• Perception
• Curiosity

NASA will select the winning name, based on a student's essay and the poll. NASA will announce the wining name in late April or early May 2009.

The MSL will launch in 2011 and touch down on Mars in 2012. It is part of the Mars Exploration Program, a series of expeditions to Mars with the four main goals of:

• Determining whether life ever arose on Mars
• Characterizing the climate of Mars
• Characterizing the geology of Mars
• Preparing for human exploration

The MSL will continue the work of the highly successful Spirit and Opportunity rovers and Mars Polar Lander Missions.

If you like, you can send your name to the surface of Mars. Enter your name here and it will be loaded onto a microchip that will travel to Mars as part of the MSL rover.

Fossil footprints found in Kenya have revealed our ancestors were moving around much as we do today, over 1.5 million years ago.

Students from the Koobi Fora Field School excavated the footprints between 2006 and 2008. Along with the prints of many animals, they found three sets of human-like footprints. One was probably a child's tracks.

The prints were made in fine sand on what was once a riverbank. The sand had been sandwiched between layers of volcanic ash. Scientists estimate the height of the adults to be about 5ft 9in from the stride length.

David Braun, an archaeologist from the University of Cape Town in South Africa, told Reuters:

"It was kind of creepy excavating these things to see all of a sudden something that looks so dramatically like something that you yourself could have made 20 minutes earlier in some kind of wet sediment just next to the site.

"These could quite easily have been made on the beach today.

An international team, led by Professor Matthew Bennett from Bournemouth University in England, has studied the footprints. They published their conclusions in Science last week.Professor Bennett says:

"Our findings from Ileret show that by 1.5 million years ago, these individuals had evolved an essentially modern human foot function and a style of two-footed locomotion that we would recognize today.

"Foot bones are rarely preserved because they are small, encased in flesh, and easily consumed by carnivores.

"Consequently, our knowledge of foot anatomy and function in our early ancestors is poor. Fossil footprints are rare but when they are found, they provide an invaluable line of evidence.

By finding the age of the surrounding ash layers, scientists were able to estimate the age of the footprints to about 1.51 million to 1.53 million years old. They conclude that the prints were likely to have been made by the early hominid Homo ergaster or early Homo erectus. Homo sapiens or modern man first appeared 200,000 years ago.

John Harris, a paleoanthropologist at Rutgers University in New Jersey, USA is one or of the co-authors of the Science paper. He told the National Geographic:

The ancient footprints indicate a rounded heel, pronounced arch and a big toe parallel to the other toes just as modern humans have. The big toes of chimpanzees, by contrast, splay outward, which is useful for grasping branches.

"We've lost that, but what we've created is a platform from which we can step up on and balance ourselves on and push off on in bipedal locomotion.

Sixteen-year-old Kimberley Swann has been sacked from Ivell Marketing & Logistics in Clacton-on-Sea, England. Her boss, Stephen Ivell had seen comments she had left for her friends on her Facebook page.

We all have had a good moan about our jobs from time to time. But from now on, you had better be careful where you do it.

Kimberley Swann started work as an office administrator just under a month ago. The first day was not what she had hopped it would be. She posted to Facebook, "first day at work. omg !! So dull!!" Then two days later, "all i do is shred holepunch n scan paper!!! omg!" Another fortnight produced, "im so totally bord!!!"

On Feb. 23, Ms Swann was called into the office of boss, Stephen Ivell and sacked on the spot. She was handed a letter and marched from the offices. The letter said:

"Following your comments made on Facebook about your job and the company we feel it is better that, as you are not happy and do not enjoy your work, we end your employment with Ivell Marketing & Logistics with immediate effect.

Ms Swann told the Daily Mail:

"I didn't even put the company's name, I just put that my job was boring. They were just being nosy, going through everything. I think it is really sad, it makes them look stupid that they are going to be so petty.

Is posing a comment on Facebook any different from making the same comments to a friend in a public place? Ms Swann thinks Mr Ivell overreacted, she said:

"I was an office administrator, so of course it was boring at first and I knew it would get more interesting. I was happy there, although they said I wasn't. It's not fair. I think it's really out of order but there is nothing I can do now.

Mr Ivell told the Daily Mail his firm had done everything by the book:

"We were looking for a long-term relationship with Miss Swann as we do with all our staff. Her display of disrespect and dissatisfaction undermined the relationship and made it untenable. "It is unfortunate that we didn't come up to Miss Swann's expectations on this occasion and we wish her every success in the future

Mr Ivell appears to be motivated by protecting his company's image. According to Miss Swann:

"He called me into the office and said, 'I have seen your comments on Facebook and I don't want my company being in the news.' They said it was not good for the company.

If that was the objective then this heavy-handed action has backfired gaining Ivell Marketing & Logistics national coverage in the UK MSM and internationally on the internet.

However, this is another warning for any users of social media sites. Do not ever consider them private or erasable.