This is not new news, and scientists generally feel that either the decline will take a thousand more years, or that it is a temporary decline, and it will bounce back again soon.

No-one dares to say that we could have a magnetic pole reversal in the next 10 years...

This is new:

"Over the southern Atlantic Ocean, a continued weakening of the magnetic field has diminished the shielding effect it has locally in protecting the Earth from the natural radiation that bombards our planet from space, scientists said.

As a result, satellites in low-Earth orbit are left vulnerable to that radiation as they pass over the region, known as the South Atlantic anomaly.

Among the satellites that have fallen prey to the harmful effects was a Danish satellite designed, ironically, to measure the Earth's magnetic field..."

Great news, lots of potential for new decipherings and understandings....

"Linguists have discovered a still-surviving version of the sacred religious language of the ancient Maya... The language, Ch'orti - spoken today by just a few thousand Guatemalan Indians - will become a living "Rosetta Stone", a key to unravelling those aspects of Maya hieroglyphic writings which have so far not been properly understood. Over the next few years dozens of linguists and anthropologists are expected to start "mining" Ch'orti language and culture for words and expressions relating to everything from blood-letting to fasting."

It's not just X-ray jets that explode out of black holes (like the one at the center of out galaxy), there are also gamma ray jets, X-ray jets, visible light jets and radio wave jets.

Now scientists have decided they are all the same jet, with the same amount of energy released, but for some reason each has different amounts of energy coming out in different ways. So, sometimes x-rays, sometimes gamma-rays, sometimes radio waves....or a mixture.

There is a good chance one of these jets of high energy particles will hit Earth one day (the year 2012?). Scientists don't think so, because for the pathetically short amount of time they have been watching the center of our galaxy, they haven't witnessed it.

Earth's magnetic shield is not all it's cracked up to be. Once thought of as continuous barrier, NASA have just announced that it has holes every now and then, holes that let in space weather like a draft underneath the back door...

"Immense cracks in our planet's magnetic field can remain open for hours, allowing the solar wind to gush through and power stormy space weather."

The cracks can remain open for as long as 9 hours, and can be as big as California.

"An enormous temple that was once surrounded by 300 towering oak posts lies directly underneath the Hill of Tara in County Meath, Irish archaeologists recently announced. "

They don't really explain what they mean by "under" - is the hill artificial?

Learn more about this busy Hill at Mythical Ireland and Modern Antiquarian

(strangely I was listening to Julian Cope when I read the article)

Well, according to the standard science in a PBS report... yes. The reason is that the reversal, like everything else in nature, will take a very long time to happen. So long and slow that the animals will get used to it, and recalibrate their senses to deal with the changes.

No mention of the possibility of a sudden magnetic pole reversal. I still like to think that most species will survive, because some will still randomly find their way to wherever they are meant to be.

The Epic Of Gilgamesh, a key component of any "the Biblical Flood really happened" theory has been validated by archaeology:

"In the book - actually a set of inscribed clay tablets - Gilgamesh was described as having been buried under the Euphrates, in a tomb apparently constructed when the waters of the ancient river parted following his death.

"We found just outside the city an area in the middle of the former Euphrates river the remains of such a building which could be interpreted as a burial," Mr Fassbinder said.

..."We covered more than 100 hectares. We have found garden structures and field structures as described in the epic, and we found Babylonian houses."

But he said the most astonishing find was an incredibly sophisticated system of canals."

This isn't a new story, but there is new evidence that the dating is accurate. So much for the old "they walked from Russia to Alaska" theory!

"Earlier tests on charcoal from the deepest layers of the excavations suggested that it was at least 40,000 years old, the traditionally accepted accurate "barrier" limit of radiocarbon dating."

"The new study says that thermoluminscence testing of the hearthstones showed that they "were heated independently from the stones found outside the hearths in the same layer; thus, refuting the possibility that the stones were heated by natural fires".

...The procedure is known as ABOX (acid-base-wet-oxidation) and involves chemically scouring a fine layer off the charcoal surface."

"Eham.net, the website for Ham Radio enthusiasts, is reporting that the controversial HAARP research facility in Alaska is set to quadruple in power over the next 3 years. Technical Specialist Richard Lampe said that 'joint funding through DARPA will allow HAARP to quadruple in size from its current 960 kW output to 3.6 MW.'"

There are some who believe it could be a weapon, others think it could accidentally cause a poleshift. Do a Google search on HAARP to learn more.

Rob Baur of Lake Oswego, Oregon, dreamed of bringing to life his favorite The Simpsons episode, one from 1999 in which Homer grows "tomacco," a combination tomato-tobacco plant. Even though it tastes foul and has a brown, gooey center, the entire town becomes addicted to the fruit after one bite, and Homer gets rich.

Baur grafted a tomato plant onto tobacco roots, and voilà, he had a real, live tomacco plant. The two plants can successfully become one because they come from the same plant family, which also includes eggplant and the deadly nightshade.

It popped into my head this weekend that the difference between humans and other animals is not something extra that we have - but rather a missing gene. We lack the gene of contentedness. We are the most unhappy species, and we are constantly trying to improve our lot - that is why we improved from apes into humans. Think about cats - they love being cats and have no desire to change a thing. They are content.

As 2012 nears, humans and animals alike will slowly start to panic...

"Wildlife experts in the German city of Stuttgart are baffled after a flock of starlings made a mass suicide attempt leaving dozens of birds dead.

Pedestrians watched as hundreds of birds flew over the city before suddenly nose-diving to the ground from a height of 65 feet.

...Around 100 dead and injured birds covered the busy Steinhalden Street. Residents out for a Sunday stroll reporting a loud "thud" as the flock of kamikaze starlings hit the pavement .... the incident could have been down to a sudden squall or simply a "freak accident".

Robert Bauval says:

"I have it from very reliable sources that National Geographic Channel and Dr. Zahi Hawass will do another live TV broadcast in December in an attempt to explore further the "doors" in the GP. Apparently the 'stunt' is to coincide with the launching of Hawass's latest book, a sort of autobiography of his work at Giza."

Morph3 (above), is 30-centimetres tall, and can perform back flips and karate moves thanks to 138 pressure sensors, 30 different onboard motors and 14 computer processors.

Also on display was Fujitsu's HOAP-2. The little droid can perform moves from the Chinese martial art taijiquan, as well as Japanese Sumo wrestling stances.

"Astronomers have found the first "dark galaxy" - a black cloud of hydrogen gas and exotic particles, devoid of stars."

This pretty much solves the problem of where all the dark matter is - hanging out in invisible clumps.

It also brings up a worry, is there a dark galaxy nearby with a blackhole at its center? And could that black hole erupt?

There have, in recent weeks, been several big power blackouts in the United States, Britain, Italy, Denmark and Sweden - and now in the Czech Republic. Could the end of the world be something as simple as humans not being able to cope without power?

Interesting detailed article suggests that the CIA might be the culprits.

Resembling a guinea pig grown to the size of a buffalo, the animal lived millions of years ago in a South American swamp and is thought to be history's biggest rodent, researchers say this week in the journal Science."

Yet another big thing that didn't survive the last cataclysm, or the one before that... They say it existed millions of years ago, but fossils are such rare things, and judging the timespan of an entire species based on a sample of one is kinda tricky

"A team from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in northeast England say they found flint artifacts including tools and arrowheads off the coast near Tynemouth during a training session to prepare them for dive searches elsewhere.

They say the items pinpoint two sites dating as far back as 10,000 years ago which would once have been on dry land but were gradually submerged as sea levels rose after the end of the last Ice Age."

If they keep looking, the might find some non-stone age settlements from back then....