According to Dr Arnon Dar, of the Technion Space Research Institute, Israel, a particular type of exploding star going off anywhere in our region of the Universe would devastate our planet.

He has calculated that it would happen to Earth once every 100 million years or so. Article at BBC or Cosmiverse or Unknown Country

It must be remembered, that it can be quite easy and is quite common for nongeologists to be confused by natural rock formations. When confronted with natural phenomenon they are unfamiliar with, even the best of scientists can be mislead.

The Earth reacts so strongly to the solar wind that it helps create space storms that disrupt electricity grids and satellite and radio communications, surprised NASA scientists said on Thursday.

The Earth's outer atmosphere works as a heat shield to deflect and absorb some of the damaging energy, but in the process creates a billion-degree cloud of electrified gas that sets up loops of multimillion amp electric current.

Purdue [University] will help design a self-sustaining environment for future space colonies. Residents will grow their own crops and live inside fully enclosed habitats in which all wastes are constantly being recycled and purified. Plants will provide foods and oxygen for humans, microbes will be used to break down wastes, and other technologies will be needed to remove impurities from the air and water.

Satellite measures gravity field Satellite photographs Everest Russian satellite seeks aliens

When on the Earth, atmosphere and magnetosphere reliably protect people from the solar cosmic rays ruinous for all living beings. Out in the interplanetary space cosmonauts are vulnerable, unless special protection measures are involved. To fully shield human beings from space radiation the spaceship body should be about three meters thick, but the engine able to launch such a huge spaceship has not been invented yet. Certainly, the cosmonauts are shielded both by the environmental suits and by the spaceship body, but the protection is not sufficient. So, what can be the solution to the problem?

NASA are working on it too:

"On a trip to Mars and back, without the appropriate shielding, about every cell in the body would be traversed by one of these heavier articles."

Radiation Hazards to Crews of Interplanetary Missions: Biological Issues and Research Strategies (1997)

Space Daily

Rats controlled by implants in their brains could one day be used to search for landmines or the buried victims of earthquakes. Researchers have created 5 of these ratbots and succeeded in steering them through an obstacle course by remote control.

Liposuction = stem cells Fluoride = poison Wine and cannabis = long life

Researchers have concluded tentatively that X-ray flashes are the low-energy relatives of gamma-ray bursts, created by similar mechanisms.

This implies that there are different degrees of ray bursts from neutron stars, black holes, and quasars - and that there's a good chance we haven't observed a big one yet.

It's a tale only the best conspiracy theorist could dream up....

Eleven microbiologists mysteriously dead over the span of just five months. Some of them world leaders in developing weapons-grade biological plagues. Others the best in figuring out how to stop millions from dying because of biological weapons. Still others, experts in the theory of bioterrorism.

Two ancient maps have appeared in the news this week:

3-D Russian Map (120 million years old) Dating based on some shells, 3-D technology requires super-computers even today, all quite unbelievable, link has pictures, but bigger pictures are here, and a discussion here...

(2200 years old) Oldest Chinese map found to date, nothing particularly amazing about it, aside from its antiquity

Honduran scientists have replicated observations of the sun's movements that the ancient Mayas made centuries ago from the ceremonial plaza at Copan, the ruins of an ancient city in western Honduras.

The discoveries, especially the notations made Tuesday, reaffirm once again that the Mayas, whose civilization reached its peak between 250 and 900 A.D., were great astronomers.

The one above is of the strange "Tadpole Galaxy". See the images, read the story...

• Space chickens - China hatches orbital chooks
• Two-headed calf
• Bull clone is a cow!
• Frogs change sex - thanks to popular pesticide

Scientists may have reconstructed the face of Eve, the mother of modern man.

By combining genetics, archeology, climatology and anthropology, they conclude the offspring of Eve -- who was taller and larger than a modern woman -- migrated out of Africa 80,000 years ago.

After examining DNA passed through the female line, they believe she would have looked like the reconstruction pictured.

• Interview with the producer - excellent overview of how Eve was determined
• Clarification - we are related to her, not descended from...
• At one time, this tells us, there were only about 10,000 humans alive -- "as endangered a species as the great apes are today."
• More...

The highest-energy particles in the Universe, known as galactic cosmic rays, have always puzzled scientists. The particles' source must be within 200 million light years of Earth, because cosmic rays from beyond this distance would lose energy as they traveled through cosmic microwave radiation. It has been uncertain what kinds of objects within this distance could generate such energetic particles.

Answer: "retired" quasars - galaxies containing supermassive black holes that now appear lifeless

"Each contains a central black hole of at least 100 million solar masses that, if spinning, could form a colossal battery sending atomic particles, like sparks, shooting off towards Earth at near-light speed,"

BUT WAIT! They come from supernovas.....

Neutrinos, previously thought to be massless have been observed in a new way that tells scientists there are probably three times as many emitted form the Sun as previously believed and that they may change from one type to another before reaching Earth.

Interesting numbers - three varieties of neutrino, and equal numbers of each variety arrive here. Perhaps they are in some kind of random quantum state until observed? The articles, at Cosmiverse, BBC, Unisci and AlphaGalileo, don't mention any explanation of what causes the neutrinos to change...

This also means that the Universe just got heavier

Researchers have discovered a living population of the insects in the southwest African nation of Namibia

The insects, described as a predator that resembles a mix between a stick insect and a preying mantis, were placed in the new category "mantophasmatodea."

The discovery "tells us that there are places on Earth that act as protective pockets, preserving tiny glimpses of what life was like millions of years ago..."

NASA scientists have observed a rare thermonuclear explosion on a neutron star that brightened it for so long that they could detect its motion as it moved towards and away from us on its orbit around a companion star.

"Because the burst was so powerful -- a trillion times greater than the total U.S. energy consumption last year -- we could study the neutron star for much longer than usual...."

... from NASA or same article with pictures at Cosmiverse