• Archaeologists in Israel may have unearthed the oldest evidence of fire use by our ancestors.
• A massive gamma-ray burst could have helped destroy much of life on Earth 440 million years ago.
• A 1539 map depicts sea monsters off the coast of Scotland, sinking galleons, sea snakes, and wolves urinating against trees, but the sea and land mass have an amazing resemblance to the latest satellite images.
• Was there a Trojan War?
• A Hawaiian arrow was carved from the bone of 18th-Century British explorer Captain James Cook. Great story, but DNA-testing says no.
• A Russian Museum will exhibit Rasputin’s penis. That's entertainment.
• Despite previous reports, Yellowstone Park is not likely to blow up anytime soon.
• Roaming robots can solve the world-problem of over-fishing. Maybe you can fish if you say, 'Klaatu Barada Nikto'.
• A family has been driven out of their home by an invisible force that has set fire to furniture and played 'mind games' with them.
• Black holes devour people.
• Latest Global Warming panic - the world must have carbon stores.
• Baby buckyballs hold the promise of new and unusual physical properties for nano-engineers to explore. 'Baby buckyballs' is fun to say, too.
• NASA says future flight may be on on bended wing. There's a song in there somewhere.
• Rocket options are examined for the Moon-Mars initiative.
• NASA's Mars rovers Opportunity and Spirit have completed their primary 90-day mission and achieved all of their original goals. Now, they are heading for the hills.
• A pocket of near-perfection.
• Study reveals cause of loss of consciousness during seizures.
• Math teachers are evil.
• NASA study may indicate climate change.
• Patagonian ice in rapid retreat.
• Molecular basis for Mozart Effect revealed.
• Warning over hair salon stroke.
• Life was thriving not long after the sterilization of this world by asteroid and comet impacts.
• Weird meteorite may be from Martian moon. But, if not?
• The Ark they saw? The team mounts hunt.
• Saturn's strange two-faced moon.
• A more child-like science.
• Chock ices away. How does that happen - does the water come from without or within?

Quote of the Day: His life was gentle; and the elements So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up, And say to all the world, this was a man! - William Shakespeare

• Scientific American and 62 leading scientists accuse White House of bending science to its will.
• Saturn's ying-yang moon Iapetus is a mystery - one side white, the other side black.
• Research shows stem cells could repair the heart.
• Voodoo priests apologise tearfully after magickal ritual to kill president backfires and puts a curse on them. I kid you not.
• Scientists unearth velociraptor teeth on the Isle of Wight. Hendrix played at Jurassic Park?
• Satellite measurements find oceans are rising - but mainly near the coast? Bizarre.
• A SciAm archived article worth revisiting - an interview with Michio Kaku on time travel and hyperspace.
• Pheromones relax stressed-out dogs.
• Fireplace Christ gains world-wide fame. That wacky Jesus, he turns up in the darnedest places.
• Aging Mona Lisa worries the Louvre. Personally I think she looks pretty good for a 500-year-old.
• Cold virus may lurk in the body for years, striking at will.
• Your grocery packaging is about to get a whole lot smarter. The wonders of the future, or is it all just going a bit too far?
• Professor blows new life into ancient flute.
• Unexplained bangs from around the world.
• Trade secrets of sticky spiders revealed.
• The 100th Monkey phenomenon - a load of hooey.
• Archaeologists uncover Maya masterpiece in Guatemala.
• Looking for a home that's a little bit different? How about a Titan missile complex, listed on Ebay for a cool $4 million.

• Did dinosaurs lack daughters? See-sawing climate may have fatally unbalanced sex ratio.
• French archeologists find Marcus Aurelius 'head'.
• Ancient hole unearthed in Ohio.
• When Timbuktu was the Paris of Islamic intellectuals in Africa.
• A galactic warrior, with hypothetical enemies: NASA's planetary protection officer.
• Scientists make their case for seeking life on Venus.
• Search for Mars water goes underground.
• Hawaii astronomers are working on a telescope array to detect killer asteroids.
• Second gyroscope fails aboard space station.
• Airplane wings that change shape like a bird's have scales like a fish.
• The latest UFO reports from Filer's Files and UFO Roundup.
• NY Times fans global warming film controversy with NASA memos.
• Molecular basis for Mozart effect revealed.

Quote of the Day: The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.

Albert Einstein

• Early life forms thrived in volcanic glass 3.5-billion years ago. Life is so fragile.
• Rock art hints that Stone Age people may have started hunting whales as early as 6,000 BC. That must have been dicey.
• Ancient Persian earthenware sparks a debate in Iran.
• Avast, me hearties. Divers believe they have located the ship of a pirate, Welshman Captain Henry Morgan.
• Documents in Baghdad reveal massive corruption in the UN-administered oil-for-food program. Guess who got rich other than Saddam.
• Human rights campaigners are outraged that a United Nations report alleging grave abuses in western Sudan is being withheld from a UN debate on the issue.
• Airplane wings that change shape like a bird's have scales like a fish. Are scales steathy?
• Warning - Poetry shortens your life. No, really.
• Brain signal predicts working memory prowess.
• An international team of 152-scientists has published a detailed map of more than 21,000 human genes.
• Months after it seemed to have died out, SARS has returned to China.
• Uh oh - backlash. Scientists demand law against animal rights extremism.
• US researchers have found that several bird species and marine organisms are helped by the effects of hurricanes.
• The world's marine life is getting sicker.
• Just how much oil is left under the surface of Planet Earth? How much can we get?
• The debate over whether plants have feelings is about to be reopened with the publication of research by scientists in Italy and Germany. Talk to your roses.
• New evidence supports three major glaciation events in the distant past.
• NASA Arctic Sea Ice study may stir up climate models.
• Dr. Lynne Kitei is the author of a new book, The Phoenix Lights that she believes will eventually be a textbook for fifth-graders. The Phoenix Lights is available from Amazon US and UK.
• Mars & Egypt? A Mars Face comparison with Egyptian Headdress. More here. Your call.
• Stephen Bassett says the X-Conference is not a UFO conference; it is not about lights in the sky. 'It is about lies on the ground.'
• Prophecies of beasts, seals, trumpets, stars, floods, hail, earthquakes, and political upheaval feed the fires of debate.
• The Arecibo Observatory telescope is about to get a good deal more sensitive.
• Orbiting space thermometers show that Earth has a fever. Let's jump to conclusions here.
• The Hubble Space Telescope has seen a brilliant circle of bright blue stars in a rare example of a ring galaxy - the result of a galactic collision.
• 'Weird' meteorite may be from a Martian moon.
• Venus Revisited: Modern technology sharpens images from Soviet missions.
• Should we make Mars another Earth?
• The disappearance of Jupiter's spots may indicate a climate change. Must be those Jovian SUVs.

Quote of the Day: We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.

Thomas Alva Edison

• Direct evidence has now been found to show that trilobites were an favorite snack food for other ancient sea creatures.
• Archaeological scientists in the United States and Germany say they have developed a technique to accurately determine the age of stone tools and artifacts between 50,000 and 100,000 years old.
• Humans may have been wearing jewelry as far back as 75,000-years ago, about 30,000-years earlier than previously thought.
• Gardeners have been sprucing up their backyards with ancient stone crosses taken from Dartmoor.
• More on the Turin shroud. Scientists find a new face on the back.
• Gut-check for Europe. Osama bin Laden offering a truce with European states, but not with the United States. European leaders reject bin Laden 'truce'. Italian hostage shouted, 'I will show you how Italian dies!' before being executed.
• Scientists trick migrating songbirds by disrupting their inner compasses, but birds outwit scientists by using a sunset back-up plan. Point to songbirds for more research money.
• Where did football players get their extraordinary abilities? The middle temporal visual center, which processes complex motion, evolved more than 60 million years ago, when our small, long-nosed, bewhiskered and hyperactive ancestors were breaking out of the understudy role that they had occupied during the age of the dinosaurs.
• A new computer chip promises to keep police guns from firing if they fall into the wrong hands.
• Smoking is declared to be a basic human right in a Norwegian county. Norway must have missed the political correctness memo.
• Canada hunters get biggest quota ever, 350,000 pups, from huge seal hunt. Great pic - they can't run; why waste a bullet?
• Tourists looking for a cool place to visit are threatening the fragile ecosystem of Antarctica.
• Increase no-till farming practices across the planet or face serious climate, soil quality and food production problems in the next 20- to 50-years.
• Wobbly jelly may open superconductor door.
• A US geophysicist has set the scientific world ablaze by claiming to have cracked a holy grail: accurate earthquake prediction, and warning that a big one will hit southern California by September 5.
• God is an exceptionally genuine and efficient Chemist/Biologist/Genetic engineer who invented and assembled strings of chemical components known as DNA or Deoxyribonucleic acids.
• A remarkable expedition to the waters of Antarctica reveals that the iron supply to the Southern Ocean may have controlled the Earth's climate during past ice ages.
• Climate scientists ridicule claims in Hollywood's upcoming blockbuster, The Day After Tomorrow, that global warming could trigger a new ice age.
• Investigation of photos of grass circles in Australia reveals light anomalies.
• The universe - all that ever was, is or will be - could literally be a horn of plenty, according to German cosmologists.
• A psychic researcher uncovers the secrets of the Great Pyramid and Sphinx. The Book of Ahau is available from Amazon US and UK.
• Human exploration of the moon and Mars will move humanity beyond terrorism and war, inspiring the public in much the same way as Europeans who explored North America 500 years ago, according to author Ray Bradbury.
• $5-billion Mars mission of Russian oligarchs.
• SuperWASP begins the search for thousands of new planets.
• NASA's Cassini spacecraft is now close enough to Saturn that it's able to resolve the two F-ring-shepherding moons: Prometheus and Pandora.
• A US rocket company is offering the highest bidder the chance to launch a package onto the Moon. Have you anything that needs to be lost for a while?

• Is Gibson's PASSION an indicator that religion could be the new box-office sensation? I think the point would be more whether people are increasingly looking for the 'spiritual' experience.
• Study finds that nerve damage can affect the other side of the body, hinting at a previously unknown mode of communication between nerves on opposite sides of the body.
• Data released on second SpaceShipOne test-flight. Conclusions: damn that was fast.
• Young female chimps are much faster and better learners than their brothers. So chimps seem more human every day.
• Runaway star collisions cause black hole.
• White zebra baffles wildlife experts. Well if it starts snowing on the savannahs of Kenya then it's a sure-fire success through natural selection.
• China's top 10 archaeological finds in 2003.
• Bedbugs are making a comeback. Coming soon to a bed near you.
• Monitor will detect patient awareness during surgery.
• Astronomers find that Sedna has no moon.
• Brain studies reveal where aesthetic and insight reside. In my case, it would take a proctologist to find my sense of aesthetics.
• Scientists find genetic basis for the evolution of fewer limbs.
• Old mound may lead to new ideas about people living 5,000 years ago.
• Hawass: 70% of Egypt's treasures still hidden.
• American Army goes into the video-game business.
• Turin shroud shows another mystery face.
• Mathematicians are twice as brainy as ordinary mortals.
• Authenticity of ancient Bulgarian landmark proved.
• Asteroid searchers strike it lucky.
• Area 51 microbiologist ready to talk.
• The Zone, Chernobyl, Ukraine.
• Gorilla Mafia? Groups ruled by related males.
• After the Double Helix: Unraveling the mysteries of the State of Being.
• Engineers are trying to build a system to remove the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. If they remove it how will life and non-life react?
• Fat cells heal broken skulls.
• Spacecraft to measure Earth's drag on space-time. Makes space sound like an aether, but an aether is substantial whereas space is merely a system of coordinates.
• Three Mile Island: is another nuclear disaster inevitable?
• A rational scientific explanation for so-called psychic phenomena.
• The strange, mysterious allure of Adolf Hitler.
• Blasts of Wagner can drive you off the road.
• Oldest mouse may give clue to youth.
• 9-11: NORAD, FAA, Pentagon made it happen.
• Humans took 1000 years to tame wild plants.
• New method for determining age of artifacts fills chronological gap for scientists.

• Drought in the Amazon rain forest.
• 25 Years after Three Mile Island, is another nuclear power plant disaster inevitable?
• Is this proof of life after death?
• Superdiamonds: a new superconductive material.
• Murder detectives must rethink maggot theory.
• Looking back to what nature has already imagined could be the solution for a world ravaged by farming.
• Words mold many aspects of thought. The proof lies in the names the world's languages give to colours.
• Kangaroo genes could boost milk.
• Diet of worms can cure bowel disease.
• Bug brings mud-lovers to their knees.
• Should we go back to the moon?
• Frequent sexual intercourse and masturbation protects men against a common form of cancer. Wonder if the NHS will offer any treatment?
• Hormesis, radiation, tobacco and junk science.
• Anarchy across Iraq.
• Europa: living world or frozen wasteland?
• Astronomy study reveals ancient places of healing.
• North hills were alive with tillers.
• A student's guide to cold fusion.
• SETI's Project Phoenix has finished - now what will rise from its ashes?
• Angry druids to hunt down vandals. Damn, if there's one thing you don't want after you, it's an angry druid. Especially if he's got his sickle with him, coming to cut your mistletoe...
• Strange drum-like sound heard on International Space Station for the second time. Does that make it a double-kick?
• Russian flying saucers to grace American skies? Perhaps they already do? Nice pic included.
• Passive smoking blamed for all manner of evil. Hmm, if I use the word 'evil' do you think I'm infringing on Dubya's copyright at all?
• New light shed on chimp genome.
• Europa: living world or frozen wasteland?
• NASA considers robot servicing of Hubble Space Telescope.
• Walking underwater: how did the sea creatures first move on to land?
• Lunar base options divide experts.
• New research on corpse decomposition says detectives must rethink their maggot theory. Hey, I just find them, I don't write them.
• Mind power could be harnessed to move artificial limbs.
• Satellite will test Einstein theory.
• Laptop supercomputer bid fails. Guess they should have used G5s.
• Teenage lesbians have worst rates of smoking. I'd love to see some of these research proposals...
• Fancy a ride through the abandoned Chernobyl dead zone?
• Did Neanderthals and humans mix?
• 10,000 pieces of pottery, jade, stone, bone and mussel-shell objects unearthed at Minjiang dating back 5,500 years.
• Stone Age child's bones found in Norway dating back 6,000 years.
• Many Bronze Age monuments in Europe and Africa were erected with the Sun and other stars in mind.
• The pyramid builders at Giza by Zahi Hawass.
• The military glory of the Ancient Egyptians will soon be revealed at Luxor Museum's new extension.
• Unique full-frontal portrait reveals pharaoh's face (w/ pic).
• A 3,000 year-old mirror may be one of the most important finds ever in the south of Scotland.
• Decision awaited in royal mystery.
• Vandals daub ancient stone circle.
• Mysterious 'fairy circles' defy explanations.
• The latest UFO reports from Filer's Files and UFO Roundup.
• 'The end of the world? I can't wait'. I'm pretty sure I could.
• Fat hormone leptin alters brain architecture and activity, which in turn drives feeding behavior.
• The common placebo.
• Scientists link gene mutation to hypertension!
• Saturn looms large in new image.
• Radio astronomers lift 'fog' on Milky Way's dark heart; black hole fits inside Earth's orbit.
• Updates on Spirit and Opportunity rovers.
• World's most precise gyroscopes ready to test Einstein theory.
• Zing went the strings of my theory, a review of The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene.
• Nanomaterials don't move predictably in water.
• Scientists levitate ultra-pure glass.
• Scientists create liquid crystal elastomers with amazing properties.
• Scientists predict major southern California quake within five months.
• Humanoid robot conducts Beethoven symphony.
• Double Whammy: The chances that asteroid impacts and huge bouts of volcanism coincide randomly to cause mass extinctions may be greater than previously imagined.
• A 6000-year-old dugong fossil discovered in Sydney suggests the climate was once warmer, more like sub-tropical Queensland.
• A 365-million-year-old arm bone fossil found in Pennsylvania came from one of the first creatures that demonstrates the evolution from fins to feet.
• Archaeologists attempt to solve the Neanderthal mystery.
• Egyptologists have pieced together fragments of the first known ancient portrait of a Pharaoh drawn from the front rather than in profile.
• Norwegian archaeologists were ecstatic this week after making a rare discovery from a child who lived around 6,000-years ago.
• WMDs and stealth weapons caches in Iraq? Secret bunkers held chemical weapons, says Iraqi exile. Maybe we should take a peek?
• Terrorists might be able to slip through U.S. borders using visas meant for visitors participating in cultural, arts or sports events.
• U.S. troops vowed to use overwhelming force to enter the volatile Iraqi town of Falluja and hunt down those who killed and mutilated four American contractors.
• GM crop growing is shelved in Britain for the foreseeable future after Germany's Bayer CropScience decides against cultivation.
• Taking Viagra could reduce men's fertility.
• Synthetic biology offers new hope for malaria victims.
• Runny nose, watery eyes, sneezing at the site of pollen? The answer could be in the genes.
• South African botanists say they have failed to explain the mysterious fairy circles found in grassland on Namibia's coastal fringe.
• Mathematicians can predict the patterns in fingerprints and cacti.
• A scientist has invented a brain-zapping Genius Machine that can tap the mind’s hidden depths.
• Scientists levitate a process to produce ultra-pure glass.
• Pssst.....your calendar is wrong. Astronomers modeling minuscule changes in the Earth's orbital wobble have concluded that the earth is spinning faster than was thought.
• Christian fundamentalist Tim LaHaye preaches Armageddon, makes millions from religious novels - and counts George Bush a fan.
• A man who lived in his own zoo of lizards and insects was fatally bitten by a pet black widow spider — then eaten by the other creepy-crawlies.
• Those that have been abducted by aliens share their stories.
• The Amazing Randi, one who has spent most of his life shattering others' illusions, says that just about everything that's unexplained can be explained.
• President George W. Bush’s vision to send robotic and human explorers back to the Moon, on to Mars and beyond can be made affordable and sustainable.
• China seeks eternal fame for her spaceman.
• New quasar studies keep a fundamental physical constant constant.
• Astronomers estimate about half the planetary systems so far discovered in our galaxy could contain Earth-like worlds.
• From Europa to Sedna: Life beneath the ice in the outer solar system?
• A new look deep into the heart of our Milky Way Galaxy comes closer to the central super massive black hole than ever before, promising a way to see the very shadow of the mysterious object in coming years.