Paranormal Phenomena

Robotic space mining fleet announced

Deep Space Industries has announced plans to launch a fleet of asteroid prospecting spacecraft.The first venture of its kind, the "FireFly" spacecraft are equipped with low-cost cubesat components and will save money by piggy-backing in to space on the back of communications satellite launches. Weighing in at 25kg, the first spacecraft is set to launch in 2015 on a voyage of up to six months. Later, larger versions willlaunch on longer missions that will seek to return samples from potentially valuable asteroid targets."This is the first commercial campaign to explore the small asteroids that pass by Earth," said Chairman Rick Tumlinson.

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Attenborough - humans are plague on Earth

Sir David Attenborough has expressed his concerns over Earth"s ever increasing human population.The 86-year-old has spent a lifetime exploring the wonders of the natural world but out of all creatures it seems that it is ourselves who pose the greatest risk to the planet. "We are a plague on the Earth," he said. "It�s coming home to roost over the next 50 years or so. It�s not just climate change; it�s sheer space, places to grow food for this enormous horde. Either we limit our populationgrowth or the natural world will do it for us, and the natural world is doing it for us right now."Sir David has long been a proponent of better sex education and voluntar...

Message in a bottle found after 76 years

Geoff Flood discovered the rolled up note inside a bottle washed up on a beach in New Zealand.The note was dated March 17th, 1936 and said - "At sea. Would the finder of this bottle kindly forward this note, where found, date, to undermentioned address." The message has been written on paper with the ship"s name, SS Strathnaver, in the header. The bottled note, it seems, had been adrift in the ocean for 76 years.Mr Flood waseventually able to track down the sender, a man named Herbert Ernest Hillbrick.

While Mr. Hillbrick had died some years ago, his grandson Peter Hillbrick was still alive. "For this one to be floating around in the ocean f...

300 million-year-old machine part found ?

A controversial story from Russia suggests that a prehistoric machine part is extraterrestrial in origin.The claim surrounds an aluminium object that was said to have been discovered in a piece of coal by a resident of Vladivostok when he was lighting his fire. The object was taken to be studied by scientists in the Primorye region who allegedly concluded that it was 300 million years old, meaning that it came in to being well before humans walked the planet. Described as an "aluminium gear", the artifact could have only been created through industrial manufacturing methodswhich has lead to the outlandish suggestion that it is in fact alien in origin....

Crater supports evidence for life on Mars

Scientists believe that the components for life have been present on Mars for millions of years.The revelation has come from new data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Express spacecrafts pertaining to materials present within a large crater on the planet"s surface. Rocks and materials thrown up by the impact appear to contain minerals that are believed to have been affected by water, a discovery that suggests life couldhave existed below the Martian surface.""All the ingredients were there for life, but only small single-cell organisms could have survived in those conditions," said study lead author Dr Joseph Michalski.

"But I wo...

Is the Internet re-defining our identities ?

The prevalence of social networks is changing our view of who we are and our place in the world.According to a new report, in the future the traditional concept of identity will be less meaningful. These days people are spending more and more time on the Internet, whether it be connecting with others over Facebook, writing in a blog or playing on-line games. Conventional views of one"sidentity and place in society such as religion, ethnicity, job and age are instead being replaced with on-line interactions."The internet can allow many people to realise their identities more fully," the study reads.

"Some people who have been shy or lonely or fe...

Artist composes music from bird droppings

A new project has turned something as mundane as bird droppings in to a musical work of art.To create the unorthodox composition, artist Kerry Morrison laid large sheets of manuscript paper out on the ground in various parks and then waited for the birds to add their contributions. Once this was done the sheets were collected up and composer Jon Hering turned the result in to an actual musical score. Thecreation is being hailed as a representation of the role birds play in the environment."They play a massive part in the ecosystem of the city through their droppings - they disperse seeds, also their droppings help the enrichment of the soil, so we get fertil...

Married twins give birth to identical twins

In a remarkable coincidence, a couple who each have an identical twin now have identical twin children.Twins Craig and Mark Sanders both met their future wives, twins Darlene and Diane Nettemeier, at a twin convention in 1998. The two brothers proposed a year later and tied the knot in a double wedding ceremony. As if that wasn"t enough twins, Diane and Craig later went on to have twochildren who, unbelievably, were also identical twins.The odds of having identical twins are approximately 3 in every 1000 births, however the odds of this happening to parents who themselves both have identical twin siblings are staggeringly remote.

The familie...

Opportunity embarks on 10th year on Mars

Curiosity"s smaller cousin has been trundling around on the Red Planet now for almost a decade.Opportunity first arrived on Mars a few weeks after its twin "Spirit" back in January 2004. Despite its mission being expected to last no more than 3 months, Opportunity is now about to enter its 10th year of operation on Mars. Spirit, by contrast, became immobile in 2009 and allcommunications with it ceased in 2010.Through dust storms and freezing winters, Opportunity has traveled more than 22 miles and returned over 100,000 photographs during its adventures.

As things stand there is no reason to believe that it won"t continue to operate for sever...

Wickramasinghe in alien fossils claim

The astrobiologist has claimed that fossil diatoms found in a meteorite are proof of alien life.Chandra Wickramasinghe is director of the Buckingham Centre for Astrobiology at the University of Buckingham and along with astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle developed the concept of "panspermia", the theory that life is distributed throughout the cosmos on asteroids, comets and other bodies. In this case his team is said to have discovered tiny fossils inside a carbonaceous meteoritethat represent evidence of extraterrestrial life.The claim inevitably sounds too good to be true and that"s because some of Wickramasinghe"s previous claims have been highly controvers...