No one has started working on an ark just yet (that I know) but Norway is working on a different backup plan for world wide catastrophe: Norway is starting construction on a “doomsday vault” in the Arctic which is designed to house all known varieties of the world’s crops. Dug into a frozen mountainside on ...

I saw this story on Slashdot a while back and loved it. One man’s treasure is another man’s … “A New Zealand company has successfully turned sewage into modern-day gold. New Zealand Herald is reporting that a Marlborough-based Aquaflow Bionomic yesterday announced it had produced its first sample of bio-diesel fuel from algae in sewage ...

OK, it came about as close as the moon according to the story in Boing Boing but that’s close enough. More than three dozen asteroids have flown closer to Earth in the past few years, but scientists believe 2004 XP14 is among the largest. The asteroid, discovered in 2004, is estimated to be up to ...

Boing Boing had this story today: A new scientific study reports that monkeys housed alone drink more alcohol than those living in groups. Also, monkeys overall tend to drink after “stressful periods,” according to research from the National Institutes of Health Animal Center. From Discovery News: The study, recently published in the journal Methods, also ...

It looks like Douglas Adams was right all along according to this article from Seed Magazine But the important role played by the number 42 has recently persuaded even the deepest skeptics that the subatomic world might hold the key to one of the greatest unsolved problems in mathematics. read more | digg story

According to Cnet.com: The United States Patent and Trademark Office has given the nod to a patent design for an antigravity device, or a space vehicle, according to a report this week in Nature magazine. That the office approved the patent application breaks its own resolution to reject inventions that defy the laws of physics, ...

The London Guardian is reporting on the creation of replacement eyes and working hands in the race to build a $6bn human. But don’t expect that just because you are strong you will be able to violate the laws of physics like on the old TV show. read more | digg story

OK this is one of those stories that sounds like it is 6 days late to be an April Fools joke: MIT scientists have harnessed the construction talents of tiny viruses to build ultra-small “nanowire” structures for use in very thin lithium-ion batteries. By manipulating a few genes inside these viruses, the team was able ...

Live Science uncovers the mystery behind cave drawings: Many art historians and anthropologists believe Paleolithic cave wall art was done by accomplished shaman-artists, but mixed in with the finer paintings are graffiti-like scenes of sex and hunting. An analysis of thousands of paintings from the late Pleistocene epoch suggests the graffiti artists back then were ...

Nature.com reports: It’s a question that has taxed generations of the finest minds in physics: do humans swim slower in syrup than in water? And since you ask, the answer’s no. Scientists have filled a swimming pool with a syrupy mixture and proved it. “What appealed was the bizarreness of the idea,” says Edward Cussler ...