Science

When Sputnik took off 50 years ago, the world gazed at the heavens in awe and apprehension, watching what seemed like the unveiling of a sustained Soviet effort to conquer space and score a stunning Cold War triumph.

Scientists have discovered 11 new species of plants and animals in Vietnam, including a snake, two butterflies and five orchid varieties, the World Wildlife Fund said Wednesday. The new species were found in a remote region known as the "Green Corridor" in Thua Thien Hue province in central Vietnam, the international conservation group said.

"You only discover so many new species in very special places, and the Green Corridor is one of them," Chris Dickinson, the WWF's chief technical adviser in the region, said in a statement.

NASA is about to embark on an unprecedented asteroid-belt mission with a spacecraft aptly named Dawn. The 3 billion-mile, eight-year journey to probe the earliest stages of the solar system will begin with liftoff, planned for just after sunrise Thursday. Rain is forecast, however, and could force a delay.

Scientists have been waiting for Dawn to rise since July, when the mission was put off because of the more pressing need to launch NASA's latest Mars lander, the Phoenix. Once Phoenix rocketed away in August, that cleared the way for Dawn.

Parallel universes really do exist, according to a mathematical discovery by Oxford scientists described by one expert as "one of the most important developments in the history of science".

The parallel universe theory, first proposed in 1950 by the US physicist Hugh Everett, helps explain mysteries of quantum mechanics that have baffled scientists for decades, it is claimed.

Iceland maybe best known for world-famous musical export Bjork but there's a new star quickly gaining this island nation world-wide acclaim -- clean energy. For more than 50 years Iceland has been decreasing its dependence on fossil fuels by tapping the natural power all around this rainy, windswept rock of fire.

A fiery meteorite crashed into southern Peru over the weekend, experts confirmed Wednesday. But they were still puzzling over claims that it gave off fumes that sickened 200 people.

Witnesses told reporters that a fiery ball fell from the sky and smashed into the desolate Andean plain near the Bolivian border Saturday morning.

Jose Mechare, a scientist with Peru's Geological, Mining and Metallurgical Institute, said a geologist had confirmed that it was a "rocky meteorite," based on the fragments analyzed.

Mobile phones are not linked to health problems when used for 10 years or less but further research is needed into their longer-term impact and their effect on children, a report out today said.

A six-year research program found no association between mobile phone use and brain cancer nor evidence of brain function being affected by mobile phone signals.

But the impact of mobile phone use after more than a decade is less clear, according to the Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research Program (MTHR).

The 118-year-old cylinder that is the international prototype for the metric mass, kept tightly under lock and key outside Paris, is mysteriously losing weight -- if ever so slightly. Physicist Richard Davis of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Sevres, southwest of Paris, says the reference kilo appears to have lost 50 micrograms compared with the average of dozens of copies.

The Associated Press has produced an extensive report on the potential risks of RFID devices, which have been approved for use in humans. The report cites a range of animal studies that have linked similar devices to cancers in experimental animals, such as mice and rats. The report is generally well prepared and raises both scientific and ethical issues.

Ancient bacteria that existed 600,000 years ago and found recently by scientists in ice cores reinforce the theory that similar life forms may be found alive on Mars or other frigid worlds.

The tough part is that in order to survive over the millennia, organisms have to keep some metabolism going to keep their DNA in repair until the environment is complementary to growth. Complete dormancy would cause DNA to be damaged and perhaps destroyed over such long periods of time.