This week the Vatican's Pontifical Academy of Sciences is holding its first major conference on astrobiology, convened on private Vatican grounds in the elegant Casina Pio IV, formerly the pope's villa. The gathering of prominent scientists and religious leaders from around the world suggests that some of the most tradition-bound faiths are seriously contemplating the possibility that life exists in many forms beyond Earth. The five-day conference is chaired by the religious leader of the hi... Read Full Story

While many Americans chase millionaire status by "sitting with lotto tickets" and "giving their cash to casinos" (which at least gets us out of the house), some make their money by being out of this world awesome.  The 2009 Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander competition has been completed, awarding two million dollars to the winners - and advancing extraterrestrial science in the process.The competition was to build a prototype lunar lander which could take off, hover, land on a bullseye and make... Read Full Story

Gear up for Gattaca, as an Italian court has reduced a murderer's sentence to account for his genes.  Despite the fact the relevant genetic science isn't actually that advanced, the likely effects on the legal system, and the very real question of "Isn't that ass backwards?"A Mr Bayout stabbed a man to death for insulting his eye make-up in 2007.  These facts are not in doubt, and have been admitted by Mr Bayout himself.  The standard twelve year term was reduced by three years because of "p... Read Full Story

Quantum computers are so sought after they make the Holy Grail look like an IKEA wineglass.  The list of things people expect a quantum computer to do starts with "crack unbreakable codes" and goes up from there, so every small advance on the way gets a lot of attention.  The latest such headline comes from Northwestern University, where researchers have built a quantum CNOT gate that can be linked to fiber optics.That might not blow your socks off, but it's getting attention because the make... Read Full Story

It sounds like a Buck Rogers plot, or a rave remix of Pink Floyd, but it's the very latest news from our very nearest astronomical neighbor.  The Japanese SELENE mission (SELenological and ENgineering Explorer) has probed the far side of the moon in unprecedented detail.  The effects will be felt in lunar research for years, but the first headline you'll hear about is the negative gravity disturbance rings.Now that definitely sounds like something Electra, Queen of the Lunar Amazon Women, w... Read Full Story

African desert rift confirmed as new ocean in the makingIn 2005, a gigantic, 35-mile-long rift broke open the desert ground in Ethiopia. At the time, some geologists believed the rift was the beginning of a new ocean as two parts of the African continent pulled apart, but the claim was controversial. Now, scientists from several countries have confirmed that the volcanic processes at work beneath the Ethiopian rift are nearly identical to those at the bottom of the world's oceans, and the ri... Read Full Story

Astronomers have tracked down a gigantic, previously unknown assembly of galaxies located almost seven billion light-years away from us. The discovery, made possible by combining two of the most powerful ground-based telescopes in the world -- ESO's Very Large Telescope and NAOJ’s Subaru Telescope -- is the first observation of such a prominent galaxy structure in the distant Universe, providing further insight into the cosmic web and how it formed. This 3-D illustration shows the position ... Read Full Story

"If we solve search, that means you can answer any question. Which means you can do basically anything." Google cofounder Larry Page Googled is the ultimate 21st-century story of creative destruction: the search empire's relentless ambition and how it is transforming every niche of the world's media business. Author and New Yorker writer, Ken Auletta,  tells the fascinating tale of the brutal clash between Google's engineering mind-set and old media's blind death grip on ... Read Full Story

 A brilliant young physicist João Magueijo  asks the heretical question: What if the speed of light—now accepted as one of the unchanging foundations of modern physics—were not constant?Magueijo, a 40-year old native of Portugal, puts forth the heretical idea that in the very early days of the universe light traveled faster—an idea that if proven could dethrone Einstein and forever change our understanding of the universe. He is a pioneer of the varying speed of light (VSL) theory of cosmolog... Read Full Story

The world’s largest sky-survey telescope is being created to deliver its 3,200-megapixel images of the universe to the public in near–real time. "LSST is truly an Internet telescope, which will put terabytes of data each night into the hands of anyone that wants to explore it. The 8.4-metre LSST telescope and the 3-gigapixel camera are thus a shared resource for all humanity — the ultimate network peripheral device to explore the universe," said Bill Gates -Microsoft co-founder. The Large ... Read Full Story