The U.S. Dept. of Energy has launched a research and development satellite to improve the government's ability to remotely monitor the production of nuclear and chemical weapons around the globe.

Mautner, a senior research fellow at Lincoln University in Canterbury, New Zealand, advocates sending packets of freeze-dried microbial life cruising on solar sails through space, spreading the DNA of terrestrial life beyond Earth.

A group of scientists is working on a standardized protocol for dealing with the possibility of a comet or massive asteroid striking the Earth, saying humans can do more than the dinosaurs ever could before a colossal impact precipitated their extinction 65 millions years ago.

Scientists who have spent the last decade charting the human brain have quietly debuted the fruit of their labors: a mammoth digital atlas that maps in multiple dimensions thousands of examples of the most complex of organs.

The Pentagon is planning a new, more lethal, remotely operated aircraft that could bomb targets anywhere on Earth within a scant two hours of taking off from the United States.