A new report commissioned by the British government argues for significant international efforts to identify and understand the risk from killer comets and asteroids.

The persistent theft of components from one of Britain's largest academic super- computers is taking a sinister turn. A scientist is warning that thieves might be selling the computer's brainpower to Iraq or al-Qaida for clandestine weapons research.

Airbags could one day save the planet. At least, that is the view of one mathematician, who is suggesting that they could be used to nudge asteroids or comets that are on a collision course with the Earth gently out of harm's way.

Adding a model of brain circuits to a computer model of a singing bird has allowed scientists to figure out how birds compose their songs. The feat hints that we might one day be able to map some of the complex circuitry in an animal's brain just by listening to its calls -- or map a human's brain using a computer model tuned to "talk" human-like gibberish.

A new study finds that the geostationary orbit is becoming cluttered with inactive satellites due to the failure of spacefaring nations to move satellites into disposal orbits after they have ceased to function.