As if forecasting whether asteroids will hit the Earth wasn't hard enough, it now seems that primordial black holes could surprise us by nudging a rock or two our way.

An artificial black hole has been simulated in a laboratory by scientists using lasers at St Andrews University.

Intense light pulses were used to create an artificial event horizon - the defining feature of a black hole known as the "point of no return".

An exotic theory, which attempts to unify the laws of physics by proposing the existence of an extra fourth spatial dimension, could be tested using a satellite to be launched in 2007. Such theories are notoriously difficult to test. But a new study suggests that such hidden dimensions could give rise to thousands of mini-black holes within our own solar system – and the theory could be tested within Pluto’s orbit in just a few years.

Nearly all of the information that falls into a black hole escapes back out, a controversial new study argues. The work suggests that black holes could one day be used as incredibly accurate quantum computers -- if enormous theoretical and practical hurdles can first be overcome.

Black holes are staples of science fiction and many think astronomers have observed them indirectly. But according to a physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, these awesome breaches in space-time do not and indeed cannot exist.

A fireball created in a US particle accelerator has the characteristics of a black hole, a physicist has said.

James Blodgett has setup a new website to discuss the risks that upcoming high energy collider experiments might destroy the earth or even the universe.

Gregg Easterbrook offers a skeptical guide to the most common doomsday scenarios.

Scientists are becoming increasingly confident that they will be able to create black holes on demand, in quantity, using the new atom-smashers due to come online in the next five years. Some estimates suggest that the new Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will be able to create an average of one black hole each second.

Spaceship travel to another universe through a black hole may be highly improbable, but it cannot be ruled out, according to a new analysis that explores the idea of "hybrid singularity."