Genetically engineered plants turn red when growing over a mine.
Sounds like something out of a video game.

Plants to uncover landmines

In his hotly anticipated announcement Wednesday, President Bush ordered NASA scientists to plan for a manned "foothold on the moon." They might look through their old filing cabinets to start, because the U.S. government and its contractors have been planning lunar colonies since long before Neil Armstrong took his one giant leap for mankind in 1969.

Who knows... Maybe it'll be the next austrailia.

Moon Base: NASA's Recurring Dream

PLEASE MENTION PLoS BIOLOGY (www.plosbiology.org) AS THE SOURCE FOR THESE ARTICLES. THANK YOU.

Brain reverberations during sleep

They genetically engineered the two-headed fluorescent zebrafish during studies into muscular dystrophy.

Taiwan scientists accidentally develop two-headed fish

] Once prion diseases infect a body, the proteins change
] shape and, with a kiss of death, turn their neighbors
] into clones of themselves. Clumps of misshapen proteins
] form, overwhelming neurons and poking holes in the brain.
] Death is inevitable.

Wired News: Prions: When Proteins Attack

Seldom does astronomy enjoy a year with such avid and widespread amateur participation, from first-timers watching compelling sky events and photographing them, to a kid who stumped the experts with one remarkable picture that enthralled the media and the public around the world.

The Best of 2003: Top 10 Astronomy Images

Jeremy wrote:
] Based on interviews with eighteen prominent scientists and
] public policymakers from around the globe, A Parliament of
] Science provides a rich overview of the challenges, promises,
] and perils of science and technology in the twenty-first
] century.
]
] What can we hope for?
]
] What must we fear?
]
] How can scientists, civil society, and politicians work
] together to harness science and technology into a power for
] the good of all humanity?
]
] Those interviewed speak candidly of their passions, hopes, and
] concerns as they explore the scientific and policy
] implications of the major issues of our time, including
] sustainability, politics, cloning, ethics, global climate
] change, the digital divide, and mass extinction of biological
] species.
]
] This welcome introduction to the debate on mankind's needs for
] a true "science for the twenty-first century" also serves as a
] sobering reappraisal of where we have been, what our ingenuity
] has wrought for better or for worse, and where we and the
] whole planet seem to be headed.

This is starting to look like "V." Maybe Bush is a space lizard.

RE: A Parliament of Science

One of the most important principles of physics, that disorder, or entropy, always increases, has been shown to be untrue.

"Scientists at the Australian National University (ANU) have carried out an experiment involving lasers and microscopic beads that disobeys the so-called Second Law of Thermodynamics, something many scientists had considered impossible."

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Beads of doubt

"Monkeys can manage mathematics. Dolphins can be decisive. But US psychologists have broken new ground in the animal intelligence challenge. They have proved that animals are also smart enough to join the "don't-knows".

It means that animals, like humans, may be capable not just of thinking, but of thinking about thinking, of knowing that they don't know. Psychologists call this "metacognition", evidence of sophisticated cognitive self-awareness. Ordinary mortals know it as "dithering"."

Animals 'can think about thought'

] Nano-velcro could hold objects together as tightly as a strong
] adhesive, say US researchers.

The real question is, would the inventor of velcro make a few more billions by exercising patent rights? (read as: half joking)

Nano-velcro binds faster than strongest glues: Super-strong adhesive planned with hooked carbon strands.