Now here's one of those news items that blends a little bit of gaming and science. Now we're pretty sure why MMORPG giant NCSoft has been named in this particular press release, but we'll also tell you: it's amazing what the human race can think of in the brink of its "serious and pending" extinction. Learn more about Operation Immortality - a part-game, part-reality project aimed at preserving the human race - at the full story.

Imagine connection speeds up to 60 times more than what we have today. That'd be a miracle, since we all know that even if the fastest pipelines are laid, there are still the limitations of electronics to deal with. Luckily, Australian scientists have found a way to drop electronics altogether, and make circuits fully photonic. Yes, photonic. The future awaits at the full story.

We've just got word via the main news stream that a massive earthquake has hit China, and it's epicenter was located in a county of a western Chinese province. Right now, the death toll as approximated from details streaming out of the crippled town is now over 12,000, but if a quake registering 7.9 in the Richter scale is anything to bear, then it's likely that more have fallen victim to its wrath. The full story unfolds at the extended version.

Mars' climate system was often thought to be dormant, but new research says otherwise. Scientists observed that some glaciers in the red planet have actually been moving in the last 10 to 100 million years, and that could be an indication that Mars' climate is still active. Get the real deal when you digest the full story.

Don't you love it when things go boom? So would some astronomers, it would seem, as a recent entry in the latest issue of The Astrophysical Journal reflected much of their excitement. You see, a supernova went nuclear some 1,600 centuries ago in a collection of nebulae called the Large Magellanic Cloud, but even now the after effects of the collapse was readily observed. How is that possible? Prepare for another crash lesson on physics and time at the full story.

Dark matter on Earth? Scientists participating in the Dark Matter (DAMA) Project drew results that could be indicating the presence dark matter - results that mimicked those discovered five years ago. And guess what? The Italian scientists detected the activity 1.4 kilometers deep inside the mountain of Gran Sasso in Italy, where the DAMA observatory resides. Get more at the full story.

There's a hot little topic running in the socio-political, environmentalism picture, and it involves a regulation that the UK's Department for Transport has in mind for the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. The deal is that the rule, if implemented, will probably hurt the world more than do its share of good, and even pro-environment organizations such as Greenpeace agree. Learn why at the full story.

Though black holes are often characterized as humongous gravity sinks, scientists believe there's a minimum mass requirement for any black hole in existence. They've got the requirements down pat by way of theoretical prediction only, but two able researchers from NASA finally pinpointed the smallest black hole to date. It could help them judge whether their estimates are accurate enough. More details at the full story.

Now you wouldn't need a scientific degree to identify ancient brain surgery on any human remains folks. This is pretty simple, provided that your unearthed specimen comes with a head - err, skull. Archaeologists currently digging up a site in Greece said they've spotted what appears to be a woman's remains with a perforation on her skull, indicative of brain surgery - and an unsuccessful one at that. Just a little more clarifications at the full story.

For the socialites, telling another the time just boils down to how much bling factor your watch flashes. But for the techie in some of us, it's not about the shimmer and pizazz - it's how pretty darned accurate your chronometer's counting the seconds passed. Researchers from the National Institute of Science and Technology have claimed they've got a pair of clocks using ions and optics, and they're both way up there in terms of accurate timekeeping.