Until now, the most precise clock that existed is the official atomic clock of the National Institute of Standards and Technology that's accurate down to the second for 80 million years. Now a new clock is vying for its position: a clock that actually traps atoms and monitors their "ticking" to measure time. The clock is also accurate to the second, and will be for 200 million years. Details in the full article.

It's been established that where there's water, there could be life. Scientists are now in a heated debate on whether or not the water jetting off the surface of Saturn's moon Enceladus could be coming from an ancient ocean. A recent study has some answers, but are they accurate? Find out in the detailed version.

Data gathered from military and weather satellites that ice sheets over at Greenland has melted at a record rate - the most ever recorded since rate measurements began in the '70s, says a report made by climate scientist Konrad Steffen of the University of Colorado in Boulder. More details of this disheartening turn of events after the jump.

In a recent Q&A conducted by Reuters, Dr. Konrad Steffen of the University of Colorado at Boulder's Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences revealed that global warming has had an adverse effect on the ice sheet flow in Greenland.

According to veteran Arctic climate researcher, they have noted an increase of 30% of the total melt area in the last 30 years. But it could probably increase further with the new developments they have observed in their field research camp. "In the past we all assumed the ice sheet was moving at constant speed toward the ice edge," said Steffen.

But apparently, the local glacier has increased in speed suddenly somewhere between 2002 and 2003 to twice its normal speed. "In the past we all assumed the ice sheet was moving at constant speed toward the ice edge. The big glacier here, Jakobshavn Isbrae, had a velocity of 6-7 km per year into the fjord up to 1995," Steffen noted.

Although many theories are now open to interpret what this could mean for global current (also referred to as the conveyor belt of ocean currents), Steffen still remains adamant that they have no way of modelling the dynamics that arises out of the increased melting. "We can model melt but we cannot model the dynamics," he admitted.

He remains strong in his opinion, however, that there will be no effect on the global ocean currents. "It is unlikely that we have an abrupt climate change due to the ice loss of Greenland alone," he concluded.

Okay, so it's not as exciting as the self-healing, germicidal-action spacesuit from half a year ago, but rubber that can breathe has its uses. Remember the movie Outbreak? Those hazmat "spacemen" suits designed to keep the bad bacteria out of your body? And then those biological/chemical warfare suits the soldiers were kitted up in?

Imagine how hot it must have been in those things. Hey, those things can trap enough heat to literally kill a man.

Scientists at the University of Colorado-Boulder have developed a rubber that - as the title says - BREATHES. It will keep the bad germs and the bad gas out, but it will also let the sweat from your body out with it. What they did was to blend butyl rubber with liquid crystals. The crystals would then form a "bicontinuous cubic" within the rubber that would effectively transport water across the butyl rubber layer.

In English, this means that the rubber now acts like cotton in wicking away water and water vapor. Even better, the rubber retained enough of a protective performance against a mustard gas variant.

Beyond applications in protecting people from chemical and biological agents, the scientists also envision its use as a water filter, straining most everything from the salt in brine to the crud in contaminated water.