A strange sticky translucent substance that was found after a UFO sighting has been tested by scientists.
The discovery of a strange translucent slime at an RSPB nature reserve in Somerset following an alleged UFO sighting in February last year prompted a spate of news reports at the time promoting the possibility that the mysterious goo could be extraterrestrial in origin.
The discovery of the substance mirrors several similar discoveries that have been made over the years of an unidentified slime-like substance, sometimes referred to as "star jelly", on the ground following meteorological events.
Scientists at the Natural History Museum who have since studied the substance however have concluded that, far from coming from outer space, the peculiar slime appears to contain a combination of frog and magpie DNA.
"Now that could mean that it's a frog that's been ingested by a magpie and the indigestible parts have been coughed up in to the sticky gel," said Stuart Hine of the Identification and Advisory Service. "However, we've got to explore a bit further."
Scientists have discovered signs of water on Ceres, an icy dwarf planet located in the asteroid belt.
Measuring 950km in diameter and located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, Ceres is the smallest and closest dwarf planet ever discovered. Now scientists observing the icy world through the Herschel Space Observatory have identified what look like plumes of water spewing from its surface.
The well-timed discovery coincides with the upcoming exploration of Ceres by NASA's Dawn spacecraft which is due to arrive in orbit around it next year. The enigmatic world has proven a tantalizing target for scientists who are hoping that Dawn's visit will discover more about how it came to be there and where the water plumes could be coming from.
One theory suggests that there could be a layer of ice just beneath the surface that is heated by the sun, causing the water to erupt in the form of ice volcanoes.
"It makes Ceres a more exciting target," said ESA's Michael Kuppers.
Scientists in Brazil have identified the first new species of river dolphin in almost 100 years.
Considered to be some of the world's rarest animals, river dolphins can be found in a small number of rivers and estuaries across South America and Asia.
Up until now only four known species of river dolphin had ever been identified, but researchers working in Brazil believe that they've discovered a fifth species, one that lives in the Araguaia river basin.
With a population of fewer than 1,000 individuals, the new species is believed to have been separated from the Amazon river dolphin around two million years ago and shares many of the same traits.
Conservationists are worried however that the animals are already at risk and could soon disappear if efforts are not made to protect them
The electrodynamic tether will be used as a way to help reduce the large amount of space junk in orbit.
Consisting of several hundred thousand fragments of satellites, rocket stages and other objects, space debris represents an increasingly worrying hazard for future space endeavors.
In the event of a collision, an object less than one centimeter in size could inflict significant damage to a spacecraft, while a collision with an object of 10cm or more could prove catastrophic. As the number of objects increases so too does the risk, with the eventual possibility of an orbit so filled with junk that further missions in to space would become almost impossible.
To help tackle the problem, Japan has come up with a special debris-catching net consisting of a 700m mesh of aluminum and steel wires. The device is designed to attract items of space junk as it orbits the Earth and has sensors that can pick up individual pieces.
Once it's filled up, the net would de-orbit and all the debris that it had collected would simply burn up in the Earth's atmosphere.
Academics have cast doubt on the idea that the inhabitants used up all the island's natural resources.
The enigmatic Pacific island has long held the attention of archaeologists who have struggled to understand exactly what it was that wiped out the people famous for building hundreds of giant stone head statues.
The prevailing theory is that the islanders, known as the Rapa Nui, wiped themselves out over time by using up all of the island's resources in their statue-building endeavors, earning them the accolade of being the best known example of a society that destroyed itself through over-exploitation.
In recent years however this idea has been called in to question, mainly on the basis that the Rapa Nui, far from exhibiting such recklessness, seemed to be masters of agricultural engineering and were more than capable of fertilizing the soil sufficiently to grow the crops needed to feed themselves.
Scientific evidence also seems to suggest that the islanders didn't waste all of their resources, with radiocarbon data indicating that the island was utilized well past the point at which European travelers arrived. There is also evidence to suggest that the removal of the trees happened very gradually over the course of several hundred years.
So if over-exploitation wasn't responsible for the islanders' disappearance, then what was ?
Samoa's national bird, the Manumea, has finally been spotted for the first time in over ten years.
Once a common sight in the region, Manumea numbers have declined rapidly over the last two decades from 4,800 birds to only around 200. Habitat loss and hunting are the two main factors thought to be responsible for its disappearance.
"The lack of recent records suggests that all subpopulations may now be so small that the species may warrant uplisting to Critically Endangered in the near future," Birdlife International said in a statement.
Conservationists are now looking to do whatever they can to halt the species' decline and to prevent it from going the same way as its infamous cousin, the dodo, which was hunted to extinction in the 17th century.
"Our surveys are gathering critical evidence about the existing population, current distribution, breeding season and food sources," said research team leader Moeumu Uili. "This information will contribute greatly to effective conservation decision making, long-term species and habitat protection, and successful awareness education for the local communities."
Astronomers seeking signs of alien life are on the lookout for 'superhabitable' extrasolar planets.
In the hunt for habitable alien worlds astronomers have been particularly keen to look for signs of planets that exhibit similarities to our own, but now astrobiologists have suggested that what we should be looking for are planets that are even more habitable that the Earth is.
"From a potpourri of habitable worlds that may exist, Earth might well turn out as one that is marginally habitable, even bizarre from a biocentric standpoint," wrote researchers René Heller and John Armstrong who put forward the idea.
A 'superhabitable' world would most likely be older and larger than the Earth, while water and gases most commonly associated with signs of life ( such as oxygen ) should also be present. Planets located more towards the center of their sun's habitable zone might also yield a higher potential for habitation than those, like the Earth, that lie near the edge.
