Really? Sushi and beer "in space"? What's next? What the hell is going on with this weather balloon craze? It seems that everything from beer to sushi is being sent “into space” these days. There’s only one problem… weather balloons don’t go into space! Launching...

"That's no sunspot." Assuming Star Trek‘s Borg Collective went into overdrive and decided to build a huge cube a few thousand miles wide, then yes, the exoplanet-hunting Kepler space telescope should be able to spot it. But how could Kepler distinguish a cube from a nice spherical...

"A big rusty transporter came over the hill and the Jawas sold it for scrap metal..." -- Paul Quinn NASA is giving Mars rover Spirit one more month to signal that she’s still alive before search operations are scaled back and attention shifted to her sister rover Opportunity. Unfortunately,...

Just in case you didn’t know, Roland Emmerich’s 2012 wasn’t the best of movies. Actually, from a science perspective, it sucked. It sucked in so many ways that I can’t be bothered to list why it sucked (so have a read of my Discovery News review instead). Now, I’m happy...

So, it’s 2011. A brand new year. Who knows what it holds? Actually, I know what it holds. Trolls. In fact, 2011 will henceforth be the Year of the Troll. (Not the Year of the Rabbit, sorry Bun-bun.) I’ve noticed a rather crazy uptick in the number of anti-science diatribes and wet doomsday...

The Aram Chaos region of Mars, as seen by the HiRISE camera on board NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (NASA) There’s a military operation on Mars! How do we know this? Psychics — or “military grade remote viewers” as they like to be called — “saw” it, and...

That's no space rock: The Israeli 'meteorite' that never was (Ilan Lilush, Tel Aviv Police). UPDATE (April 25): The unidentified combustible object has been identified as being “man made” rather than anything cosmic in origin. “It is definitely not a meteor and not a different natural...

The Habitation Extension Module (HEM) proposed by UK engineers (University of Bristol) The UK has started its own space agency (at long last) and the agency has a logo. The latter is the big news here. At a time when motivation for manned spaceflight by NASA is dwindling and yet private industry is forcing...

The Project M android... haven't I seen you somewhere before? As you know, I’m highly dubious about this “Project M” that has just surfaced on the intertoobs (I strongly suspect it’s a hoax). But doubts aside, I kept looking at that android throwing stones on the lunar surface...

Source: Graph Jam I mean, is the spaghettification of John Cusack using awesome 2012 doomsday graphics too much to ask? Instead of an improbable alien spacecraft appearing over the White House, why not use a black hole, producing so much tidal shear that it rips the building apart brick-by brick? Oh,...