AP - After five busy days in space and two successful spacewalks, astronauts aboard the space shuttle Discovery planned on taking things easy on Friday. Read more…

ABC.net.au reports that media mogul Rupert Murdoch has changed his mind on global warming and now believes it is a threat and that something needs to be done. Mr Murdoch also says he has had a change of heart on climate change and now believes global action is needed - although not in the form of the US-opposed Kyoto Protocol. Mr Murdoch has called for a new treaty that is acceptable to all countries and brings in emerging economies. "I have to admit that, until recently, I was somewhat wary of the warming debate. I believe it is now our responsibility to take the lead on this issue," he said. "Some of the presumptions about extreme weather, whether it be hurricanes or drought, may seem far-fetched. What is certain is that temperatures have been rising and that we are not entirely sure of the consequences." "The planet deserves the benefit of the doubt." Murdoch's News Corp. owns newspapers and tv networks that include the New York Post and Fox News. Read more…

An Australian wildlife worker pulled a 7-foot python out of a septic tank Wednesday after a plumber found it hiding in a woman's toilet, officials said. Read more…

Circumcising adult men may reduce by half their risk of getting the AIDS virus through heterosexual intercourse, the U.S. government announced Wednesday, as it shut down two studies in Africa testing the link. Read more…

The Bush administration is clamping down on scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey, who study everything from caribou mating to global warming, subjecting them to controls on research that might go against official policy. Read more…

Life may be able to thrive at even more extreme conditions below the sea floor than previously thought, according to scientists who found a microbe able to convert nitrogen to energy at temperatures far higher than was known before. Read more…

Our knowledge of Mars continues to deepen with the latest results from National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Mars Recconnaissance Orbiter and the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft whose instruments are looking at the sub-surface layers of Mars. (14 December 2006) Read more…

Analysis of comet samples from NASA's Stardust mission reveal that the start of the Solar System was alot more turbulent than previously thought. (15 December 2006) Read more…

India, considered to be one of the world's top polluters, said on Thursday that it was not doing any harm to the world's atmosphere despite increasing emissions of greenhouse gases. Channel: Science Tags: environment greenhouse pollution india emissions Read more…

In a world that is so politically charged and uncertain can we trust that an entire kingdom, yet to rise, could be revealed to us by the use of a symbol, especially that of a beast?Channel: Science Tags: Katrina Rita Earthquakes Tsunamis natural disaster Read more…

Some schools are removing wi-fi networks after complaints from parents that their children suffer headaches. In what sounds like a re-run of mobile phone radiation panic, is there evidence for harm?Channel: Science Tags: Wi Fi Mobile phones Childrens Health Read more…

Do you like fridge magnets? A new technology being developed by British scientists could put an even bigger one inside your refrigerator. Once Karl Sandeman, a physicist at Cambridge University, has helped resolve the practical issues, the cooling power of the 21st century fridge will come from a 19th century discovery - and it promises to cut enerChannel: Science Tags: magnetic fridge refrigerator magnatism Read more…

Both men and women with schizophrenia are significantly more likely to have one or more of 46 common chronic health conditions than individuals without mental illness, according to study led by Caroline Carney Doebbeling, M.D., of the Indiana University School of Medicine and the Regenstrief Institute, Inc. Read more…

Aballay found a wealth of data on innate immunity plus a surprising insight into another classic metazoan response to infection fever will be described at the American Association for Cell Biology 2006 conference. Read more…

Researchers at the University of Leicester have identified for the first time a gene which causes a distressing eye condition. Their discovery, as reported in the journal Nature Genetics, is expected to lead to better treatments for the condition. Read more…

Experts have long viewed the faces sometimes sketched by ancient potters on "Lapita" pottery as human in appearance. Now scientists have pieced together evidence of several kinds leading to a radically different understanding of the religious life of people in the South Pacific 3,000 years ago. Most of these mysterious faces may represent sea turtles. Furthermore, these ceramic portraits may be showing us ideas held by early Pacific Islanders about the origins of humankind. Read more…

Researchers have discovered a gene mutation which prevents the otherwise healthy carriers from sensing pain, after studying three related families with a rare genetic disorder in northern Pakistan. Read more…

Of all the weapons in the bioterrorist arsenal, none is as potent as botulinum neurotoxin, which causes botulism -- a potentially fatal disease with symptoms that include severe paralysis of the limbs and respiratory muscles. Of all the weapons in the bioterrorist arsenal, none is as potent as botulinum neurotoxin, which causes botulism -- a potentially fatal disease with symptoms that include severe paralysis of the limbs and respiratory muscles. Now, for the first time, scientists have figured out how this powerful neurotoxin disables individual nerve cells. Read more…

Could low-level heavy metal pollution be combining with warm water temperatures to fatally weaken sea life? A study examining the joint effects of cadmium and temperature on mitochondrial metabolism in oysters finds a combined effect that is potentially lethal and could be a significant contributor to recent oyster declines. The research has broad implications for cold-blooded marine organisms. Read more…

Researchers have completed drilling a 1,948-foot deep, four-inch diameter borehole for instruments to measure seismic activity in the central United States. Read more…

Kidney transplant recipients are typically required to take daily steroids as part of their anti-rejection medications. However, long-term steroid use has significant side effects. A new study in Clinical Transplantation explored a combination of steroid-free medications that resulted in excellent patient outcomes and a very low rejection rate. Read more…

Plumes of ozone-producing pollution routinely cross political boundaries, influence local regulatory efforts and impact health and the environment, according to a team of atmospheric chemists trying to trace ozone in the lower atmosphere. Read more…

The brain contains stem cells with a surprising capacity for repair, researchers report in the Dec. 15 issue of the journal Cell, published by Cell Press. The novel insight into the brain's natural ability to heal might ultimately have clinical implications for the treatment of brain damage, according to the researchers. Read more…

An international team of scientists that examined the first samples brought to Earth from a comet has confirmed that our early solar system was a violent place in which dust and gas underwent considerable mixing while the sun and planets were still in the process of forming. Read more…

About 200 experts from 25 countries are convening in Algiers Dec. 17-19 to advise shifts in world policies needed to cope with the causes and growing consequences of desertification -- a creeping environmental crisis that threatens an estimated 2 billion people living in arid places, and a growing concern worldwide due to its global health, economic and migration impacts. Read more…