SCIENCE

Amid wide anticipation that Russia would launch an air strike on Aleppo within two weeks that could trigger a global war, some relief appears to be on the way. Moscow extended the three-day ceasefire in the war-torn Syrian city and there has been no air strike in the region in seven days.

As the Cold War between Russia and the US escalates, Russia recently held nuclear bomb-survival drills, amid speculations a cyberattack could be a trigger to a global war. The country upgraded its bomb shelters, tested gas masks and held a rehearsal on how citizens should respond to chemical and nuclear threats in which 40 million Russians took part.

The likely trigger to World War III is a Russian air attack on Aleppo which could spark a nuclear war between the two superpowers. However, Friday’s distributed denial of service (DDoS), which affected half of the internet in the US, could also trigger a global war.

The 88 members of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) has gathered this week in Slovenia to discuss the fate of the whales. The members have been divided on the issue about hunting lines.

Experts warn that if Russia would unleash just five of its SS-18 missile, also known as the Satan, it could destroy the east coast of the US and kill more than 4 million people. Russia is believed to have 55 Satans, its most powerful missile, part of the largest nuclear stockpile in the world which could make the nuclear bombs dropped during World War II in Japan pale in comparison.

NATO just warned that the Russian warships cruising near the North Sea is part of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s plan to end the civil war in Syria and declare victory for himself and Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. Within two weeks they foresee Moscow launching a massive assault in the run up to the deciding battle or the proxy war between the US and Russia.

The Royal Navy went on a red alert upon finding out that Russian warships are planning to sail along the British coast on its way to Syria. Among the Russian warships photographed sailing off Ramsgate, Kent, were the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov and the Kirov class battlecruiser Peter the Great.

Quora forum members listed several places, mostly in the southern hemisphere, as good places to be in if World War III would happen. Another alternative is to look for an underground bunker nearest you, or if you have money, have a Doomsday bunker built.

With talks of World War III becoming inevitable, people are now looking into options how to survive an anticipated global nuclear war between the US and Russia. Those who have money are building apocalypse-proof underground bunkers, while in online discussion forums, there are cities or nations recommended as good places to survive another global war.

The threat of a global war looms after Russian President Vladimir Putin suspended on Monday a treaty with Washington on the clean-up of weapons-grade plutonium, indicating his willingness to use nuclear disarmament to bargain with the US over Ukraine and Syria. Ironically, on Oct 7, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro just awarded Putin the Hugo Chavez Prize for Peace and Sovereignty of the People.

Fears of a third global war were further stoked on Thursday after Russia launched from a submarine in the Barents Sea the Topol missile, the fastest in the world, as part of a series of ballistics test. However, on the same day, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered all officials with relatives living overseas to fly them back to Russia because of heightened tensions on the prospect of World War III.

We Are Anonymous, the group behind the hacking of government websites, claims that Pentagon has admitted that World War III is around the corner. Other groups also see in the statement of Marine Gen Joseph Dunford, commander of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that the US must declare war on Syria and Russia to implement a “no-fly zone” over Syria.

In an incredible discovery, a Queensland scientist has found 11 new species of trapdoor spider in forests and on mountains around the state. Some of the bigger species found are about the size of a human palm and have fangs about one centimetre long. They can inflict serious damage if they bite. Some of the new species are deadly.

Australia’s Deep Space Station 43 (DSS 43), the giant 70 metre antenna dish will play a crucial in unprecedented glimpse of Jupiter. It will lock on to NASA’s Juno probe on Sunday night it navigates Jupiter’s thick toxic clouds n an attempt to uncover more clues as the origins of our solar system.

In an Australian first, abundant marine life, colourful sponges and rare black corals have been captured by deep sea divers on a granite reef off the east coast of Tasmania. Interestingly, much of these discoveries may be new to science, revealed Hobart's Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies on Thursday.

A “second Earth,” orbiting our planet’s closest star may have the right conditions to sustain alien life forms, astronomers have revealed. The mystery world spotted by experts at the European Southern Observatory may finally answer if we are alone in the universe. The planet circles the “goldilocks zone” of Proxima Centauri, the red dwarf star just four light years away.

Fossil remains of a new, small species of extinct marsupial lions that roamed Northern Australia 18 million years ago have been unearthed in north-western Queensland. The newly-discovered kitten-sized lion species has been named after British naturalist Sir David Attenborough.

Astronomers have spotted a young star, almost 11,000 light years away, that can help scientists understand how massive stars in our Universe form. The young star is still gathering materials from its parent molecular cloud and is currently 30 times the mass of the sun. When it finally reaches adulthood, it will be even more massive.

In what is being hailed as a major breakthrough in the field of laser technology, scientists have, for the first time, developed laser from fluorescent jellyfish proteins grown in bacteria. This next-generation laser has the potential to be way more compact and efficient than conventional ones found today. It could even open up research avenues in optical computing and quantum physics.

Researchers have found that large catfish are eating mice in a desert river in Western Australia's Pilbara region. Murdoch University researchers were surprised to find native spinifex hopping mice at varying stages of digestion in eight of the 18 lesser salmon catfish caught in the Ashburton River. Moreover, two of the fish had remains of rodents in their stomach.

Researchers in Western Australia have found that giant goldfish weighing up to 1.9 kilograms are threatening freshwater species in WA waterways. People are dumping unwanted pet goldfish in the waterways and they are reaching massive sizes. This is threatening the ecosystem.

Reports suggest that two-thirds of the people visiting Australia’s Great Barrier Reef are doing so for the last time. Most of the tourists want to see the reef before it dies from massive coral bleaching. The health of the reef is a sorry state with more and more tourists paying it a visit to experience it one last time.

Almost 24 native species in Queensland have been given the threatened status. The government is now gathering support for tougher vegetation clearing laws. It has come to the point where scientists should question why more and more species are being lost. Australia already has the alarming record of losing the most mammals.

In a world-first study, Australian researchers have calculated the proportion of our suntan that comes from beyond the Milky Way. This skin-tanning, natural radiation comes not from the sun but distant hungry black holes and stars and is known as intergalactic solarium. This alien radiation is also known as extra-galactic background light that that gives the tan. This alien light well beyond our galaxy helps beachgoers get that tanned bronze.

NASA thinks Venus may have looked like Earth once. It was a planet capable of life, with a shallow liquid-water ocean and habitable surface temperature for up to two billion years.

Earth’s past climate has always been a mystery to scientists but ancient ice may hold clues to the mysteries surrounding it. In fact, ancient ice is already helping researchers understand Earth’s past climate and experts are now focusing on a massive freezer in suburban Denver known as the National Ice Core Laboratory in Lakewood. The ice is transported to the Colorado lab from Greenland and Antarctica.

A new form of colour has been discovered in peacock spiders. The structural colour that male peacock spiders display has never been documented before. Such colouration is much less common than pigment colouration where natural substances provide the colour to plants and animals. It is common in beetles and peacocks.

New Townsville research centre has its focus on the endangered green turtles. Scientists opened the centre in Queensland to unravel the mysteries of green turtles and also put an end to their high mortality rates. Physiology of green turtles of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef plays a big role in protecting the reef’s ecosystem. However, little is known about their physiology.

Australian scientists have developed a highly-advanced test, known as eDNA, that may save the endangered largetooth sawfish. The researchers of Australia’s four extremely rare sawfish developed the test for an easier way to find estuaries the fish exist in. The new way will be able to successfully test large bodies of water for DNA of the sawfish and that will make key habitats easier to find.