SCIENCE

Sir Patrick Moore, the world-renowned British astronomer whose works advanced the study of space and encouraged the common folk to "look up," died Sunday at his West Sussex home. He was 89. A series of tributes flooded Twitter and Tumblr following the announcement of Sir Patrick's death.

While many rationale and thinking people dismiss the Dec 21, 2012 end-of-the-world doomsday prediction as a hoax, the speculations had caused a global buzz with different groups contributing their two-cents' worth of advice.

NASA grieves over the loss of space spider “Nefertiti” last Monday at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. after surviving 100 days in outer space aboard the International Space Station. The experiment mission was designed to conclude if a spider dependent on gravity while catching their food can settle in and survive in micro gravity.

'Rodent life on Mars?' This is the idea raised by a UFO hunter this week. There is an ongoing debate among those who have scrutinized on YouTube the NASA photo supposedly taken by Mars' rover Curiosity. The still image could be that of a rock or a rodent. What do you see?

PacX Wave Glider, the self-controlled swimming robot, reached Australia on Thursday, Dec 6, after a 9,000-nautical mile journey from San Francisco over one year.

A study by the Institute de Veille Sanitaire in France, released on Thursday, found that for the years 1989 through 2005, the sperm count in one millilitre of an average 35-year-old Frenchman dropped to 50 million from 74 million.

NASA scientists stated the moon’s surface has been receiving massive impacts from numerous asteroids and comets. Latest information obtained from the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission reveal the nearly crushed lunar interior just below the surface. In conclusion, planet Earth as well as other terrestrial planets in the Solar System may have also endured the attacks of space rocks.

NASA and the United States Government assured that the world will not end on December 21 despite the Mayan calendar prediction of an apocalypse. According to NASA, the doomsday rumor is based on the false impression of the Mayan calendar. A lot of people wrongly assume that the world will come to an end on December 21 because the Mayan calendar ends on that day. In reality, it just marks the beginning of a new cycle.

The long-running Voyager 1 Spacecraft of NASA reportedly entered a new layer of the solar system where scientists are unaware of. NASA scientists have now named this area “Magnetic Highway” and further claimed it is the final stop before the interstellar space. The astounding scientific discovery was made known to the public on Monday at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco, California.

Two separate studies released this week present findings that would perplex nutrition advocates but make children happy. The reasons are that a new research from the Federico 2 University of Naples in Italy insists that French fries are healthy, while a review article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal said a chemical in grapefruit could be fatal to some people on certain medication.

NASA scientists claim they have discovered approximately 1 trillion tons of ice inside the craters near planet Mercury’s Northern pole. The team of scientists also stated that further analysis of the material can expose more information about the building blocks of life on other planets. The astounding discovery came after eight long years since NASA’s Messenger spacecraft launch in 2004.

Thanks to a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label whisky, 65-year-old Denis Duthie, a New Zealander, got his eyesight back after he became blind due to several drinks of vodka.

The United Nations Weather Agency confirmed that a portion of the Arctic Ice melted with a size area larger than the United States. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) also stated at the climate talks in Doha that the 2012 Arctic ice melt is one of the numerous weather events to occur on planet Earth.

Environmentalists are against the decision of Australia’s chemical regulator to continue the use of Diuron. WWF (World Wildlife Fund) declared the toxic pesticide could destroy the Great Barrier Reef and put the health of residents at risk if not completely banned.

With the use of UT-Austin’s McDonald Observatory Hobby-Eberly Telescope, a team of astronomers found a massive black hole in a galaxy 220 million light years away. The discovery is part of the team’s ongoing research on the remarkable black hole’s formation and interaction with their galaxy.

A 43-year-old Melbourne woman resumed her natural ovulation after she underwent an ovarian tissue transplant. She is now six weeks pregnant and the 20th woman in the world and the first in Australia to become pregnant using the ground-breaking technique.

Texas astronomers at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy have found the most massive black hole ever recorded, and it measures 17 billion times the mass of the sun. The team's findings are in the Nov. 29 issue of the journal Nature.

The animals have adapted over tens of thousands of years to an environment that is growing increasingly fragile.

A University of Adelaide study released on Wednesday recommended regular sex between three and six months among couples for a healthier pregnancy. The basis of such findings is the releases during intercourse seminal fluids, besides sperm, which are needed to get the couple's immune system to respond correctly and lessen chances of pregnancy complications.

Although Hydro Tasmania's proposed $2-billion 600-megawatt wind farm has the potential to become the largest wind farm in the southern hemisphere, the company wants the approval of King Island residents before they begin construction.

NASA and the Russian Federal Space Agency chose veteran astronauts Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko to embark on a one-year mission aboard the International Space Station in 2015. The longest space flight mission that will launch on spring 2015 from Kazakhstan will gather important scientific data for the future human exploration on the solar system.

The 20th and early 21st century Earth periods have been curated and hurtled into space for viewing - perhaps by future Earthlings or visitors from other planets. Here are 10 things to know about "The Last Pictures."

NASA scientists captured images of near-Earth Asteroid 2007 PA8 with the Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, California between October 31 and November 13, 2012. NASA described the asteroid in the released images as an irregularly shaped and stretched-out object with ridges and craters.

Mars rover Curiosity may or may not have found something exceptionally remarkable on the Red Planet. The science community is waiting for some confirmation. But a NASA spokesman seems to be less excited than the lead investigator for the Martian mission. Meanwhile, someone claims seeing an image of gorilla in one of NASA's Martian photos.

More evidence continues to be discovered of the dangers of smoking to human health. The latest is a study made by researchers at King's College London that smoking is more dangerous to the brain than high blood pressure and obesity.

UFO sightings are reported quite frequently in any given week, but confirmations are scarce. But if it does no harm to anyone, why kill the curiosity? The truth is (still) out there, as fans of X-Files would say. What readers can do is simply take each UFO report, video, and blog entry with a grain of salt.

In a new study, astronomers found out that the far-away dwarf planet Makemake lacks atmosphere. With the use of the European Southern Observatory’s telescopes in Chile, the astronomers were able to observe the hidden physical characteristic of the dwarf planet through a chance passage in front of a distant star.

NASA scientists may have made an important discovery with Mars rover Curiosity, and it's "one for the history books." Circulating speculations include one that says the rover's lab may have detected signs of organic compounds -- the building blocks of life -- on Mars. Keep the drum rolls coming, those in the know just won't spill until December.

NASA scientists declared on Monday about their discovery of a galaxy identified as MACS0647-JD. The use of Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes and gravitational lensing technique helped the scientists in locating the most distant galaxy to date.