SCIENCE

U.S. space agency NASA said this week that the annual Geminid meteor shower is set to reach its peak between Dec.13 and 14, specifically during pre-dawn hours though some astronomers have indicated that specks of the spectacle could remain visible up to Dec 16.

The fear that the world would end on Dec 21, 2012, caused by an apparent wrong interpretation of the Mayan Long Count Calendar, has created a loud buzz in the scientific and religious spheres. Doomsday scenarios are actually not new to mankind, with one of the first apocalyptic fear caused way back in 79 AD when the eruption of Mount Vesuvius buried the Italian city of Pompeii. The volcanic ash spewed by the volcano appeared to be a fulfillment of the prediction of Seneca, a Roman philosopher, t...

After eternally bashed for its defective iPhone iOS 6 mapping system, which had led numerous tourists to Australia to get lost in the land Down Under, Apple has finally released the much reliable and dependable Google Maps app for its Apple iPhone products.

Sky-gazers can witness another exceptional visual feast up in the sky. The 2012 Geminid meteor shower, which scientists claim as the most intense meteor shower of the year, is expected to peak between December 13 and 14.

The Dec 21, 2012 doomsday prediction based on the Mayan calendar has split the world with believers on one side and non-believers on the other side. Their course of action as the so-called apocalypse date fast approaches indicates how people view the prediction - either with disdain or belief.

Just when people are talking about the Mayan calendar end of the world predictions, an asteroid called 2012 XE54 narrowly missed Earth Tuesday, Dec. 11. The 3-mile-long asteroid 4179 Toutatis was still in the process of orbiting Earth when the newfound asteroid buzzed the planet - at a distance closer than the moon.

Massive asteroid 4179 Toutatis, which is approximately 3 miles wide, will appear the closest within 4.3 million miles to planet Earth on early Wednesday morning. Spectators can view the extraordinary phenomenon on their computers.

While many people believe the apocalypse prediction of the Mayan calendar would take place on Dec 21, majority of people see humour in the end-of-the-world prediction, while businesses hear the ka-ching of the cash register.

The Mayan calendar end of the world 2012 predictions does not mention asteroid Toutatis, but it is going to buzz Earth in two days. Does it pose any threat to the planet?

With the December showing of the Peter Jackson-movie The Hobbits: An Unexpected Journey, interest in hobbits is on the rise again. On the same week that the movie starts to show in different global cities, an Australian anthropologist made public her use of forensic facial reconstruction methods to come up with a 2D image of the Flores hobbit.

In the run-up to the Dec 21, 2012 doomsday scenario caused by global concern over an end-of-the-world possibility based on Mayan calendar predictions, French authorities have prevented access to the Bugarach Mountain.

Scientists are frequently being seen on the media these days, speaking about the apocalypse and Dec. 21 end of the world scenarios associated to the Mayan calendar. Find out what have they been saying.

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.