Not that there's anything wrong with that
The Oslo Natural History Museum in Norway opened the world's first exhibit focused on the dozens of instances of homosexuality in the animal kingdom. The exhibit, called Against Nature?, has been well attended so far, despite facing loud resistance from Christian groups.
Steve Irwin's 8-year-old daughter Bindi will star in a new television show on the Discovery Kids Network. Bindi began filming the wildlife documentary show with her "Crocodile Hunter" father, who was killed by a stingray in September. Bindi decided to continue the show with her mother's blessing, but at least one Australian politician has voiced concern that Bindi is being deprived of her childhood.
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Iceland will resume commercial whale hunts for the first time in twenty years, according to an announcement by the country's Fisheries Ministry. The decision ignores an international moratorium on whale hunts and will permit the harpooning of a small number of endangered fin whales.
An international team of field anthropologists and paleontologists has discovered the fossil of an extinct and yet unknown species of dwarf water buffalo. Named Bubalus cebuensis after the Philippine island of Cebu, where it was found, the buffalo's two-and-a-half foot stature distinguishes it from its larger cousin, which stands at six feet tall. The fossil, estimated to be between 10,000 and 100,000 years old, will help researchers to better understand island dwarfing—a phenomenon in which island mammals evolve to be smaller in response to a scarcity of food and predators.
Now You See It, Now You Don't
Now we all can be Harry Potters, thanks to a group of engineers who have designed the first "invisibility cloak." The cloak's complex material properties can redirect microwave beams around an object, essentially "hiding" it. The researchers say their results, reported Oct. 12 in Science Express, could play a role in the next generation of wireless communications and radar applications.
There is no ice inside the impact craters at the Moon's poles, new radio-signal images from the Arecibo Telescope in Peurto Rico and Robert C. Byrd Telescope in West Virginia reveal. The previous discovery of hydrogen concentrations at the lunar poles raised the possibility that ice deposits—similar to those found inside impact craters at Mercury's poles—existed on the moon. Ice deposits on the Moon could make a future lunar base more viable.
Andromeda, a galaxy visible from Earth to the naked eye, collided with a smaller galaxy roughly 210 million years ago, according to a study published in the journal Nature. The collision explains the warped plane and the overlapping rings that make Andromeda's shape so unusual.
An International Truth
Though the documentary An Inconvenient Truth was a big hit in the U.S. this summer, ratings released last week revealed it got mixed reviews internationally. In Germany, where Al Gore attended the movie's recent premiere, it received coverage from all major media outlets and praise from government officials. Critics in Bangkok weren't so enamored, however, saying that the film was boring.
Scientists have discovered microbes that fight global warming by reducing levels of methane, a greenhouse gas. The organisms live in the vents of mud volcanoes in the ocean and "eat" the methane produced by the volcanoes, according to a study in Nature.
The Norwegian government, in conjunction with oil company Statoil, announced that it would finance building the world's biggest carbon dioxide capture and storage facility. Carbon dioxide capture and storage, considered to be the best way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, is not a well-developed technology, in part because of its high cost. Norway plans to spend $594 million to build the plant.