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The anthrax attacks in the United States were probably the work of a member of a U.S. biological warfare program, according to the magazine of Greenpeace in Germany. It says its information comes from a member of a U.S. delegation who is attending the UN biological weapons conference in Geneva.

?The U.S. delegation believe it is an inside job. … Their members also have more information than has been made public,? says Kirsten Brodde, a reporter for the magazine. ?It seems the attacker … wanted to force through an increase in the budget for U.S. research on biological weapons.? The article speculates that perhaps the terrorist wanted to cause panic rather than actually kill anyone.
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The war in Afghanistan could have a long-term impact on the birds that migrate from central Asia to India every year. About 200 species of birds–including the Siberian crane, shoveller duck, crested poacher and Arctic tern–leave Russia and central Asian countries such as Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan and fly to India at the end of October or the beginning of November each year. The birds stop to refuel at many wetlands in Afghanistan during their 3,000 to 4,000 mile trip.
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Scientists looking at a star 150 light-years away with the Hubble Space Telescope found that a planet there contains sodium in its atmosphere. This demonstrates that it may be possible to search for the chemical signature of life on planets beyond the solar system.

?Suddenly, discussing searches for Earth-like planets seems quite reasonable,? says David Charbonneau, an astronomer at the California Institute of Technology. ?This opens up an exciting new phase of extrasolar planet exploration, where we can begin to compare and contrast the atmospheres of planets around other stars.?
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Researchers can now demonstrate that a short-lived change in the earth?s magnetic field really did take place about ten million years ago. Before this, they had evidence that the magnetic fields had reversed, but felt this could have been caused by chemical or physical processes that had altered the magnetic signals in the sediment they were studying.
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