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One of our store cupboard staple ingredients could be an unlikely weapon in the fight against Parkinson’s disease.

Scientists have found that cinnamon, a spice commonly used all over the world, contains a chemical with brain-protecting benefits.

A recent study using mice discovered that the substance Cinnamaldehyde in cinnamon is converted into sodium benzoate by the liver, a substance approved for the treatment of neurological disorders. A team at Rush University Medical Centre in Chicago found that, once synthesised, the chemical enters the brain and prevents the loss of certain proteins that help to protect cells and neurons, and improve motor functions.
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The world’s media has been awash recently with news of a cosmic near-miss a couple of years ago that could have spelled disaster for planet Earth.

Physicists have released details of a solar storm that occurred on July 23rd, 2012, along with the disturbing fact that, had the storm occurred just one week earlier, Earth would have been directly in the line of fire.

“I have come away from our recent studies more convinced than ever that Earth and its inhabitants were incredibly fortunate that the 2012 eruption happened when it did,” physicist Daniel Baker of the University of Colorado said in a NASA Science online release. “If the eruption had occurred only one week earlier, Earth would have been in the line of fire.”
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After a freak storm killed one person and hospitalized nine more on Venice Beach Sunday afternoon, a similar bizarre weather event brought the English South Coast to a standstill today.

Feet of water fell in less than an hour in the seaside town of Brighton, Hove and Worthing, devastating homes and bringing traffic and trains to a standstill.Brighton station tweeted the downpour at the stations was like a ‘zombie apocalypse’.
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There is a place in Siberia known as Yamal, which literally translates as "the end of the world."

It is an area that is notorious for earth-shattering events, as this was the region where the most dangerous meteor in recent history struck in 1908 with devastating results. Thankfully, the blast occurred in a relatively uninhabited zone, but forests were levelled over a distance of 2000 square kilometers (1242 miles).

Yamal is now the site of another unlikely happening in the form of a huge, unexplained crater, estimated by observers to be around 50 meters (164 feet) wide and 70 meters (229 feet) deep with water from melting permafrost cascading down its sides into snow-covered depths.
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