Iran said it had launched a rocket carrying a test-satellite into space on Sunday, in a move that could further exacerbate tensions with the West over its nuclear drive. "The Safir (Ambassador) rocket was successfully launched. All its systems...are Iranian made," Reza Taghipour, head of Iran's space agency, told state television, adding that a "test satellite was put into orbit." "We have paved the way for placing a satellite in space in future,"...

Russia is considering arming its Baltic fleet with nuclear warheads for the first time since the cold war, senior military sources warned last night. The move, in response to American plans for a missile defence shield in Europe, would heighten tensions raised by the advance of Russian forces to within 20 miles of Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, yesterday. Under the Russian plans, nuclear warheads could be supplied to submarines, cruisers and...

Reader Dale's first-gen iPod Nano was chugging power from his PC's USB port when suddenly he saw it "explode open and start shooting sparks and spewing smoke." Dale sent us his lengthy missive to Steve Jobs:I am writing this in regards to an issue I have had with an iPod nano, first generation. I have included the relevant pictures of my iPod after this incident and links to related issues. I had plugged the iPod in to charge on Saturday August...

The Candy Blog noticed that Hershey's "Kissables" have been reformulated, and can no longer be legally labeled "milk chocolate" because of FDA regulations. The new package looks the same, except for the ingredients and the label which now says "Chocolate Candy" instead "Candy Coated Milk Chocolate....

More than half of 26,000 students across 70 colleges and universities who completed a survey on suicidal experiences reported having at least one episode of suicidal thinking at some point in their lives. Furthermore, 15 percent of students surveyed...

The crash landing of NASA's Genesis capsule in 2004 points out some of the problems of active descent and landing systems. The goal is to reduce or eliminate the usual weight penalty and reliability issues associated with parachutes, touchdown cushioning rockets, water flotation devices, and other complex paraphernalia normally required to softly land a space vehicle on the Earth. When the system is proven to be reliable, it may be especially attractive for use with manned...

A way to banish split ends, lifeless locks and "bad hair days" could come from an analysis that reveals the secret of silky hair. The first detailed analysis of what happens to individual hair fibers as they rub past each other when tresses are tossed has been conducted down to a billionth of a meter, showing how to make hair smooth to the touch. This nanoscale analysis is seen as the key to the next generation of shampoos, conditioners, and other products for repairing damaged, dry and...

The magazine industry, already facing a decline in newsstand sales and falling ad revenue, is being besieged by a new foe: digital piracy. A fledgling Web site called Mygazines.com encourages people to copy and upload popular magazines that are currently on newsstands. Visitors can read high-quality digital copies of dozens of current titles, including People, Men's Health and The Economist, in their entirety. The site, with some 16,000 registered users as...

On Sept. 7, 2006, Nouriel Roubini, an economics professor at New York University, stood before an audience of economists at the International Monetary Fundand announced that a crisis was brewing. In the coming months and years, he warned, the United States was likely to face a once-in-a-lifetime housing bust, an oil shock, sharply declining consumer confidence and, ultimately, a deep recession. He laid out a bleak sequence of events: homeowners defaulting on mortgages, trillions...

I realize this pours gas on the bad parenting flames of yesterday, but I can't not show you this story. Parents of a 16-year-old boy in Raleigh, N.C., have let him drop out of school so that he can focus on a professional gaming career via Guitar Hero. Blake convinced his folks (that is, "We couldn't take the complaining anymore," said his mom) to let him drop out last September. They hired in-home tutors to...

A journey that started four years ago after his six gold medals in Athens and included 17 swims over nine days here ended triumphantly for Michael Phelps on Sunday. Phelps earned his unprecedented eighth Olympic gold medal of the 2008 Olympics as he swam the butterfly leg of the Americans' world-record win in the 4x100m medley relay to close out the swimming competition at the Water Cube....

Fewer Americans are reading newspapers -- they are getting their news online instead -- but television remains the leading source of news in the country, according to the Pew Research Center's biannual survey on news-consumption habits. Younger people tend to get more of their news on the Internet, while older people use traditional media such as television and newspapers, said the survey, released Sunday. Pew said the results show an increasing shift...

Scientists have proven what athletes have been claiming for years - that Granny's old cure-all, bicarbonate of soda, can enhance performance.'Soda-doping', as it is known amongst professional sportsmen, can have a significant effect on endurance and speed.Baking soda appears to work best to enhance speed. A study at Loughborough University found that of nine swimmers who took baking soda before an event, eight reduced their times,...

There is a super-replicating false belief in our society that sleeping in is lazy. Sleeping in is not lazy- many individuals would actually be more productive if they slept in versus waking up early. But as a whole, promoting the belief that sleeping in is lazy serves the needs of a stable society, in which individuals are all on similar schedules....

The mummy of the last king of Toraja, Puang Sambolinggi, has waited in this coffin for five years while the king's son, Eddy Sambolinggi, 56, and other family members negotiate details of the late monarch's elaborate funeral. After decades of planning for their funerals,...