Meteor enthusiasts will likely be out in force in the coming nights, hoping to catch a glimpse of an on-again, off-again meteor display. Special emphasis will be placed on two specific nights: June 22-23 and June 26-27. Ironically, the month of June is usually not noteworthy for any major meteor showers. Yet six years ago, during the final weekend of June 1998, sky watchers worldwide were caught off guard by an unexpected shower of bright meteors and fireballs. From Japan, for instance, came reports of meteors that were visible even through heavily overcast skies. Reports from visual observers in other regions suggested that this surprise meteor display produced meteor rates of anywhere from 50 to 100 per hour and lasted more than half a day. Similar bursts of June meteor activity...

At least three of the builders of Stonehenge were from Wales, according to archaeologists who found the builders' grave close to the Stonehenge site, and have linked the remains to stones used in the construction of the Salisbury Plain monument. The finding, which comes just before Sunday's summer solstice, not only sheds light on Stonehenge's origins, but also provides clues to prehistoric migration patterns within Europe following the Stone Age, which was the earliest known period in human culture. Most historians believe that Stonehenge served as a temple to the gods of the sun and moon. The Welshmen's bones originally were spotted last year next to a water pipe trench during routine road improvement work in Boscombe Down, which is very close to Stonehenge. Later...

SpaceShipOne, the first private manned spacecraft, is undergoing final preparations before its historic flight to the edge of space on Monday. The craft, built by aviation pioneer Burt Rutan, will be launched into the sky by its carrier, White Knight, then rocket upwards to 100km (62 miles). No private craft has ever been so high. In May, it reached 64km (40 miles) in a test flight, doubling its last best. The attempt over California's Mojave Desert is due to launch at 1330 GMT. Mr Rutan and his team from his company, Scaled Composites, hope the flight will take them closer to winning the Ansari X-prize of $10m (£5.7m) awarded to the first non-government, manned flight into space. The as yet unnamed pilot will also rocket into the record books to become the first civilian...

A detailed analysis of the comet Wild 2 (pronounced "Vilt 2") has left astronomers astounded at an object that has no known peers in the solar system. The comet, examined in a close flyby in January by NASA's Stardust spacecraft, has towering protrusions and steep-walled craters that seem to defy gravity. More than a dozen jets of material shoot out from its insides. Dust swirls around the comet in unexpectedly dense pockets. Among the bizarre features are two depressions with flat floors and nearly vertical walls that resemble giant footprints. They aren't structured like typical impact craters. The features have been named Left Foot and Right Foot in a new map of the comet, which is roughly 3 miles (5 kilometers) wide. Only two other comets have been seen up...

Brazil - Brazilian scientists claimed to have found a new fish species believed to have lurked deep in the south Atlantic Ocean for over 150 million years. The fish, of the Chimaera genus, is about 12-16 inches long and is found at depths of 1,300 to 2,000 feet, scientists said Thursday. "This is a fantastic discovery, because before this we believed there were no Chimaera off the Brazilian coast," said ichthyologist Jules Soto, who discovered the fish. Soto is the curator of the Oceanography Museum at the Vale do Itajai University and co-author of the fish's scientific description, which will be published in the upcoming edition of the U.S. scientific journal Zootaxa. Soto said the fish was discovered on a Spanish fishing boat trawling off the coast of Rio de Janeiro...

If aliens took a low-budget tour of our galaxy (19,362 planets in 3 days!) and only had time to visit one person on Earth, what would they think we were like? If they visited your grandmother, they might conclude people were wise and kind, but not very strong (Why do humans put their medicine in bottles they can't open?). If they saw someone's year-old sister, they might think people were curious and full of energy, but not capable of speech (at least not anything that made much sense). If they encountered someone's older brother, they might think all our time and energy is spent on something called "basketball." Aliens really need to visit more than one person to get a good idea of what we're like. The same applies to us as we explore other planets....

Archaeologists have found a trio of extraordinary stone carvings while charting the phenomenon of prehistoric rock markings in Northumberland, close to the Scottish border in the United Kingdom. Records and examples of over 950 prehistoric rock art panels exist in Northumberland, which are of the traditional ’cup and ring’ variety, with a typical specimen featuring a series of cups and concentric circles pecked into sandstone outcrops and boulders. However, archaeologists at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, who are studying prehistoric rock carvings, are baffled by three unusual markings found carved into rocks at separate locations. They consist of a small heart shape and a stylised carving of a human face, both found near prehistoric rock carvings close to Rothbury, and...

In China, farmers had begun to plant rice. The first orange groves were bearing fruit in India, the North Africans had domesticated the cat and large communities in Mesopotamia had begun to rear cattle, keep accounts and use tokens. Across the Atlantic, settlers in the Tehuacan valley of Mexico already grew corn, squash, beans and peppers and in Neolithic Britain hunters speared salmon, gathered hazel nuts and made huts covered with hide. In Thessaly, Crete and the Cyclades, the earliest Greeks had begun to cultivate wheat, barley and lentils. And on an island in the Bering Sea, a family of stranded woolly mammoths clung on, oblivious to their species' extinction everywhere else. Dale Guthrie, an Arctic biologist at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, reports in Nature today...

The monster thought to live in the murky depths of Loch Ness is a ghost, according to the high priest of British white witches. Kevin Carlyon, 45, from East Sussex, claims the legendary monster which has eluded scientists for decades and attracted hordes of tourists to the Highlands, is a spirit haunting the famous stretch of water. Mr Carlyon now plans to take a boat into the middle of the loch and hold an overnight seance to raise the spirit of the monster following a recent drop in the number of sightings. The plan has already prompted a local minister to warn people of the dangers of dabbling in things not completely understood. Mr Carlyon will begin the seance on the loch as soon as the sun goes down on July 2 and complete the event by sunrise the following morning. The...

Darkness, tunnels, and light are wondrous phenomena sometimes reported by the dying, as well as those recovering from near-death experiences (NDEs). These experiences have been reported since antiquity. Along with many others, I first learned of these experiences from a film I saw in 1990 called Flatliners. The film showed amazing and improbable medical apparati used in an equally improbable and dramatic location. Even so, I was stimulated to read more, and became fascinated by the possible physiology of all aspects of NDEs. I am a physician specializing in anesthesiology, and have worked as a consultant anesthesiologist in Holland since 1980. An anesthesiologist is not someone who just knocks patients out, sits down, opens a newspaper, and waits for the surgeon to finish his work;...