Sci&Tech, Medical and Envirnoment

Cataloguing the diversity of life on earth remains one of the incomplete goals of science.
Taxonomists have tried to come up with a credible number for the species that have been identified as unique — and succeeded in entering some 1.2 million in a centralised database. The problem with this number is that it is a fraction of the whole; the majority of species both on land and in the oceans has not been catalogued.
Reasonable predictions were possible in the past based on the classification pyramid that scientists could build. Now, based on that model, it is suggested there may be 7.7 million species of animals, 298,000 plants, and 611,000 fungi, among others. It will take an accelerated global campaign to validate these figures.
Funding to establish more taxonomy centres in universities, for DNA analysis and for scientific expeditions, is crucial.

The failed launch of a Russian cargo spacecraft
An unmanned Progress spacecraft, carrying food, water, fuel and experiments to the International Space Station crashed in Siberia minutes after takeoff from the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan.

Moments before a rare 5.8 magnitude earthquake jolted many American cities, some animals at Washington's National Zoo started reacting strangely
several apes abandoned their food and climbed on to the top of a treelike structure,
a flock of 64 flamingoes grouped themselves together and remained huddled until the shaking stopped
One of the elephants made a low-pitched noise as if to communicate with two other elephants. And red-ruffed lemurs emitted an alarm cry a full 15 minutes before the temblor.
The snakes, normally inert in the middle of the day, writhed and slithered.
But scientists have struggled to convert anecdotal evidence into testable hypotheses and robust conclusions that can be published in peer-reviewed journals

Executives from Facebook, Twitter and BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd. are meeting the British government and police to discuss how to prevent social networks being used to plot violence.
Civil libertarians reacted with alarm to suggestions the services could be shut down in times of crisis.
Police and politicians claim young criminals used Facebook, Twitter and Blackberry's simple and largely cost-free messaging service to coordinate looting sprees during riots in England this month
The acting chief of London's police force told lawmakers that the legality of such action was “very questionable,” and networks were an intelligence asset.