On the Record

“It hit an iceberg and it sank. Get over it.”

Explorer Robert Ballard, who found the Titanic in 1985, is unimpressed by the discovery of fresh wreckage from the ship.

“If we are not careful, growing forests could make global warming even worse.”

Climate scientist Ken Caldeira reveals results from computer models that suggest temperate forests absorb sunlight and warm the air.

Sources: Associated Press, Carnegie Institution

Scorecard

Flying saucers

Guiyang in China's Guizhou Province has been given US$20 million by a company in Taiwan to build a UFO research centre. The facility will investigate strange sightings in the area that occurred in 1994.

Drunk elephants

A mathematical model has debunked the popular myth that African elephants get tipsy by eating fermented fruit from the marula tree.

Holy healing

A Russian scientist has claimed that holy icons speed the recovery of sick mice, but an archbishop has declared his experiments to be sacrilegious.

Number Crunch

The Census of Marine Life has unveiled findings from the first five years of its decade-long effort to catalogue all sea life.

3.2 million sightings were this year added to the Ocean Biogeographical Information System (OBIS).

40,000 marine species are now represented by a record in OBIS.

190,000 marine species known to science are not yet represented by an OBIS record.

2.3 million marine species in total are believed to exist.

Source: Census of Marine Life