Chemical fall-out
Hundreds of thousands more troops than previously estimated may have been exposed to fallout from the destruction of chemical weapons during the 1991 Gulf war, says a report from the US General Accounting Office. The Department of Defense鈥檚 models for dispersal dramatically underestimate plume heights, durations of exposure, and hazard areas, it says. Fallout zones probably covered 鈥渕ost of the areas where US troops and Coalition forces were deployed鈥�.
Pharaoh鈥檚 catalogue
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The death mask of Tutankhamen may be its most famous exhibit, but the Egyptian Museum in Cairo has just begun a five-year programme to catalogue and restore 90,000 of its other relics of Egyptian history. Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of Egypt鈥檚 Supreme Council for Antiquities, revealed the plan on Sunday.
Air traffic jam
Investigators are trying to understand how the computer controlling the UK鈥檚 air traffic control system crashed on 3 June. The problem occurred soon after engineers finished testing upgraded code on the central flight processing computer system in west London. It took an hour to restore the computer.
Mystery cow disease
A strange brain disease that gradually killed a cow is puzzling vets in the UK. They have ruled out BSE, botulism, West Nile virus and louping-ill, a tick-borne disease. The UK鈥檚 agriculture ministry says inflammation caused by a virus is the most likely suspect.
Artist or bioterrorist?
Three colleagues of an artist in Buffalo, New York, were subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury last week as part of an investigation into possible terrorist acts. The Joint Terrorism Task Force is investigating Steven Kurtz 鈥� who uses bacteria and DNA in his artwork 鈥� after undisclosed biological materials and lab equipment were found at his home.