Arctic drill stalled
Shell has drilled for oil in the Arctic, but only for a day. The company had begun drilling an exploratory hole off the Alaskan coast when , forcing the drill ship to leave. Shell has asked the US government for an extension beyond 24 September when the drilling season ends.
Thick clay, slim chances
Hopes of finding Martians may be drying up: in some places the planet鈥檚 clays are too thick to have formed from interactions with water (Nature Geoscience, ). Instead these minerals are a better match for lava flows, hurting chances that they once harboured life.
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Gas giant under attack
Jupiter has been struck by a comet or asteroid 鈥� again. In the early hours of 10 September, amateur astronomers in Wisconsin and Texas saw a bright fireball flash and fade over the planet鈥檚 disc in the space of about 2 seconds. This is the fourth incident of its kind in just over three years, suggesting Jupiter is hit by debris much more often than we thought.
The holy grail of wind
Wind turbines could power all of human civilisation 鈥� in theory. It would be wildly expensive, and carpeting Earth with wind farms might not be popular, but this could generate 400 terawatts of power, 20 times our present consumption ().
Stem-cell cowboys
Two men accused of peddling stem-cell 鈥渃ures鈥� for incurable Parkinson鈥檚 disease and multiple sclerosis have finally put their hands up and pleaded guilty to conspiring to sell what prosecutors termed 鈥渦napproved and misbranded鈥� therapies. Francisco Morales from Texas and Lawrence Stowe from Illinois both face prison sentences and fines of around $250,000.