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London - Britain revealed details of its overall nuclear stockpile on Wednesday, in what was described as a significant step towards greater transparency aimed at increasing trust between states that possess nuclear weapons and those that do not. Foreign Secretary William Hague told parliament that Britain's stockpile of nuclear warheads would not exceed 225. The maximum number of operationally available warheads remained at 160 - a figure that was already in the public domain.

An amazing new picture from space reveals a volcanic eruption in its earliest stage, with a huge plume of ash and steam billowing skyward and creating a shock wave in the atmosphere. Sarychev Peak on Matua Island is one of the most active volcanoes in the Kuril Island chain, northeast of Japan. The new photo was taken June 12 from the International Space Station. NASA says volcano researchers are excited about the picture "because it captures several phenomena that occur during the earliest stages of an explosive volcanic eruption." The main plume appears to be a combination of brown ash...

Washington, Oct 06: A meteorite, which crashed into Australia 40 years ago, is telling researchers new things about how life may have started on Earth, and how that almost universal protein left-handedness came to be. For more than 150 years, scientists have known that the most basic building blocks of life - chains of amino acid molecules and the proteins they form - almost always have the unusual characteristic of being overwhelmingly “left-handed.” The molecules, of course, have no hands, but they are almost all asymmetrical in a way that parallels left-handedness. This observation, first made in the 1800s by...

Journalist Bob Woodward discusses "secret operational capabilities" against militia and insurgent leaders in Iraq, and spying on Iraq's prime minister.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 16, 2007 – After traveling with Navy Adm. Michael G. Mullen during Mullen’s first visit to Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Joint Staff’s operations director said today that he was struck by “noticeable” security improvements throughout the theater. Army Lt. Gen. Carter F. Ham told Pentagon reporters the troop surge in Iraq that began in the spring is “having the intended effect” of better security. “That's not to say that there’s not still significant work required; there is,” Ham said. But he reported that throughout his travels with Mullen earlier...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has announced a health care reform bill that he wants lawmakers to consider as they meet in special session. Schwarzenegger laid out his health reform ideas in January, but Democrats ignored his plan. Instead, they passed a health reform bill the governor says he will veto. Schwarzenegger hopes his latest effort will lead to a deal with Democratic leaders. But organized labor has been negative about the governor's approach and may pressure Democrats to vote no.

PARIS: The collapse of two ice shelves in Antarctica has exposed an exquisite seabed ecosystem, including previously unknown species of crustacean and marine anemone. The hidden marine world was revealed by the breakup of the Antarctic Peninsula's Larsen A and B ice shelves, 12 and five years ago respectively. Their collapse laid bare a 10,000-square-kilometre portion of the sea bed - an area almost the size of Jamaica - that had been roofed by ice for millennia. Part of the area was explored by an unmanned robot, lowered from the German Alfred Wegener Institute's research vessel, the Polarstern (North Star),...

A judicial discipline council has voted overwhelmingly to impose sanctions on a veteran Los Angeles federal judge who improperly seized control of a bankruptcy case to protect a probationer he was supervising. --snip-- On Nov. 16, the council ordered that U.S. District Judge Manuel L. Real, 82, be publicly reprimanded for his intervention in the bankruptcy almost seven years ago, permitting Deborah M. Canter to live rent-free for three years in a Hancock Park house, costing her creditors $35,000 in rent and thousands more in legal costs, according to court documents. Real's misconduct "warrants the corrective action of 'censuring or...

Body reveals its inflammation 'off switch' 18:00 01 October 2006 NewScientist.com news service Deb MacKenzie Researchers have shed light on how the body switches off its immune response, a key step towards understanding autoimmune diseases and controlling inflammation. When immune cells die, they transform into “sponges” that soak up the molecules responsible for causing inflammation, researchers have discovered. The new information may lead to better drugs to treat inflammatory disorders, such as eczema. Inflammation is characterised by a red, painful swelling around a wound caused by blood fluids, proteins and immune cells flooding into an area of the body in...

WASHINGTON - The Secret Service on Friday revealed four more visits to the White House in 2001 by disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, including one to see a domestic policy aide to Vice President Dick Cheney. The newly released records of Abramoff's access to the White House bring the total number of his known visits to seven. One Abramoff White House visit, according to Secret Service logs, was on April 20, 2001, to see Cesar Conda, at the time Cheney's assistant for domestic policy. Five days after the Conda meeting, one of Abramoff's former lobbying colleagues, Patrick Pizzella, was nominated by...

Gene reveals mammoth coat colour By Rebecca Morelle Science reporter, BBC News Woolly mammoths had both dark and light coats The coat colour of mammoths that roamed the Earth thousands of years ago has been determined by scientists. Some of the curly tusked animals would have sported dark brown coats, while others had pale ginger or blond hair. The information was extracted from a 43,000-year-old woolly mammoth bone from Siberia using the latest genetic techniques. Writing in the journal Science, the researchers said a gene called Mc1r was controlling the beasts' coat colours. This gene is responsible for hair-colour in...

WASHINGTON - The House's top tax writer revealed a proposal Monday to reduce taxes on inherited estates and rewrite a quirky law that repeals the tax for only one year. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas, R-Calif., introduced the bill after Senate Republican leader Bill Frist of Tennessee asked House GOP leaders for help reducing the estate tax before this fall's midterm elections. Frist lost a bid this month to push forward legislation repealing the tax, unable to overcome opposition from most Democrats and a pair of Republicans. Under President Bush's first tax cut, the estate tax decreases...

Ancient city reveals life in desert 2,200 years ago (Xinhua) Updated: 2006-05-22 14:58 Chinese and French archaeologists claim to have discovered the ruins of an ancient city which disappeared in the desert in Northwest China more than 2,200 years ago. The ancient city, shaped like a peach, is located in the center of the Taklimakan Desert, the second largest shifting desert in the world, covering a total area of 337,600 square kilometers, in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The perimeter of the city walls is 995 meters, with the height ranging from three meters to 11 meters. Archaeologists found traces...

Burial find reveals ancient lives Greig Watson BBC News, Leicester A huge amount can be learnt from skeletal remains They are dust and dry bones. Hundreds of people, generation upon generation, reduced to neatly boxed scraps and splinters. But a team from the University of Leicester archaeology unit has a rare opportunity to tell us about the lives these people led. Work on the extension to a shopping centre in Leicester city centre unearthed the largest medieval parish cemetery outside London, containing more than 1,300 skeletons. As well as the sheer scale of the site, the significance lies in its...

Leak reveals official story of London bombings · Al-Qaeda not linked, says government· Internet used to plan 7/7 attack Mark Townsend, crime correspondent Sunday April 9, 2006 The Observer (UK) The official inquiry into the 7 July London bombings will say the attack was planned on a shoestring budget from information on the internet, that there was no 'fifth-bomber' and no direct support from al-Qaeda, although two of the bombers had visited Pakistan. The first forensic account of the atrocity that claimed the lives of 52 people, which will be published in the next few weeks, will say that attacks...

Pulse reveals beating heart of a supervolcano 01 March 2006 From New Scientist Print Edition Jessica Marshall "I DON'T think visitors appreciate that they're standing directly on top of the largest, most dynamic magmatic system on the planet," says geologist Daniel Dzurisin. While the supervolcano that is Yellowstone National Park won't be erupting any time soon, he and his colleagues have uncovered a surprising source of volcanic activity beneath tourists' feet, which was probably the reason trails had to be closed in 2003. The Yellowstone caldera formed 640,000 years ago in an explosion of magma more than 1000 times greater...

Lady of Wells reveals her secrets The current bishop wants to restore the throne room A mysterious medieval wall painting found beneath the floor of the Bishop of Bath and Well's bedroom has given up its secrets. The painting, which shows a partly-clad woman wearing a transparent dress, dates from between 1460 and 1470. It was part of the decoration of the throne room of Bishop Thomas Beckynton. Dr Mark Horton, of Bristol University, who researched the painting discovered it is most likely to be part of a scene representing a medieval paradise. "It was rather like something out of...

WASHINGTON - A new book on the government's secret anti-terrorism operations describes how the CIA recruited an Iraqi-American anesthesiologist in 2002 to obtain information from her brother, who was a figure in Saddam Hussein's nuclear program. Dr. Sawsan Alhaddad of Cleveland made the dangerous trip to Iraq on the CIA's behalf. The book said her brother was stunned by her questions about the nuclear program because — he said — it had been dead for a decade. New York Times reporter James Risen uses the anecdote to illustrate how the CIA ignored information that Iraq no longer had weapons of...

Straight-talking McCain reveals himself as a leader in waiting By Alec Russell (Filed: 12/11/2005) Senator John McCain has all but launched a campaign to succeed President George W Bush, calling for a new approach to the war in Iraq and savaging the Pentagon's record there. With the White House struggling to regain the initiative after a series of damaging blows and the Democrats lacking a leader, the maverick Republican has effectively taken charge of the political debate. Sen John McCain: 'We should be ramping up' In a hard-hitting speech, reminiscent of his 2000 bid for the White House when he...

Tomb scan reveals buried treasure Thursday, October 20, 2005; Posted: 1:02 a.m. EDT (05:02 GMT) Some of the terra cotta soldier statues found around Qin's tomb. BEIJING, China (AP) -- A magnetic scan of the unopened tomb of China's first emperor has detected a large number of coins, suggesting Emperor Qin was buried with his state treasury, a news report said Thursday.