Today on New Scientist: 30 November 2012

Dinosaurs might have once gazed into the Grand Canyon It had been thought that the canyon formed 6 million years ago, but now two geologists say it is actually closer to 70 million years oldSaturn's rings may double up as a moon factory A new model suggests Saturn's famous rings spawned the planet's moons. Could the mechanism explain the moons of Uranus, Neptune and even Earth?Gaming the future:...

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Euro pushes higher; yen falls after stimulus announced

NEW YORK: The euro surged against the dollar Friday, topping the $1.30 level before giving back most of the ground to end only slightly higher.At $1.2982 at around 2300 GMT, it was still the European currency's best level in five weeks, finishing up from $1.2978 late Thursday.There was little news to provoke any firm moves, and analysts said the euro could move lower next week as the Greek...

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Mercury's north pole is probably chock full of ice

A view of Mars from the NASA spacecraft Messenger. The yellow patches represent ice, or what scientists call "water ice."(Credit:messenger.jhuapl.edu)Disappointed about that hyped-up supposed Mars discovery that ended up evaporating? Turn your eyes toward Mercury. A NASA news conference yesterday suggested what many scientists have suspected for decades: Mercury's northern pole most likely contains...

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Pictures: Bakken Shale Oil Boom Transforms North Dakota

Photograph by Jim Urquhart, ReutersHis overalls caked in mud, roughneck Brian Waldner wrestles with pipe as North Dakota's new horizon unfolds around him. (Related: "Oil Train Revival: Booming North Dakota Relies on Rail to Deliver Its Crude")North Dakota, once a sleepy backwater of the petroleum industry, this year surpassed Alaska as the number two oil producer in the United States. The gush of...

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3 Dead After Attack at Wyo. Community College

Three people are dead after an attack at Casper College, a Wyoming community college, that may have involved a type of bow and arrow.The college was shut down Friday morning after the attack."Emergency Alert: All classes and activities are cancelled today," read a message posted on the school's website.Initial calls came in just after 9 a.m. reporting a "traumatic injury" on...

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Projections of sea level rise are vast underestimates

Expect more water to lap at your shores. That's the take-home message from two studies out this week that look at the latest data on sea level rise due to climate change. The first shows that current projections for the end of the...

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Euro benefits from US 'fiscal cliff' hopes

NEW YORK: The euro rose against the dollar Thursday, boosted by hopes that US politicians will find a compromise to avoid the year-end "fiscal cliff" that could jolt the economy into recession.With investors' appetite for risk whetted, the euro bought $1.2978 at 2200 GMT, up from $1.2939 at the same time Wednesday.The European unit rose against the Japanese currency, to 106.58 yen from...

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Facebook: We're not getting into the game business.

Zynga just can't catch a break.After the stock market closed today, the teetering game maker revealed that it amended its contract with Facebook -- the company on which Zynga was entirely built -- and the details are already spooking Wall Street. In after-hours trading, shares of Zynga are down more than 10 percent to around $2.35.The concern? A line at the bottom of the SEC doc that says that Facebook...

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Pictures: Inside the World's Most Powerful Laser

Photograph courtesy Damien Jemison, LLNLLooking like a portal to a science fiction movie, preamplifiers line a corridor at the U.S. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's National Ignition Facility (NIF).Preamplifiers work by increasing the energy of laser beams—up to ten billion times—before these beams reach the facility's target chamber.The project's lasers are tackling "one of physics' grand...

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Palestinians Win Statehood Status at U.N.

The U.N. General Assembly voted today to approve Palestinians' request to be upgraded to a "non-member observer state," defying opposition by the U.S. and Israel.Before the vote, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told the General Assembly that it "is being asked today to issue the birth certificate of Palestine."Of the 193 countries in the General Assembly 138 voted to recognize...

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