A gigantic storm buried much of America's Midwest in snow and led to at least 16 deaths yesterday. The weather system created blizzard conditions, burying cars under huge drifts. Officials reported more than a foot of snow Des Moines, Iowa, and nearly 19 inches just south of Madison, Wisconsin. Gusts of up to 50 mph created snow drifts up to [...]

Vegetarians, look away now. Potatoes and tomatoes make good eating but they may also have a vicious side that makes them deadly killers on a par with venus fly traps and pitcher plants. They have been identified as among a host of plants thought to have been overlooked by botanists and explorers searching the world’s remotest regions for carnivorous species. [...]

“Mothership” over the northern Argentinean province of Salta can fairly be considered the most important UFO news story to emerge from that country this year. Corroboration for the “mothership”'s presence may have been found in a curious photograph analyzed by Jorge Luis Figueiras of the Fundación Argentina de Ovnilogia, and which we share with readers of Inexplicata. Luis Burgos of [...]

A newly detected 19th-century volcanic eruption may solve the mystery of a strangely cool decade in the early 1800s, researchers say-but the location of the volcano itself remains a puzzle. Scientists have long blamed the 1815 eruption of an Indonesian volcano, Tambora, for a worldwide cold snap the following year-the so-called year without a summer.But the entire decade from 1810 [...]

Britain is to set up its own Nasa-like agency to take it into a new space age, it was disclosed. The new organisation, which has not been named yet but is likely to be called the British Space Agency, will represent the UK in all its dealings with international partners. The announcement, made by the Science Minister Lord Drayson, follows [...]

The month: December. The place: A humble farm. The setting: Just perfect for an auspicious event.On a cold, dark night in the wee hours of the morning, a baby calf was born. His nurturing mother, Fuzzy, welcomed him into the world by licking and licking his head – an act that obscured a special detail about the little guy that [...]

Barack Obama's trip to Oslo to pick up his Nobel peace award is in danger of being overshadowed by a row over the cancellation of a series of events normally attended by the prizewinner. Norwegians are incensed over what they view as his shabby response to the prize by cutting short his visit. The White House has cancelled many of [...]

Meticulous ancient notetakers have given archaeologists a glimpse of what life was like 3,000 years ago in the Assyrian Empire, which controlled much of the region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf. Clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform, an ancient script once common in the Middle East, were unearthed in summer 2009 in an ancient palace in present-day southeastern [...]

Research has revealed details of the catastrophic Zanclean flood that refilled the Mediterranean Sea more than five million years ago. The flood occurred when Atlantic waters found their way into the cut-off and desiccated Mediterranean basin. The researchers say that a 200km channel across the Gibraltar strait was carved out by the floodwaters. Their findings, published in Nature, show that [...]

After fighting his way across Europe during World War II, John Pistone was among the U.S. soldiers who entered Adolf Hitler's home nestled in the Bavarian Alps as the war came to a close. Making his way through the Berghof, Hitler's home near Berchtesgaden, Germany, Pistone noticed a table with shelves underneath. Exhilarated by the certainty of victory over the [...]