eldavojohn writes "The apocalyptic film 2012 has dominated the box office, taking in $65 million on opening weekend. But with all those uninformed eyeballs watching the film, NASA has found itself answering so many common questions that their Ask an Astrobiologist blog offers calming, professional reassurance that there is no planet Nibiru, nor will it collide with Earth (although I do recall a massive solar storm forecast). NASA's main site even offers a FAQ answering similar questions. NPR has more on NASA scientist David Morrison and his efforts to calm the ensuing public hysteria, but survivalists are already planning for the big one. Pretty funny, right? Not according to Morrison: 'I've had three from young people saying they were contemplating committing suicide. I've had two from women contemplating killing their children and themselves. I had one last week from a person who said, "I'm so scared, my only friend is my little dog. When should I put it to sleep so it won't suffer?" And I don't know how to answer those questions.'"

Karim Y. writes "The Vatican is going solar in a big way. The tiny state recently announced that it intends to spend 660 million dollars to create what will effectively be Europe's largest solar power plant. This massive 100 megawatt photovoltaic installation will provide enough energy to make the Vatican the first solar powered nation state in the world! 'The 100 megawatts unleashed by the station will supply about 40,000 households. That will far outstrip demand by Pope Benedict XVI and the 900 inhabitants of the 0.2 square-mile country nestled across Rome's Tiber River. The plant will cover nine times the needs of Vatican Radio, whose transmission tower is strong enough to reach 35 countries including Asia.'"

Eurogamer sat down with Bill Roper of Cryptic Studios to discuss Champions Online, their superhero MMO due out in a few months. Roper mentioned that the PC version of the game will be coming out well ahead of any console versions, and he provided some insight into the game's Nemesis system. "When you get around the mid-game, you have the ability to create your Nemesis... Then you start going on these separate Nemesis missions — you'll start getting ambushed by the minions of your Nemesis, and eventually one of these minions will kind of break down, and say 'oh no please don't, I'll tell you I'll you,' and you get a clue off him. You go through a whole series of these very Nemesis-specific quests which revolve around the things you put in about your Nemesis, but it's not always the same path that you take, there's multiple story directions that you could be going through." Examiner also spoke briefly with Randy Mosiondz, lead designer for the game, about the questing and the game environment. IGN got a look at Lemuria itself, and Cryptic posted some of the concept art.

Martin Ralya writes "I've had the Player's Handbook 2 for two weeks (it releases on the 17th), and I've written an in-depth preview of the book from a GM's perspective for Gnome Stew. It's billed as 'the most significant expansion' of D&D 4th Edition yet, and that's accurate. The short version: No power creep, no balance problems, and all of the new classes are excellent — even the bard. They'll become part of D&D's lore in nothing flat."

gadgetopia writes "An article has come out claiming (yet again) that 2009 will be the year of Linux, and bases this prediction on the fact that low-power ARM processors will be in netbooks which won't have enough power to run Windows, but then says these new netbooks will be geared to 'web only' applications which suits Linux perfectly. And, oh yeah, Palm might save Linux, too." The article goes on to skewer the year of Linux thing that seems to show up on pretty much every tech news site throughout December and January as lazy editors round out their year with softball trolling stories and "Year End Lists." We should compile a year-end list about this :)

twitter writes "P.J. concludes her look at the Bilski decision: 'you'll recall patent lawyer Gene Quinn immediately wrote that it was bad news for Microsoft, that "much of the Microsoft patent portfolio has gone up in smoke" because, as Quinn's partner John White pointed out to him, "Microsoft doesn't make machines." Not just Microsoft. His analysis was that many software patents that had issued prior to Bilski, depending on how they were drafted, "are almost certainly now worthless." ... He was not the only attorney to think about Microsoft in writing about Bilski.'"

Matt_dk writes to point out the upcoming tenth anniversary of the International Space Station in two days' time. "On 20 November 1998, a Russian Proton rocket lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome for a historic mission: It was carrying the first module of the International Space Station ISS, named Zarya (Russian for 'dawn'). This cargo and control module, which weighs about 20 tonnes and is almost 13 meters long, provides electrical power, propulsion, flight path guidance and storage space. The launch of the module... heralded a new era in space exploration, as, for the first time ever, lasting cooperation in space was achieved between Russia, the US, Europe, Canada and Japan. Over the next ten years, many other modules were brought into orbit, and ISS developed into the largest human outpost in space. Since that time, the building blocks, transported by Russian launch vehicles or the US Space Shuttle, have expanded the ISS to the size of a soccer pitch and a current total mass of about 300 tons."

With the entry to sub-orbital flight, and even orbital flight, becoming ever so slightly easier, the obvious thought of space porn kicks in. Who wouldn't want to see two or more people going at it like rabbits in a weightless environment (or at least trying to go at it like rabbits in a weightless environment)? Sadly, Virgin Galactic has turned down a $1 million offer to do just that. The offer was made by an unidentified party who was willing to put the money up front to do a space porn movie. Considering that a flight aboard VG costs $200,000 for a two-hour flight, $1 million doesn't seem too bad. Though how much you could actually do and perform in two hours is debatable. And what if one or more of the actors gets sick?

ds writes "Apple, this morning, announced they are dropping the iPhone Developer NDA in respect to released software. Previously, iPhone developers were legally bound even after their software had been released." Another reader adds, "Early release software is still covered, but this should bring about increased developer interaction, as well as a slew of iPhone dev books." The complete message about the NDA change can be seen for now at Apple's iPhone Developer site, and is reproduced below.

Kozar_The_Malignant writes "Yeast trapped inside a 45 million year old weevil, trapped inside amber has been extracted, activated, and used to brew beer. According to the report, the beer has 'a weird spiciness at the finish.' The brewer, Raul Cano, a scientist at the California Polytechnic State University, attributes this to the yeast's unusual metabolism. 'The ancient yeast is restricted to a narrow band of carbohydrates, unlike more modern yeasts, which can consume just about any kind of sugar,' said Cano. Cano brews barrels of Pale Ale and German Wheat Beer under the Fossil Fuels Brewing Co. label."

Nuclear Elephant writes "Apple appears to be taking ideas from commercial software already being sold and is attempting to patent the concepts as their own. According to Apple Insider, Apple has recently filed a patent application for a notification screen on the iPhone. The only problem with this is that Intellisync has been using this concept in their popular iPhone notification screen software for over a year now, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that this is a clear rip-off. Apple recently became famous (or infamous) for stealing other people's ideas when they rolled out their Dashboard in Mac OS X, which had many similarities to a desktop widget program named the Konfabulator, which later became Yahoo widgets. The case here isn't a simple hijacking of an idea, however — Apple is applying for a patent on Intelliscreen's concept, which could be detrimental to the original manufacturer of the software, who is actively selling it for Jailbroken iPhones"