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A new version of the SoBig computer worm is expected any day, and this one will lead to a massive increase in spam (as if we’re not overwhelmed by it already). The SoBig.F worm was designed to make computers all over the world send out a flood of spam. Some experts say that over half the spam you are receiving right now is a result of the virus.

Will Knight writes in New Scientist that there have been six different versions of SoBig so far, one of them released right after another. Each one enables an infected computer to be used by spammers to reroute junk email, evading efforts to block it.
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NASA’s Richard Hoover collects extraterrestrial microbes right here on Earth. He searches the most bizarre environments on Earth?areas that mimic the harsh conditions on other planets in our Solar System?for “extremophiles.” He thinks some of these may have arrived on meteorites from outer space.

David Perlman writes in the San Francisco Chronicle about Hoove’s expeditions to the boiling hot springs of Yellowstone, the ice layers et beneath Antarctica, and the deepest mines of Asia.
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If the Cumbre Vieja volcano in the Canary Islands were toerupt, it would send a giant tsunami wave towards the Atlantic Coast of the U.S. The eruption would cause a landslide that wouldgenerate a wave with energy equivalent to 6 months of U.S. electricity use.

Researchers Simon Day and Steven Ward say this will be an exceptionally large tsunami, traveling great distances at high speeds. As soon as Cumbre Vieja collapses, a huge dome of water will move underwater, producing a “wave train” pattern of crests and troughs. This tsunami will hit parts of Africa, Brazil, Florida and the Caribbean. A day later, the wave will reach London, then hit Spain, Portugal and France.
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University of Arizona senior Greg Cranwell was walking on campus when, he says, “I was looking down at the flagstone and thought I saw something. I was unsure but I thought ‘what’s it going to hurt if I just look?'” He found he was walking on 270 million-year-old footprints. He says, “I ran to the campus president and told her that we needed to get this thing out immediately and she said that with a little more convincing she would have the slab pulled.”

Ashley Nowe writes in the Arizona Daily Wildcat that Cranwell spent hours looking at photographs of the ancient footprints, comparing them with documented fossil tracks. “It was like comparing apples and oranges,” he says. “It doesn’t take a genius to know if the prints match or not.”
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