Scientists strongly suspect that an object about 2 miles wide smacked into the east coast off of Norfolk, VA about 35 million years ago. The splash probably reached about 30 miles high and tsunamis may have reached the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains west of Washington, DC, and sea bed sediments were likely ignited for a time.

The force released was probably greater than all warheads in the cold war nuclear arsenals of the former Soviet Union and the United States Combined. Get the details here.

Not that this should be too surprising to those that might have been following this somewhat arcane topic, but: it turns out that antibacterial soaps are no more effective than plain old regular soap and water in removing bacteria from the hands.

On top of that, the overuse of the antibacterial chemicals in the soap may be significantly contributing (along with the overuse of antibiotics) to the genesis of superbugs that are resistant to both antibacterial chemicals and antibiotics.

See the details here.

This kind of thing could kill the net, and quick. As reported on Slashdot:

"An article from the online edition of IEEE Spectrum says phone companies in France, Germany, Egypt and Saudi Arabia have announced they will block VoIP calls on their networks. Using new software from Narus Inc., the carriers can detect data packets belonging to VoIP applications and block the calls. Gotta love Ma Bell." From the article: "Narus's software does far more than just frustrate Skype users. It can also diagnose, and react to, denial-of-service attacks and dangerous viruses and worms as they wiggle through a network. It makes possible digital wiretaps, a capability that carriers are required by law to have. However, these positive applications for Narus's software may not be enough to make Internet users warm to its use. 'Protecting its network is a legitimate thing for a carrier to do ... But it's another thing for a Comcast to charge more if I use my own TiVo instead of the personal video recorder they provide, or for Time Warner, which owns CNN, to charge a premium if I want to watch Fox News on my computer.'"

Very bad. But you can see how monopolies would do something like this. You an read the full article here.

No doubt thanks to the patent system and copyright silliness, as mentioned on Slashdot.org:

"A new survey shows that the tech industry places third after healthcare and energy companies in the number of lawsuits it deals with. It states that an average tech company faces 42 lawsuits currently, more than the insurance industry!" From the article: "An average U.S. technology company currently faces 42 lawsuits vs. 37 lawsuit for an average company. The tech industry places third, after healthcare and energy companies, in the number of lawsuits it deals with ... Needless to say, that's quite expensive. Nearly a third of these companies spend more than 2% of their gross revenue on legal expenses, according to one of the largest surveys of corporate counsel in America."

You can read the full article here.