Galactic Suite Space Resort, a company based in Barcelona, Spain, says that it is set to open the first hotel in space in 2012.

Researchers have found fossils of a new type of flying reptiles said to have lived over 160 million years ago.

The India-born Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, a senior scientist at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology at Cambridge, has won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2009 along with two other scientists.

India has successfully launched its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C14) from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota (SHAR Range) in Andhra Pradesh, carrying as payload the country’s ocean-monitoring satellite named Oceansat-2.

UPDATE: Chandrayaan-1 has found evidence of large quantities of water on the lunar surface, reports have said.

BBC has reported that a new variety of rice, called the Sahbhagi Dhan rice, is being tested in the fields of Eastern Jharkhand. The rice is said to be able to withstand long drought patches.

Scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society and the University of Melbourne, Australia, have discovered a bald-headed Bulbul in the forests of Laos.

The Indian government plans has earmarked Rs 289 billion for scientific research and development in 2009, a 19 per cent hike over spends in 2008.

Fossils of a large Armadillo look-alike creature, that were found in Brazil in the area around modern day Sao Polo state, were unveiled at an environmental museum in Rio by researchers, on July 7, 2009.

Indian Space research Organization (ISRO) Chairman G. Madhavan Nair, has said that ISRO expects to launch Chandrayan-2 in 2013.