Pluto may harbour alien life, says UK Physicist

Pluto may contain a subsurface ocean warm enough to host life, according to a UK Physicist Brian Cox who also said that humans could be the only complex life in our galaxy. Cox believes the tell-tale ooze of glaciers on Pluto's surface hints at the possibility of a subterranean sea warm enough to host organic chemistry.

"The New Horizons probe showed you that there may well be a subsurface ocean on Pluto, which means - if our understanding of life on Earth is even standing of life on life on Earth is even slightly correct - that you could have living things there" Cox said. The New Horizons spacecraft performed a flyboy of Pluto in July. The spacecraft captured detailed images and other data of Pluto and also of its moons: Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra.

It is unlikely, however, that New Horizons would be able to tell for certain whether warm water exists beneath the dwarf planet. Cox said that the most immediate prospect for finding evidence of life was on the moons of other planets closer to home.

Oldest Leukemia Case in 7000-year-old skeleton

Scientists have discovered what may be the oldest known case of leukemia in an approximately 7,000 year old skeleton of a woman from a Neolithic graveyard in Germany.

Researchers used high resolution computer tomography to detect indications of the blood cancer in the skeleton of woman who died between 30 and 40 years of age.

Except alveolar inflammation and dental caries, the individual G61 from the Neolithic graveyard of Stuttgart-Muhlhausen was was not affected  by other diseases, according to Dr Heike Scherf of the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Paleoenvironment at the University of Tubingen.

Dr. Heike Scherf and her colleagues foind indications of leukemia on the skeleton of the woman, who was between 30 and 40 years of age at the time of death .