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OSLO (Reuters) - John Griggs Thompson of the United States and Jacques Tits of France were awarded a $1.2 million Norwegian mathematics prize on Thursday for their work in algebra and group theory.

HONG KONG (Reuters) - People who carry a mutant gene can develop potentially fatal meningitis if they get infected with the drug resistant Beijing strain of tuberculosis, a study in Vietnam has found.

CANBERRA (Reuters) - A cattle farmer in Australia's remote northern outback on Friday said he had found a giant ball of twisted metal, which he believes is space junk from a rocket used to launch communications satellites.

Independent tests conducted by engineers at the US Department of energy's Argonne National Laboratory on a BMW Hydrogen 7 Mono-Fuel demonstration vehicle have found that the car's hydrogen-powered engine surpasses the super-ultra low-emission vehicle level, the most stringent emissions performance standard to date

As the scope of genome research expands on an almost daily basis, researchers confront increasingly large volumes of data. Boston College biologist Gabor Marth and his research team develop software that enables researchers to analyze millions of DNA sequences faster and with greater accuracy.

The future of computing is under the spotlight at the Institute of Physics' Condensed Matter and Materials Physics conference at the Royal Holloway College of the University of London on March 26-28. As steady increases in computing capability continue, some new technology will have to take over from silicon. Carbon nanotubes and superconductors may be the answer.

AP - The razor-sharp beaks that giant squids use to attack whales ? and maybe even Captain Nemo's submarine ? might one day lead to improved artificial limbs for people.

AP - David Wentz was snorkeling off Marysville Beach in the St. Clair River last August when what he thought was an odd-looking rock caught his eye. "I didn't know what to think," the 16-year-old Port Huron resident said.

Podcast Transcript: We’re in the midst of a revolution in brain science. The long-held dogma that brain connections are unchangeable after age five, is being usurped with findings that the brain is more plastic than we thought.

Podcast Trascript: One of the problems with large-scale solar power plants is that they require a huge amount of space. To rise above that problem, Israeli researchers recently patented a system of solar-collecting balloons. The helium-filled globes will be covered with thin-film, flexible photovoltaic panels to capture sun’s rays. Designs have been proposed before that include floating or flying solar arrays. But this is a modular system, tethered to the ground through a system of cables. Some cables will deliver helium to the balloons, others will carry the solar energy back to earth. The researchers are testing the arrays on a few sites in Israel.