An extraterrestrial report has the scientific world discussing what it means to be alive.

Serious and bad.

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Research finds high, unsafe levels of mercury contamination in Brazil’s Yanomami and Ye’kuana peoples, almost certainly due to illegal gold mining on indigenous lands in the Amazon.

Scientists at the Computational Story Laboratory have identified the six emotional arcs that form the building blocks of all stories.

What it’s like to see color for the first time.

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LOS ANGELES — Physicist Stephen Hawking says pollution, greed and stupidity are the greatest threats to Earth.

Hawking told Larry King Now on Saturday that he’s worried by overcrowding.

“We certainly have not become less greedy or less stupid,” Hawking said. “Six years ago I was worrying about pollution and overcrowding. They have gotten worse since then.”

I thought they already had one.

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Alasdair Gray, the acclaimed Glaswegian writer and artist, penned a phrase now engraved on a wall of the Scottish Parliament: “Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation.”

Michael Gove, the controversial Caledonian Brexiteer, journalist and Conservative politician, has in turn declared his intention to seek the leadership of the UK Tory Party and thus become the Prime Minister, to “reboot democracy” in a new “start-up nation”.

Delivering his leadership pitch today Gove said: “I want this country I love – and which has given me so much – to embrace this opportunity for change with optimism and conviction.”