Weapons

Old Nazi warheads and US warships have been reclaimed by a new army of diverse marine life, as scientists for the first time uncover how nature has made use of the munitions and fleets that ended up dumped in waterways during the two world conflicts.

At a recent excavation in the Donau-Ries region of Germany, a bronze sword has been unearthed that's reported to be more than 3,000 years old, and is so well preserved that the archeologists who discovered it said that it almost shines.

Bronze Age swords make for impressive museum displays, but how were they used? To find the answer, scientists teamed up with history enthusiasts to combine laboratory studies with staged experimental fights using replica weapons.

A team from the STFC has used neutron diffraction techniques to study the composition of a 200 year old Indian shamsheer sword. The non-destructive study, which revealed details of how the weapon was constructed, would not have previously been possible due to the rarity of the object.

The White House has officially responded to a petition calling on the US government to "begin a construction of a Death Star by 2016."

The Department of Homeland Security is testing new sensors by releasing bacteria into the Boston Subway.

So far man’s efforts to combat mosquitoes have so far proved fruitless but researchers in the US are looking to take the battle into the space age by using lasers to kill the nasty little buggers.

A new mega laser facility in California can deliver 500 trillion watts of power in a 20-nanosecond burst and will be used to provide fusion data for nuclear weapons simulations, probe the secrets of the universe and could lead to practical fusion energy.