The Experimental Lakes Area research facility in Northern Ontario is being closed down after 44 years of providing invaluable data to scientists in Canada and internationally, a decision that has stunned researchers and environmental groups.

A new astronomical observatory opened this week - one more than 2 kilometres below the ground in Sudbury, Ont. - that may finally answer the mystery of Dark Matter in the universe. SNOLAB will attempt to capture the elusive Dark Matter particles as they pass right through the Earth.

The Dawn probe mission to the asteroid Vesta proves once again how robots, using the highest technology for spaceflight, can cheaply explore where no one has gone before.  And this mission is far from over.

This past week, the Canadian Science Writers Association, and its Quebec equivalent, received the Press Freedom Award from the Canadian Committee for World Press Freedom and Canadian Commission for UNESCO for their efforts to stop the muzzling of Canadian federal scientists. The award was given on May 3, World Press Freedom Day.

When gold was discovered in the northwest back in 1896, it sparked a gold rush. Now the same urge is driving space exploration as prospectors turn their eyes to the potential wealth held in asteroids.

The shuttles were a grand experiment, some would say a failed experiment; now it's time to place them in the history books where they belong and get on with more efficient and farther-reaching ventures into the unknown.

Studies of the steel that made up the hull and rivets of Titanic have shown that the ship was made with lower-grade metals that were more brittle, suggesting that lives might have been saved had the vessel been constructed with better material.

A recent report out of the UK emphasizes, once again, that children are suffering from NDD, Nature Deficit Disorder, which affects their general well being. So get your kids out of the house this weekend.

The new federal budget's chapter on innovation and research  is almost entirely about supporting more applied science, which may stimulate jobs and the economy, but it is neglecting the basics.

This week, at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Texas, there was good news and bad news.

The good news came from the fleet of robots scattered across the solar system, exploring new worlds. The hard news was the dim future for further exploration of this type.