Pollution was not a factor on the opening day of Olympic competition in
Beijing, Games officials said on a hazy and sticky Saturday.

The sky will darken and thousands of sun chasers in ultraviolet goggles
will travel to Siberia to see the 140-second phenomenon Friday when a
total solar eclipse will rise in the Arctic and cross over central
Russia setting in Mongolia and Western China.

Scientists and inventors including the president of the prestigious
Munich Technical University and the director of Skype are set to steer
the European Union's top innovation network, the European Commission
announced Wednesday.

Two Russian submersibles plumbed the depths of Lake Baikal in eastern Siberia on Tuesday, diving a record 1,680 metres (5,512 feet) in one of the world's largest lakes.

"It is a world record for deep-water submersion in fresh water," an organizer told news agencies Itar-Tass on the barge fielding expedition that was to last another five hours.

The remains of a bear believed to be up to 40,000 years old have been recovered from a cave in Scotland, scientists said Monday.

American arms giant Lockheed Martin, manufacturer of the most widely spread jet - fighter worldwide F-16 Fighting Falcon, is interested in establishing aerospace center in Varna, announced the Director of the Nicolaus Copernicus Observatory and Planetarium Ivan Ivanov.

The names of four scientists awarded last year, entered the Golden Book of Bulgarian inventors, announced by the Patent Office of Bulgaria.

Russia is on the sixth position in the world for its level of funding of space programs for civilian purposes, said the press service of the head of Roskosmos, Alexander Vorobyov.

"At the same number of space directions in Russia and the U.S. funding in Russia is 14 times less," he said.