Quantum phenomena are…well, they’re weird. And here’s an example – scientists at the University of Illinois have been using an optical quantum computer to solve an algorithm without actually running it at all.

A star in our galaxy has been discovered to have its inner and outer gas disks counter-rotating. This means that planets formed in this system will have two possible directions of orbit, depending upon which disk they form in. That’s another blow for simple planet-formation models.

Scientists at the UK’s University of York have succeeded in teleporting two nearly-indentical copies of a single original laser beam to two separate locations. The copies aren’t perfect, but apparently that is an inevitable side effect of quantum uncertainty.

The graveyards are getting full. So why not have your mortal remains rocketed into orbit? Star Trek’s ‘Scotty’ is going up next month, in a batch that includes a nurse and a telephone technician.

The Venus Express probe has successfully test fired its main engine, 100 days into its long outward journey.