In the mechanical world - The highly anticipated launch of The Cosmos 1 spacecraft - which was to deploy solar sails intended to propel the craft with pressure from sunlight, a big step forward toward interstellar flight - met with disaster when a booster rocket failed. What a shame.

In the microscopic world - A very common, and generally harmless, virus has been found to fight cancer. A big benefit of this virus is that it is harmless to healthy cells but attacks and kills at least some forms of cancer quite effectively. Viruses have long been seen as a key to the future of medical and biological development but they can be hard to control and deadly in their own right. This particular virus needs the help of another virus to reproduce and to become an active agent. Almost as if it were designed to be a tool...

In the natural world - A pack of lions were found protecting a recently kidnapped an beaten 12 year old girl in Ethiopia. The finding of the girl with the lions has been corroborated by local officials and some reports say that the lions actually drove off the girls attackers (a group of men who were attempting to force her to marry one of them.) A local wildlife expert speculates that the lions were responding the girls sobs which may have sounded to them like the mewing of a lion cub.