ScienceDaily (Dec. 13, 2009) -- In ancient times, people with exceptional vision discovered that one of the brightest stars in the Big Dipper was, in fact, two stars so close together that most people cannot distinguish them. The two stars, Alcor and Mizar, were the first binary stars -- a pair of stars that orbit each other -- ever known.

Modern telescopes have since found that Mizar is itself a pair of binaries, revealing what was once thought of as a single star to be four stars orbiting each other. Alcor has been sometimes considered a fifth member of the system, orbiting far away from the Mizar quadruplet.

Now, an astronomer at the University of Rochester and his colleagues have made the surprise discovery that Alcor is also actually two stars, and is apparently gravitationally bound to the Mizar system, making the whole group a sextuplet. This would make the Mizar-Alcor sextuplet the second-nearest such system known. The discovery is especially surprising because Alcor is one of the most studied stars in the sky.

"Finding that Alcor had a stellar companion was a bit of serendipity," says Eric Mamajek, assistant professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Rochester, and leader of the team that found the star. "We were trying a new method of planet hunting and instead of finding a planet orbiting Alcor, we found a star.

KANO, Nigeria -- The boy stepped into the grubby street, looking both ways for traffic. He was wearing the clothes he wore yesterday and seemingly all the days before: a pair of too-big cotton pants and a black shirt so tattered that it seemed ready to fall off his body. His bony shoulders peeked through the holes where the sleeves once were stitched.

At an intersection, the 10-year-old beggar weaved between idling cars, his feet clapping the asphalt in mismatched flip-flops, one yellow, one red. He held out a plastic bowl and tried to lock eyes with the people behind the smudged car windows, hoping for a flash of sympathy, a rolled-down window, an outstretched arm proffering a crumpled bill.

Until a year ago, Ghaddafi Auwalu lived with his family on their small plot outside this fast-growing city in northern Nigeria. His parents sent him away, Ghaddafi said, for reasons that might be difficult for faraway people to understand: They had too many children, and they couldn't afford to look after him.

"I'm less of a burden to my mom if I am here," said the polite boy, the 11th child in a family of 12, not unusually large for this part of West Africa. "Now she'll have more time for my sisters and brothers."

Although it's frequently portrayed as a continent decimated by epidemics, starvation and war, Africa is gripped by one of the greatest population explosions ever recorded. Over the past 60 years, while birth rates in the rest of the developing world declined by half, Africa's population quadrupled to 1 billion, an epic baby boom that threatens to trap a generation of children in poverty and strangle economic progress across the world's neediest continent.

WASHINGTON -- With a new theory surfacing that toxic algae rather than asteroids killed the dinosaurs, scientists are still trying to unravel the mystery of what caused a massive algae bloom off the Northwest Coast that left thousands of seabirds dead and may have sickened some surfers and kayakers.

The bloom, which stretches roughly 300 miles from Newport, Ore., north to the Canadian border, still persists, though it's a shadow of its September and October peak.

Whipped by waves and storms, the microscopic phytoplankton, which had turned the ocean a rust color, broke apart, releasing toxins and creating a meringue-like foam that coated the feathers of birds like spilled oil. Up to 10,000 birds died of hypothermia in September, and researchers are still trying to come up with a count for October.

Researchers are also checking reports that surfers and kayakers who came in contact with the foam may have suffered cold-like symptoms, including temporary loss of smell and taste. The toxins also may have become aerosolized and affected beachcombers. In another strange twist, pathologists performing necropsies found that some of the birds lacked normal bacteria in their stomachs and other internal organs.

"It's definitely a warning sign of something," said Julia Parrish, a professor of aquatic and fishery sciences at the University of Washington. "We don't know what."

A new program from Google is helping environmentalists see the forest for the trees. Literally.

In Copenhagen on Thursday, the Internet giant launched a new technology that will allow governments, environmentalists and others to observe and measure on a global scale how the Earth's forests are changing. Google worked with the Carnegie Institution for Science and with Imazon, a non-profit research institution dedicated to sustainable development in the Amazon, to bring the project to life.

Using the "Google Cloud," the company's system of networked computers and computing power, the technology will be able to analyze deforestation and detect illegal logging in seconds, the company says. Indeed, in addition to helping scientists, it could also be a potential boon to local law enforcement. It will also lower the cost for nations to monitor and thereby protect their forests by providing an online platform to access and analyze the data collected. Google points out that Google Earth already allows people to view deforestation, but up until now there has been no way to measure the destructive activity.

"We hope this technology will help stop the destruction of the world's rapidly-disappearing forests," said Rebecca Moore, engineering manager, and Dr. Amy Luers, environment manager, of Google in a company blog post. The company is currently testing the service, but plans to making it more broadly available over the next year as a not-for-profit service.

The northern trade winds of the Canary Islands have long tempted daredevil windsurfers, but now the gusts rising up to 33 miles per hour are attracting giant wind turbines and the millions of euros behind them.

With their blades whirling, the 55 turbines that stand beyond the gray pebble beach of Pozo Izquierdo are stark, white symbols of a growing industry and the potential for abundant clean energy -- and corruption.

The town of Santa Lucía Tirajana, host to the annual Grand Slam windsurfing championships, was struck this year with gale force. A yearlong investigation by the Guardia Civil -- Spanish gendarmerie -- turned up irregularities in a plan to build a new wind park. Now the mayor, five town officials and two wind park developers are fighting criminal charges that include influence peddling, misuse of public office, misappropriation of land and bribery. The motivation? Up to €40 million in European Union subsidies.

This investigation and others taking place in Europe and the United States have shed light on the sometimes freewheeling approach of the fast-evolving wind energy industry. Stoking the frenzy in Europe is the vast revenue available through a variety of subsidies, including the European Union's farm subsidy system, which distributes more than €50 billion, or $73 billion, a year to farmers, corporate agribusiness and rural development projects.

As news spread around the conference centre, activists chanted "We stand with Africa - Kyoto targets now".

Informal talks continue, and the UN climate convention head said the formal agenda should resume in the afternoon.

Blocs representing poor countries vulnerable to climate change have been adamant that rich nations must commit to emission cuts beyond 2012 under the Kyoto Protocol.

But the EU and the developed world in general has promoted the idea of an entirely new agreement, replacing the protocol.