Surely we know everything we can about Darwin?

The Astronomer Royal believes humanity's future lies in the stars. But, as he tells Paul Bignell, we will first have to change our ways

Harlequins 23 Bath 9

A man called Sam Langford seemed to have some permanent unfinished business with his truly great rival Henry Wills, and they fought as many as 21 rematches.

A bird-brained philosophy of science

The case of a major new housing development being threatened by a population of nightingales, reported in The Independent on Thursday, is to become a legal battle.

Remember ant farms? Two sheets of glass filled with earth and topped off with a cartoon rendering of a Midwestern cattle ranch? In my experience, they seemed to offer a matchless way for a budding entomologist to study the process by which live ants turn into dead ones – or, just occasionally, how excitable human matriarchs can become when the ant colony breaks free and heads across the kitchen for the sugar bag. Having watched Planet Ant: Life Inside the Colony, though, I can see that these rudimentary affairs barely deserved the name of ant farm.

They lived in Edwardian England at a time of impeccable manners and stiff upper lips, but for these two gentleman scientists something very bitter and acrimonious must have happened to destroy a 25-year collaboration on the study of microscopic sea-shells collected from the other side of the world.

Now that you know the world is about to end, there's only one thing for it: visit the official website! Yes indeed, apocalypse-lovers, there is a website devoted to the irreducible, incontrovertible, almost-inexplicable fact that the world is destined to end on December 21st. The Drip particularly recommends the "General Information" tab at December212012.com*.

Poverty causes people to spend more time obsessively worrying about short-term problems which can make matters worse according to a study that could explain why being poor leads to a cycle of deprivation.

European plans to restrict high-frequency trading (HFT) – the computer-driven, millisecond dealing in shares – should be resisted, according to a UK government-sponsored report.

Planet Earth is "about 9,000 years old," and the study of evolution, embryology, and the Big Bang Theory is based on "lies straight from the pit of hell," according to a Congressman responsible for crafting US government policy on science and technology.

It has been 10 years since universal free entry to the permanent collections of the UK's elite group of national museums and galleries was introduced by the Labour Government. Following a campaign led by the museums themselves, the Art Fund and others, entry charges were dropped in stages – for children in 1999, the over-60s in 2000 and finally for all visitors from 1 December 2001.