A crew drilling on the Big Island of Hawaii has struck scientific gold after accidentally breaking into a molten lava chamber underground for the first time.
Magma - the molten rock that is the central ingredient in the evolution of planets, has never been found in its natural habitat before now.
The chance discovery far beneath the Earth's surface gives scientists an unprecedented opportunity to study the important substance.
As scientists, we've hypothesized about the nature and behavior of magma in literally countless studies, but before now the real thing has never been found or been physically investigated,' Professor Bruce Marsh from The Johns Hopkins University said.
Magma reaches temperatures of more than 1,000C underground before it is ejected from the earth in volcanoes in lava spouts.
'Once magma erupts, it begins cooling unusually quickly and it loses any gases that it may contain, so it really is a different animal,' Professor Marsh said.
'We've never seen, until now, the real animal in its natural habitat. And it's not going anywhere: it's caged, so to speak.'
The chamber also contains a highly unusual type called 'dacite', which is not common in the geology of Hawaii. It is believed to be made by, in effect, distilling basalt, the material which makes up the floor of the ocean.
Professor Marsh, nicknamed the 'Magma PI,' has spent his career investigating the processes by which magma is forced from the bowels of the planet to the surface and creates the geologic features - continents, mountains, valleys - among which we live.
He is collaborating on the find with William Teplow, a consultant to Nevada-based Ormat Technologies. They announced the discovery yesterday at the 2008 meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.
The company discovered the magma during drilling operations at its Puna Geothermal Venture power plant in October 2005.
They hit a chamber of the magma about a mile and a half down while drilling an injection well. The substance quickly rose about 20 feet up into the drill hole before becoming glasslike as it cooled. Ormat workers redrilled the area several times, with the same result.
The company has installed a permanent seismic and ground monitoring network to provide early warning of any impending volcanic activity for the power plant and
Drillers strike scientific gold after breaking into magma chamber by accident
Buried in each other's arms: Scientists discover remains of world's most ancient nuclear family
The Flintstones may not have been so far-fetched after all.
A team of archaeologists have discovered the remains of the earliest known nuclear family - a Stone Age mother, father and two sons who lived more than 4,600 years ago.
The find sheds tantalising new light on the life of our prehistoric ancestors living at the dawn of civilisation in Europe. It also suggests that modern family values have been thriving since before the time of Stonehenge.
The family - who appear to have been slaughtered in a raid by a rival tribe - were identified from fragments of DNA in their skeletons. The boys were aged eight and four.
They were buried near three other graves containing the skeletons of nine others.
Many of the bodies had injuries - suggesting that they were victims of a violent raid from a rival tribe or village. One women had a stone projectile point in her spine, and another had a fractured skull. Several bodies had injuries on their arms and hands.
Dr Alistair Pike, head of archaeology at the University of Bristol, who took part in the study, said: "This is a particularly significant find because it is the first time we can conclusively prove a family has been buried together.
"Graves which have been discovered pre-dating this find show mass collections of maybe hundreds of skeletons thrown together.
"This grave could be a watershed in the rise of the significance of the family, as previous evidence shows that around this time inheritable wealth became an important factor in family life.
"Whoever buried the family obviously knew they were family and deemed it important they were buried together facing one-another."
The burials took place in Germany around the same time that Stonehenge was being erected in England.
The family were buried near three other graves containing the skeletons of nine other people in a Stone Age cemetery at Eulau in Saxony-Anhalt.
They were discovered in 2005, but the DNA tests have only just been completed.
The mother was aged around 35 to 50 - old age for those days. She was carefully laid to rest on her left side with her head pointing towards the rising sun. The father - who was between 40 and 60 - was placed in a mirror position.
However, unusually for the period, the boys were positioned facing their parents, the scientists report in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Another 13 bodies were buried near by around the same time.
Other couples nearby were touchingly buried face-to-face with their arms and hands interlinked.
Each of the graves contained at least one child - ranging from newborn babies to children aged ten years old. There were no teenagers or young adults.
Dr Wolfgang Haak of the University of Adelaide, who led the study, said: "By establishing the genetic links between the two adults and two children buried together in one grave, we have established the presence of the classic nuclear family in a prehistoric context in Central Europe - to our knowledge the oldest authentic molecular genetic evidence so far.
'Their unity in death suggests a unity in life.'
As well as discovering the family ties between the bodies, the researchers also studied the chemical make up of their teeth to find out where they spent their childhood.
Growing teeth contain tell-tale traces of the minerals and metals in the food that a child eats.
They found that many of the women spent their childhoods in a different region from the men and children. That suggests that women were marrying out of their families and moving to the location of their new male partners.
Dr Alistair Pike said: 'Such traditions would have been important to avoid inbreeding and to forge kinship networks with other communities.'
The remains are now on permanent display in the Landesmuseum Sachsen-Anhalt in Germany.
The changes faced by our prehistoric ancestors
The third century BC was the end of an era for our prehistoric ancestors.
It was the dying days of the Stone Age, a time when the old bone and flint tools which had served mankind for millennia were being replaced with new-fangled metals like copper.
New farming techniques - and new livestock - were arriving from the warmer lands of the south and east.
And people were on the move - crossing the English Channel, exploring the islands off Europe's coast and trekking across the continent. 
The Neolithic farmers of Germany lived in small villages in rectangular homes made of wooden posts and twigs, covered in a thick layer of clay and chalk.
The roofs were thatched allowing smoke from the central fire to escape. The huts were large enough for a big family to huddle around the central fireplace.
By 2600BC prehistoric families had been farming for thousands of years.
They were skilled at growing wheat and barley, and keeping pigs, cattle and sheep.
Dogs had been domesticated and would have been used as companions as well as protection.
They used the wheat to make bread and cakes, and possibly even beer.
They still gathered what food they could from the wild - apples, nuts, cherries, honey, peas and berries.
Although Neolithic means new stone age, it should really be called the copper age. Copper axes and knives were used by the wealthy - although stone tools and arrow heads were more common.
The clothes were simple. They wore leather coats and jackets, woollen leggings and maybe even simple shoes made from animal skins tied up with twine. They made pots and beakers, and decorated them with a distinctive cord design.
Almost nothing is known about their culture and beliefs. But the tender way they treated the dead, placing tools and jewellery around the carefully positioned body, suggests a belief in the afterlife.
In Britain at this time, society was organised enough to arrange the creation of the huge monuments of Stonehenge - using vast slabs dragged from Wales - and Silbury Hill, a vast mound of earth 130ft high.
Thousands flee as wildfires scorch LA and threaten to plunge the city into darkness
Wildfires threatening Los Angeles could plunge the entire city and its 3.8million inhabitants into darkness.
A massive blaze in the heavily populated San Fernando Valley broke out on Thursday night, destroying dozens of properties and threatening vital power supply lines.
Fanned by 70mph winds, the fire has spread over 2,600 acres, forcing 10,000 residents to evacuate.
LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has declared a state of emergency.
He said: 'This is the worst fire we've had for more than a dozen years.
'People should prepare for rolling blackouts throughout the city.'
As these pictures show, the blaze has left some of the most sought-after addresses in southern California looking like the aftermath of a nuclear attack.
Yesterday, West Wing actor Rob Lowe, whose family was among the residents evacuated in the face of 200ft-high flames, described the bushfire transformation of the wealthy neighbourhood of Montecito as ‘like something from Armageddon’.
Mr Lowe told how he and his son were forced to flee their home after a phone call from his wife telling them to 'Get out'.
She said the Californian town of Montecito, a favourite celebrity hideaway where the actor's neighbours include Oprah Winfrey and John Cleese, was going up in flames.
'We got in the car and pulled out of the driveway and the entire mountain behind us was in flames 200 feet high, shooting into the air,' he said.
'It was like something from Armageddon.'
Neighbours in the posh suburb were last night still coming to terms with the damage wreaked by what started as a small fire in the hills above the town.
Within five hours 100 luxury homes – one belonging to Back To The Future actor Christopher Lloyd – had been reduced to ashes.
Cars were left charred, their alloy wheels melting in the inferno. Fanned by 70mph winds, known locally as ‘sundowners’, the fire raged out of control over 2,000 acres of prime California real estate.
More than 1,000 firemen, supported by water-dropping helicopters, fought the fire as temperatures reached in excess of 70C (158F).
The only consolation was that just 13 people were injured.
So far the huge wildfire has destroyed at least 70 multi-million dollar mansions in the town.
Rosie Neeley, 31, fled with her parents before their house was consumed by fire overnight.
'When we saw the flames coming down the canyon, we knew it was too late.' she said.
Longtime residents Cheryl and Gary Jensen, both 59, said they, too, were first alerted to the danger by a phone call and drove away as flames neared.
They returned yesterday to find their $2million home leveled, a half-melted refrigerator still visible in the remains of their kitchen.
'It's all dust now,' said Mrs Jensen.
The brush fire engulfed more than 800 acres in about six hours on Thursday, ripping through entire blocks of mansions in a community dubbed 'America's Riviera.'
TV helicopters showed several large homes in flames on the steep hillsides of the town around five miles south of the city of Santa Barbara.
Firefighters were largely powerless to stop the destruction.
Montecito is about 90 miles from Los Angeles in coastal Santa Barbara County.
Comedian Cleese recently listed his £6m oceanfront Montecito home, he co-owns with his third ex-wife Alyce Faye Eichelberger, for sale.
The Monty Python star also had an equestrian ranch in the town which he sold in July for £8.3m.
About 2,500 residents were forced to flee the flames, and 20,000 people in the wider area were without power.
'From just watching, it’s grown significantly in size. It’s a very serious situation.
'Emergency personnel are in the area. We’ve got calls out for additional emergency personnel,' Santa Barbara county spokesman William Boyer told theThe Santa Maria Times.
'It looked like lava coming down a volcano,' Leslie Hollis Lopez said as she gathered belongings from her house.
'It’s very tenuous. We’re hoping the winds are favorable.'
Michaelo Rosso told KCAL TV as he prepared to leave his home: 'You can just hear the explosions ... of vehicles, homes,' . 'It sounds like the Fourth of July out here.'
A residence hall and several classrooms were destroyed at Westmont College, a private Christian university, and about 800 students were evacuated to the school's fireproof gymnasium, where they were out of harm's way.
By early Friday, the relentless fire had spread five miles north to the fringes of Santa Barbara city, where at least 20 homes were damaged, officials said.
In an unusual - and risky - move, three water-dropping helicopters were dispatched to the area. Such missions are not normally undertaken at night.
Many of the homes in the area are holiday or second homes.
Other residents include mobile-phone pioneer Craig McCaw, and Google Inc chief executive Eric Schmidt, who reportedly paid about $20m for comedian Ellen DeGeneres' compound earlier this year.
Moon mission inspires India to launch own version of Google Earth
Space-hungry India is planning to launch an improved version of Google Earth using its own satellite system, just weeks after conquering the moon.
Its space agency hopes to unveil a prototype of Bhuvan - the Sanskrit for Earth - by December and launch the programme to the public by March.
Officials claim the mapping system will generate clearer images and zoom into a distance of just 10m.
The state-owned service, which will initially cover only India, will be free to use on the web.
'We've created a lot of value added products out of satellite data of the Indian region', Dr. V. Jayaramna, a director at Isra, told the Financial Times.
'We will introduce Bhuvan in phases. Over the next three to four months, the first lot [of map data] will come out and then more in a systematic manner.'
The move comes just weeks after India stepped up its position in the space race with the blast-off of the country's first unmanned space mission to the moon. 
Chandrayaan-1, which was built by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), will create a 3D map of the lunar surface over two years.
India is following in the footsteps of rival China, after the emerging Asian power celebrated its first space walk in September.
'What we have started is a remarkable journey,' G. Madhavan Nair, chairman of ISRO, said.
Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter is expected to mark the achievement tomorrow as it drops a probe, painted in the colours of the Indian flag, on the moon's surface.
But critics argue that India should address the poverty at home before competing with space leaders including China and Japan.
The latest project has sparked speculation that India will develop its own global positioning system, providing for TomTom-like devices for cars.
It is already working towards a satellite-based global aviation navigation system.
And scientists revealed earlier this week that designs for an Aditya spacecraft to study the sun are nearly complete.
Google Earth displays satellite images of varying resolution of the Earth's surface, giving users a bird's eye view of things like houses and cars.
Mysterious glowing aurora over Saturn confounds scientists
A stunning light display over Saturn has stumped scientists who say it behaves unlike any other planetary aurora known in our solar system.
The blueish-green glow was found over the ringed planet's north polar region just like Earth's northern lights.
It was discovered by the infrared instruments on NASA's Cassini spacecraft.
'We've never seen an aurora like this elsewhere,' said Tom Stallard, a scientist working with Cassini data at the University of Leicester.
'This aurora covers an enormous area across the pole. Our current ideas on what forms Saturn's aurora predict that this region should be empty, so finding such a bright aurora here is a fantastic surprise.'
Auroras are caused by charged particles streaming along the magnetic field lines of a planet into its atmosphere.
Particles from the sun cause Earth's auroras. Many, but not all, of the auroras at Jupiter and Saturn are caused by particles trapped within the magnetic environments of those planets.
Jupiter's main auroral ring is caused by interactions in Jupiter's magnetic environment and remains constant in size. Saturn's main aurora is caused by the solar wind, and changes size dramatically as the wind varies. However, the newly observed aurora at Saturn doesn't fit into either category.
The new infrared aurora appears in a region hidden from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Cassini observed it when the spacecraft flew near Saturn's polar region.
In infrared light, the aurora sometimes fills the region from around 82 degrees north all the way over the pole. This new aurora is also constantly changing, even disappearing within a 45 minute-period.
'There is something special and unforeseen about this planet's magnetosphere and the way it interacts with the solar wind and the planet's atmosphere,' Cassini scientist Nick Achilleos from the University College London said.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency.
