Just what did dinosaurs eat?

One way researchers are finding out is by studying coprolites, or fossilized dinosaur dung. And as it turns out, some dinosaurs ate rice plants. But if flowering plants like rice did not evolve until millions of years after dinosaurs lived—as evolution maintains—how could dinosaurs have eaten them?

A Hawaii-based astronomer announced at an October 19, 2011, NASA meeting the discovery of a young-looking planet forming near the star LkCa 15. "You can actually see the planet forming, as the process is happening right now," Adam Kraus, of the University of Hawaii's Institute of Astronomy, told the Associated Press.¹ But how does he know that it is forming?

Blue stragglers, according to NASA, "are older stars that acquire a new lease on life when they collide and merge with other stars."¹ But a new study calls into question whether stellar collisions can account for these remarkable stars. And blue stars burn their fuel so quickly that they actually look young.

The world's population will reach seven billion on October 31, 2011, according to the United Nations, and media outlets are heralding the issue of overcrowding on the planet. How long did it take for this many humans to be born?

Planets, including the earth, generate magnetic fields that encompass the space around them. Observations have shown that, like earth's, the planet Mercury's magnetic field is rapidly breaking down, and NASA's Messenger spacecraft confirmed that again earlier this year.

If the planets in the solar system are billions of years old, why do these magnetic fields still exist?