On October 26, strategically placed explosives breached the Condit Dam in Washington state in order to reopen the White Salmon River to salmon and other aquatic animals.

The fossilized bird known as Archaeopteryx has had quite a history of identity crises. Researchers once classified it as a "missing link" between dinosaurs and birds. It was considered to be an ancient bird, then changed to a dinosaur, and now it's supposed to be a bird again. So, what is it?

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.