Of the billions of stars in our Milky Way galaxy, 15 percent may host “twins” of our solar system, a new study says.

While that might not sound like much, the find suggests that several hundred million star systems look a lot like the one we call home, the study authors say.

The research is based on surveys of stars with gas giant planets—similar to Jupiter and Saturn—that orbit far from their stars. Read the full story

Dec. 18, 2009 – Autism disorders increased by 57% in just four years, the CDC today reported.

By the end of 2006, one in 110 U.S. kids had an autism disorder diagnosed by age 8: one in 70 boys and one in 315 girls, reflecting a nearly fivefold higher risk for males.

The new CDC estimate of autism prevalence, obtained from analysis of child evaluation records in 11 states, is virtually identical to autism numbers reported for 2007 from a huge telephone survey reported last October. Read the full story

Using sophisticated smuggling networks, the traffickers have transported a portion of the pilfered petroleum across the border to sell to U.S. companies, some of which knew that it was stolen, according to court documents and interviews with American officials involved in an expanding investigation of oil services firms in Texas.

The widespread theft of Mexico’s most vital national resource by criminal organizations represents a costly new front in President Felipe Calderón’s war against the drug cartels, and it shows how the traffickers are rapidly evolving from traditional narcotics smuggling to activities as diverse as oil theft, transport and sales. Read the full story

The Netherlands were the surprise beneficiary of FIFA’s late decision to abandon the principles of the 2002, 2006 World Cup draw’s seeding formula.

In those cycles, FIFA assigned weights to the two preceding World Cup finishes along with the end-of-year FIFA World Rankings from the last three years.

Today, when announcing the eight seeded teams that will be draw into separate groups for World Cup 2010, FIFA disclosed that the only factor in this year’s seeding was the October 2009 FIFA World Ranking.  The top seven nations from that last will join host nation South Africa as seeds for Friday’s draw. Read the full story

The Flu Case – I am a Swedish general practioner working in Belgium, and quite involved in this issue, as together with three citizens and another GP we advised the Belgian Government last Friday in court that this is a disguised pharmaceutical trial on human subjects, with real risks involved.

I put in two comments on the story (see below), that are quite relevant in the context that the Swedish Newspapers have seemingly stopped reporting the intermediary results of this disguised pharmaceutical trial. Read the full story

Cairo – At least 14 people were killed and 24 others injured in a collision between two trains on Saturday in Giza district southwest of the Egyptian capital, witnesses told AFP.

A security services official said: “The two trains collided at Al-Ayyat, in Giza. There are deaths and injuries.”

“The trains were travelling on the same track. One ran into the other as they headed towards Upper Egypt,” the official said. Read the full story

Trafigura chartered the Probo Koala to take the waste to Africa. Photograph: Raigo Pajula/AFP

The British oil trader Trafigura has offered to pay out in a historic damages claim from 31,000 Africans injured by the dumping of toxic waste in one of the worst pollution disasters in recent history, the Guardian can reveal. Read the full story

JERUSALEM: Video of the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was handed over to Israeli authorities yesterday in exchange for the release of 20 female Palestinian prisoners.

It was the first image of Sergeant Shalit released by the militant Palestinian nationalist movement Hamas since his capture in June 2006. Read the full story

(CNN) — Scientists have discovered the first confirmed Earth-like planet outside our solar system, they announced Wednesday.

“This is the first confirmed rocky planet in another system,” astronomer Artie Hatzes told CNN, contrasting the solid planet with gaseous ones like Jupiter and Saturn. Read the full story

Bryon Russell has a message for Michael Jordan: Whenever you’re ready, I’ll be waiting in California – in my basketball shorts.

“I’ll play his a— right now,” Russell told Yahoo! Sports. “This is a call-out for him to come play me. He can come out here in his private jet and come play. He’s got millions of dollars. He can pay for the jet. He can meet me at the Recreation Center in Calabasas. Read the full story

Jay-Z Stays Fresh On ‘The Blueprint 3′

The US Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, has just signed a decree granting vaccine makers total legal immunity from any lawsuits that result from any new “Swine Flu” vaccine. Moreover, the $7 billion US Government fast-track program to rush vaccines onto the market in time for the Autumn flu season is being done without even normal safety testing. Is there another agenda at work in the official WHO hysteria campaign to declare so-called H1N1 virus—which has yet to be rigorously scientifically isolated, characterized and photographed with an electron microscope—the scientifically accepted procedure—a global “pandemic” threat? Read the full story

Green Bay — On most days this off-season, Ryan Grant would emerge through the familiar Packers tunnel onto Lambeau Field, turn left and take off, starting at the aisle between Sections 131 and 133.

He sprinted every step – not skipping two at a time – running up and then down each and every aisle. Past the seats where the bikini girls brave the elements, past where the adoring await with open arms for the Lambeau Leap, past the press box and rows of critics, around to the scoreboard that so badly needs him and by the famous retired numbers of Hutson, Starr, Nitschke and White. Read the full story

LOS ANGELES, California, September 1, 2009 (ENS) – The level of inorganic mercury in the blood of American women has been increasing since 1999 and it is now found in the blood of one in three women, according to a new analysis of government data for more than 6,000 American women.

“My study found compelling evidence that inorganic mercury deposition within the human body is a cumulative process, increasing with age and overall in the population over time,” said author Dan Laks, a neuroscience researcher at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. Read the full story

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Walt Disney Co. is buying Marvel Entertainment Inc. for $4 billion in cash and stock, bringing such characters as Iron Man and Spider-Man into the family of Mickey Mouse and WALL-E.

Under the deal, which was announced Monday and is expected to close by the end of the year, Disney will acquire the rights to 5,000 Marvel characters. Many of them, including the Fantastic Four and the X-Men, were co-created by the comic book legend Stan Lee. Read the full story

For a world first, the announcement came with remarkably little fanfare.