“It’s like a message in a bottle cast out into the stars. What’s interesting is not just whether there’s anyone listening, but what the public will say to intelligent life on another planet.”

Wilson da Silva, spokesman for the HelloFromEarth website, explains why the project is enabling people to text messages into space (Daily Telegraph).

“Why do we sometimes bite the insides of our own mouths?”

The latest message on the site.

“Professor Stephen Hawking was a brilliant man and a mediocre student … His work in theoretical physics — which I will not attempt to explain further here — has advanced our understanding of the universe.”

US President Barack Obama awards a Medal of Freedom to a very much alive Stephen Hawking.

“Some of Fera’s staff work on long-term wildlife research projects, looking at the relationship between badgers and cattle in the spread of bovine TB. Fera is therefore treating the case seriously, as it may represent infection by Mycobacterium bovis, the organism which causes bovine TB.”

Alison Wilson, head of executive support at the UK’s Food and Environment Research Agency, confirms one of the agency’s scientists may have caught TB from an infected badger (Times).