“The spaceport will be open next year and we will hopefully test flights into space next year. I will not say whether [commercial flights] will be 2011, 2012 or 2013; it’s going to be when we’re ready.”

Will Whitehorn, chief executive of Virgin Galactic, says test flights for the space tourism firm are coming in 2011 (Reuters).

“I can’t prove that there’s cause and effect, but I suspect I was so much persona non grata that the university began to look forward to getting rid of me. Now in about a year we will close the unit unless a miracle happens.”

Edzard Ernst, Britain’s leading researcher of complementary medicine, says his influential centre at the University of Exeter faces closure, and it might be down to a spat with the Prince of Wales (Times).

“This is an esoteric effect that physics says has to happen. It’s interesting, but it has no particular consequence on anything.”

David Kerridge, of the British Geological Survey, says we shouldn’t worry about the fact that the earthquake that hit Chile recently shifted the planet’s axis and shortened our day by 1.26 millionths of a second (WSJ).