'Borrowed corpse scam' leads to arrests

Two people have been arrested in South Africa for "borrowing" a corpse as part of an elaborate life insurance scam, police have said. A police spokesman said a woman in Durban had created a fake
identity and paid towards insurance policies. A funeral parlour owner then had someone else's corpse certified dead under the fictitious name, to help the life insurance claim, police said. The pair have been charged with

Maya 'doomsday' may actually be Sunday, archaeologist says

TULUM, Mexico – Hold on to your
doomsday fever, folks, the Maya
calendar date celebrated Friday as
the “end of the world” might
actually be off by two days – or a
full year.
The end of the 13th baktun cycle
of the so-called Long Count of the
ancient Maya’s intricate,
interlocking calendar system might

India on a mission to Mars in 2013

India is set to launch a mars mission in November 2013. India's Mars mission announcement comes on the heels of the landing of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, which touched down on the Red Planet on Aug. 5. The $2.5 billion Curiosity rover weighs a ton and is the size of a Mini Cooper car. NASA expects the rover to spend at least two years exploring its landing site, Gale Crater, to determine if the region could have ever supported microbial life.

India has been working to expand its space program in stages and successfully launched an unmanned orbiter to the moon in 2008. That spacecraft, called Chandrayaan-1, was instrumental in proving that water ice exists on the lunar surface.

The India Space Research Organisation, the country's space agency, is also developing the follow-up moon mission Chandrayaan-2, which is currently expected to launch in 2013 as well. The new mission is expected to include a lunar orbiter, like the Chandrayaan-1 flight, as well as a robotic lander and rover to explore the moon's surface.

India is also developing its own human spaceflight program and hopes to launch the nation's first manned spaceflight in 2015.