Earth may be in the midst of the greatest extinction ever, according to a new mass extinction scoring system. “The current extinction resembles none of the earlier ones, and may end up being the greatest of all,” write Istanbul Technical University researchers A. M. Celal Sengor, Saniye Atayman and Sinan Ozeren. Their system, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, attempts to quantify those periods when more than half of all species disappeared.

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Fans of extraterrestrial life may have been disappointed when Internet-fed rumors of Martian life ended in a NASA press conference on soil composition. But they can take solace in a newly popular theory that suggests the rest of space may teem with microbes.

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Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are eager to talk about religion. But why are they so scared of science? The two remaining Democratic presidential candidates recently agreed to participate in the Compassion Forum, scheduled for April 13 at Messiah College in Harrisburg, Pa. Billed as a conversation on faith and values, the event will be broadcast by the Church Communication Network. It also comes five days before a proposed science debate that was canceled after the candidates refused to participate.

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