Some 7,000 light years away, Einstein's theory of general relativity has stood up to its most intense test yet, scientists said on Thursday. The project involved observing a massive, fast-spinning star called a pulsar, and its companion white dwarf -- a smaller but very dense star that is dying, having lost most of its outer layers -- doing a dizzying orbital dance. The unusually heavy neutron star spins 25 times each second, and is orbited every two and a half hours by the white dwarf star, in a system dubbed PSR J0348+0432.

LONDON (Reuters) - The giant particle-smashing machine run by CERN outside Geneva is not only unravelling the mysteries of the universe, it may also be opening up new avenues to treat cancer. Now a small British company, Advanced Oncotherapy <AVO.L>, aims to tap into that know-how through a small deal announced on Wednesday to acquire a CERN spin-off business developing new forms of radiotherapy to fight tumours.

By Fredrik Dahl VIENNA (Reuters) - Radioactive gases that could have come from North Korea's nuclear test in February have unexpectedly been detected, a global monitoring body said on Tuesday, possibly providing the first "smoking gun" evidence of the explosion. But the April 9 measurement - almost two months after Pyongyang said it had carried out the underground detonation - gave no indication of whether plutonium or highly enriched uranium was used, it said.

The Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) office here on Tuesday said the hot summer would last up to next month despite the periodic cloudy skies with isolated rainshowers experienced here and surrounding areas.As predicted, the brief rainshowers here on Monday were able to give a slight degree of humidity to some grasslands now vulnerable to fire.Local weatherman Rolando Bagorio said the rainshowers here Monday were the effects of diffused tail end of the cold front as most parts of the country were affected by the easterly wi