Geneva - The year so far has been marked by weather extremes across the planet and low levels of ice in the Arctic Sea, the World Meteorological Organization said Tuesday.

The overall ice volume in the sea during the melt season was the lowest since satellite measurements began in 1979. At the opposite pole, the Antarctic ozone hole was larger than in 2007.

London, December 16 : A probe by security experts has revealed that cyber criminals tend to work up a fortune by selling stolen Facebook profiles for an amount as low as 89p.

According to Trend Micro specialists, hackers break into social networking accounts to steal personal information of users to sell them off to criminal groups who then use the details to send "spam" messages to million others.

The wrong-doers tend to send an invitation to account holders to view videos or pictures of family and friends, which on being clicked allow access to the victims' computer, reports the Sun.

Washington, Dec 16 : Scientists at the California Institute of Technology, US, have observed one of the strongest solar flares of the past 30 years.

Solar flares are the most powerful explosions in the solar system. Packing a punch equal to a hundred million hydrogen bombs, they obliterate everything in their immediate vicinity.

Washington, Dec 16 : New calculations have shown that eating goose eggs may help polar bears weather climate change, as it would provide the animals with an alternative source of food.

Polar bears, Ursus maritimus, are listed as a threatened species under the United States' Endangered Species Act and are classified as "vulnerable with declining populations" under IUCN's Red List.

The new calculations show that changes in the timing of sea-ice breakup and of snow goose nesting near the western Hudson Bay could provide at least some polar bears with an alternative source of food.

Washington, Dec 16 : A new project, led by a University of Virginia (U. Va.) professor, is all set to survey more than 100,000 Milky Way stars, in an attempt to know more about the history of our galaxy.

The project, the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment, or APOGEE, is one of four experiments of the new Sloan Digital Sky Survey III, using the astronomical facilities at Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico.

Washington, Dec 16 : NASA has outlined its top ten science, exploration and discovery stories of 2008, the year in which the agency celebrated its 50th birthday.

The top ten accomplishments are: