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David Hunter, Dean for Academic Affairs and Vincent L. Gregory Professor in Cancer Prevention, is the contact principal investigator for a four-year, $10.5 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to continue studying the genetic and biological mechanisms that contribute to cancer. The new study aims to discover additional genetic variants associated with risk of breast cancer; characterize the function of variants discovered to date; and assess how these may interact with environmental factors and what their utility may be in predicting breast cancer risk — ideally leading to new insights that can eventually be translated into better ways of preventing and treating the disease. The grant brings together projects led by Doug Easton of the University of Cambridge, UK, John Quackenbush of the HSPH Department of Biostatistics, and Peter Kraft of the HSPH Departments of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and numerous colleagues.

The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA] and partner iRobot Corp. [NASDAQ: IRBT] today announced that they have received an initial contract with the U.S. Air Force to provide Small Unmanned Ground Vehicles (SUGV) to its Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team. The contract calls for up to 70 model 310 SUGV robots, with an initial value of $3.84 million. The Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity contract will run through September 2012.

NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, caught a glimpse of the comet that the agency's EPOXI mission will visit in November. The WISE observation will help the EPOXI team put together a large-scale picture of the comet, known as Hartley 2.

Two asteroids are due to whiz past the Earth on Wednesday according to NASA.

The US space agency has said the two small asteroids, which were discovered just days ago, will be visible through a telescope.

Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, have discovered a true counterpart of the cerebral cortex in an invertebrate, a marine worm.

NASA has begun development of a mission to visit and study the sun closer than ever before. The unprecedented project, named Solar Probe Plus, is slated to launch no later than 2018.

Hurricane Earl, currently a Category Two storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale with maximum sustained winds of 100 knots (115 miles per hour), continues to push relentlessly toward the U.S. East Coast, and NASA scientists, instruments and spacecraft are busy studying the storm from the air and space. Three NASA aircraft carrying 15 instruments are busy criss-crossing Earl as part of the agency's Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes mission, or GRIP, which continues through Sept. 30.

Breaches of electronic records last year involved more insider threats, greater use of social engineering and the continued strong involvement of organized criminal groups, according to communication giant Verizon's 2010 Data Breach Investigations Report, in collaboration with the U.S. Secret Service. However, the overall number of breaches investigated last year declined from the previous year—"a promising" indication, the study said.

NASA mission controllers have not heard from the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit since March 22, and the rover is facing its toughest challenge yet -- trying to survive the harsh Martian winter.

American and Canadian scientists are setting sail this summer to map the Arctic seafloor and gather data to help define the outer limits of the continental shelf.