As if the technical delays and budget overloads Popular Mechanics outlined in our recent feature on the Airbus A380 jumbo jet weren’t enough, new concerns about the mega-plane’s exemption from fuel-tank conflagration rules popped up the same day that the A380 received approval for lift-off. In other airline-industry news, United and Continental could be headed for a merger, just a month after US Airways’ bid to take over Delta.

Though astronauts are back working on a tricky maneuver today, NASA’s just-launched Discovery crew and the International Space Station team had to take cover last night from the dangerous radiation in a solar flare—a common “burp” from the sun that can block your GPS unit down here on Earth. Meanwhile, as NASA tries to rally international cooperation for its new moon base, the Bush Administration—which linked an immigration raid to identity theft today—is reasserting its right to defend the country against potential attacks to satellites and other space assets.

Flying squirrels might have a very important new ancestor—one that wasn’t backing down to any dinosaurs, researchers are reporting in tomorrow’s issue of the journal Nature. Fossil findings show that mammals took to glided flight 75 million years earlier than expected, around the same time—maybe even earlier—than birds. –Matt Sullivan