Terrence Connors, Ceglia’s attorney, produced a copy of the two-page “work for hire” contract that his client said entitles him to control of Facebook.
Connors told the judge that Ceglia was a Web designer trying to develop a project known as “StreetFax” in the spring of 2003.  His plan was to put millions of photos of streets into a database and charge insurers money to access it.
“What he needed was a coder,” Connors told the judge.
Ceglia solicited bids to do the work, saying that Zuckerberg was the lowest bidder at $1,000.
“But …

A huge ball of brightly burning gas drifting through a neighboring galaxy may be the heaviest star ever discovered — hundreds of times more massive than the sun, scientists said Wednesday after working out its weight for the first time.
Those behind the find say the star, called R136a1, may once have weighed as much as 320 solar masses. Astrophysicist Paul Crowther said the obese star — twice as heavy as any previously discovered — has already slimmed down considerably over its lifetime.
In fact, it’s burning itself off with such intensity …

Doctors may be able to use a small recording device to automatically screen young children for autism based on how they talk, US researchers said on Monday.
The small device fits into a child’s pocket and analyzes words spoken by the child during the day. A software program then evaluates how the child makes certain sounds.
A group of researchers led by Kimbrough Oller at the University of Memphis analyzed more than 3 million words collected from 232 children between 10 months and 4 years old.
The program correctly identified an existing autism …

The government’s oil spill chief tried to tamp down fears Tuesday that BP’s capped well is buckling under the pressure, saying that seepage detected along the sea floor less than two miles away is coming from an older well no longer in production.
Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen also said at least five leaks have been discovered around the well machinery, but he dismissed them as “very small drips” — “not unlike an oil leak you might have in your car.”
Over the past few days, since a 75-ton cap was …

Motorola Inc. said Monday that it is selling most of its wireless network division to Nokia Siemens Networks, a Finnish-German joint venture, for $1.2 billion as part of a planned breakup of the company.
The division supplies wireless carriers such as Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Corp. with the equipment they need to connect to cell phones. It’s not a big player in an industry dominated by LM Ericsson AB and Alcatel-Lucent, but it does have valuable relationships with U.S. and Japanese carriers that Nokia Siemens hopes to exploit.
About 7,500 employees …