VideoElon Musk is succeeding in his ambition to make space launches boringly reliable, but it still understands that people like to watch things blowing up. To that end, SpaceX has released a video entitled "How Not to Land an Orbital Rocket Booster," showing footage of all the times its rockets didn't quite make the grade. …

VideoConspiracy theorists can stop looking for a grassy knoll near SpaceX's Cape Canaveral launch complex: the company reckons it's close to explaining why its September launch failed so spectacularly. The explosion destroyed a Falcon 9 rocket, roughly US$200 million of Facebook satellite payload, and extensively damaged the launch …

A replacement – and supposedly non-exploding – Samsung Galaxy Note 7 caught fire on a crowded aircraft today, we're told. Passengers on Southwest Airlines Flight 994 headed for the exits after a Galaxy Note 7 went into meltdown minutes before takeoff. The handset, owned by Brian Green of New Albany, Indiana, caught fire and …

UpdatedElon Musk has confirmed that today's SpaceX rocket explosion – which destroyed a $200m satellite – was caused by a cockup during fueling. Footage of the disastrous static firing test shows an inferno breaking out at the top of the Falcon 9 rocket, close to the fueling point for the liquid oxygen reservoir. After the initial …

AnalysisAt 0130 UTC on Wednesday, the United States Geological Survey recorded a magnitude 5.1 seismic event in North Korea, and shortly afterwards the Nork state media delivered the message that the country had exploded its first thermonuclear device. An H-bomb, in other words. "Let the world look up to the strong, self-reliant …

British Airways has denied that an exploding BlackBerry was to blame for a flight diversion this afternoon. AirLive.net tweeted that an errant BlackBerry caused Flight BA18 to make an unscheduled landing in Russia at around 1pm local time. But according to BA: “This is incorrect. There was no exploding BlackBerry. Our crew …

An explosion in Los Angles last night triggered a power blackout and data centre outage, which led to a knock-on impact for UK customers of LogMeIn today, who were left unable to access remote desktop services, The Register can reveal. The explosion in a Los Angeles high rise hospitalised two people and caused a power blackout …

UpdatedElon Musk's Falcon 9 rocket exploded after liftoff today over the blue skies of Cape Canaveral, Florida – the catastrophic failure happened within minutes of the launch. The unmanned SpaceX rocket was carrying the Dragon capsule on its seventh planned mission to the International Space Station. The pod had been loaded with …

The New Statesman has pulled off a bit of a blinder by whipping out a giant octopus to helpfully explain to readers just how much a manhole cover weighs. The good burghers of Buffalo, New York, were recently menaced by a flying metal disk as the result of an underground explosion, apparently prompted by an electrical cable …

A bloke on Long Island, New York, claims an iPhone 5C exploded in his pants, putting him in hospital for 10 days with second and third-degree burns. Incredible, isn't it? Someone bought an iPhone 5C. Apple has told The Register it is investigating the pocket bomb allegation. Erik Johnson, 29, who works as an escalator and …

VideoThree NASA cameras have picked up the fiery entrance and explosive exit of a 500lb (226kg) chunk of space rock in the skies over Pennsylvania in the wee small hours of Tuesday. Youtube Video The meteor was spotted at 0450 local time (0950 UTC) sixty miles above Beaver Falls. It was filmed by three video cameras that are part …

An Italian woman was left shaken but otherwise unhurt by an exploding artichoke, La Repubblica reports. The unnamed victim bought some fresh artichokes from her local supermarket in Olginate, some 40km northeast of Milan. When she laid into one with a knife, it went bang. Initially struck dumb by the shock, the poor woman …

A German chap who attempted fix a leaking inflatable mattress with "industrial strength" puncture repair spray prompted an industrial strength blast which caused €150,000 (£129,000; $200,600) worth of damage to his rented gaff. The unnamed 41-year-old had just moved into a house in Diepholz in Lower Saxony and, being a bit …

VidSensational news today from the Moon, as skywatchers say a huge explosion - as bright as a star, and visible from Earth with the naked eye - has been seen on the lunar surface. "It exploded in a flash nearly 10 times as bright as anything we've ever seen before," splutters Bill Cooke, a top NASA boffin. According to NASA, …

Controversial decisions by officials in Florida to arrest, charge and expel from school a teenage girl (and model student) for causing a totally harmless "explosion" by mixing household products in a plastic bottle are attracting widespread condemnation. Kiera Wilmot, 16, a student at Bartow High School in Florida, is no …

Aussies in the city of Perth have been left shaken by a wave of potentially deadly "bunker-buster" style terror explosions at ATMs as a crew of blaggers blast the machines open to rinse them of cash. Local cops, rattled by the devastating outrage rampage, have deployed police robots to battle the menace. The tally of hole-in- …

Many of us - most, perhaps - have carelessly spoken of putting a rocket up someone's backside. But now, a pioneering Australian researcher has shown that in fact this would be a highly unwise act: not only would the recipient of the combustibles be unlikely to be galvanised into helpful activity, he or she might also wind up in …

Maverick Pentagon crazytech agency DARPA has awarded itself a firm pat on the back after a detailed examination of its second HTV-2 test flight last year, in which the high-tech Mach 20 glider was destroyed 9 minutes into the trial and crashed into the Pacific. Concept art showing the HTV-2's fairing opening after ascent …