Maria Zara

Russian billionaire Yuri Milner plans to personally provide $100 million for an effort to scan the skies for signs of intelligent alien life.

By CRACKED Readers  Published: February 16th, 2015 

TOKYO: Asian stocks fell early on Thursday as falling oil prices continued to feed into global growth concerns, while the dollar lost more ground against peers such as the yen and euro after a further drop in US bond yields. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.2 percent as another large drop in oil prices took a heavy toll on energy shares and hit Wall Street hard overnight. Crude oil prices fell as much as 5 percent overnight after data underscored weak US demand and Saudi Arabia reiterated that it has no plans to curb output. US crude posted a modest rebound early on Thursday after the overnight tumble, gaining 26 cents to $61.20 a barrel after falling to a 5-1/2 year low of $60.43 on Wednesday. Tokyo's Nikkei lost 1.6 percent, pulling further back from 7-1/2 year highs hit at the week's start, with sentiment bruised by the rout in US stocks, while the yen's rebound against the dollar showed little sign of ending. The dollar was down 0.1 percent at 117.610 yen, continuing its retreat from a seven-year high of 121.86 reached on Monday. The S P 500, at a record high just last...