About once a day the gamma-ray sky is lit up by a burst of radiation lasting a fraction of a second. The bursts are isotropic and thus strongly suggestive of a cosmological origin. Speculations abound on

their origin: flares from highly magnetized neutron stars, coalescence of neutron stars (with another neutron star or black hole) and so on. The coalescence model has great implications for graviational wave interferometers (LIGO and LISA). In addition such events may contribute significantly to the store of "r process" elements. Over the past six months there has been great progress in this field (in major part due to work done here) and the speaker will summarize these findings as well as anticiapte and speculate future developments.