i hate to sound like a noob but what are Anomilies and how do they affect the game?
A list of them would be nice too.

You can pretty much orient yourself on good old botf for that. Anomalies are "abnormalies" hence things that are not normal.

There are 3 subcategories of anomalies, spatial, subspace and temporal anomalies.

Basically it's anything on the map that you can't colonise. So basically Blackholes, Nebulas, Neutron Stars, X-Ray Pusars, and Wormholes. There may even be some new ones in Supremacy. You'll have to wait and see on that front...

BTW

does parking a survyor ship on an anomilly like a nebula or x-ray pulsar boost reacerch?

if not then it would be a cool feature, like say you park a surveyor on a x-ray pulsar. after x turns you can see which sector the pulsar is scrambleing, then after xxx turns you can configure ships to ignore the sensor scramble effect

It will - just not yet. And you'll have to specifically command a ship to map space, it won't be automatic. Doing so will also be the only way of finding Wormholes...

Have a look Here for more info on scanning and research.

w8 so how do you order a scan of a pulsar?

You can't - YET. Scanning for ANYTHING hasn't been added in the game yet. It will be added in as part of a future update. Scan/map space will be a selectable option just like engage, evade, and so on in the fleet menu once this update has been released.

do nebulas affect sensors?

Yes they will - you may be able to hide entire fleets in Nebulas. But there may also be certain special events tied to Nebulas. Since Mike hasn't actually approved my random events list yet I won't say what these special events will be, but hiding a fleet in a Nebula may sometimes be a bit damaging to your fleet strength...

like in ST:legacy?

No idea sorry. I've never played Legacy.

it ok,
legacy is almost like a flight sim but u have objectibes

in 1 mission there are a buncha nebulas, if you fly into 1 you experince hull erosion