A probe finds Dilma’s government taking shortcuts to achieving competitiveness for the country.
Category: Future
REYKJAVIK – Mid-February this year, British tabloids published the news that Iceland’s leftwing-green Minister of the Interior Ögmundur Jónasson wanted to limit access to online porn on the island. Ways of doing that, according to the minister, could be to block certain IP addresses, or to make it impossible to pay certain sites with an […]
MILAN – A few weeks ago, half a million people watched him brush his teeth. Two million people discovered that tears don’t run down his face. Four million watched him squeeze a soaking-wet dishtowel. Meet Colonel Chris Hadfield. He’s Canadian, 53, and very proud of his mustache. Yet something differentiates him from all other people […]
PIAUÍ – A scientific article by French and Brazilian researchers brings major new findings to the discussion on the date humans arrived to the American continent. It analyzed three archeological sites in Piauí, in northeastern Brazil, and shows evidence that the region was inhabited by humans 22,000 years ago. The researchers’ discoveries, published in the […]
NEWS OF ICELAND (Iceland) Worldcrunch REYKJAVIK – Iceland is an island in the far north of Europe, just south of the Arctic Circle, known for musical talents Bjork and Sigur Ros and popular crime writer Arnaldur Indridason. Not much else. Aside maybe for the fact that everyone in Iceland is related. Yes, everyone in Iceland […]
BERLIN – The traffic on this German road moves along in a neat pattern, changed only when a car makes a right. When it does, Markus Behrendt turns to look out the window. He may only have seen the turning car – a change in pattern – out of the corner of his eye, but […]
PARIS – The combination of the Arab Spring and the economic crisis in southern Europe has led to a quiet panic spreading in hospitals across the Mediterranean Basin. “With the disorganization of medical services, the number of infections resisting most known antibiotics has literally exploded,” says professor Patrice Nordmann, chief of the bacteriology-virology-parasitology department at […]
Categories
Penguins Bask In Global Warming
TVNZ (New Zealand); SCIENCE WORLD REPORT; PLOS ONE JOURNAL Worldcrunch BEAUFORT ISLAND – A new study published this week by U.S. and New Zealand researchers shows that there are actually some winners when it comes to global warming: the Adélie penguins. The study, published in the PLOS One journal, shows that the colony of Adélie […]
AAP, PLOS ONE (Australia) Worldcrunch SYDNEY – A new study from Australian scientists has concluded that animals are just as tempted by tasty treats as we humans are. In an article published in the PLOS One journal on Wednesday, researchers found that rats exposed to what they call a “cafeteria diet” increased their bodyweight by […]
Worldcrunch SEATTLE – Did you ever wonder what the Big Bang sounded like? Physics Professor John Cramer at the University of Washington has spent a chunk of his career trying to recreate what the ecoustic experience was like back billions of years ago when the universe was formed. Cramer has just released his most precise […]
LA STAMPA (Italy) Worldcrunch PARIS – These are not the sorts of “islands” where you’d plan your next tropical vacation. Located in vast areas of the world’s Oceans, by some accounts comprising an area twice as big as Texas, they are home to neither human nor animal life. Instead these islands are instead simply monstrious […]
HINDUSTAN TIMES, ECONOMIC TIMES (India) NEW YORK TIMES (USA) Worldcrunch NEW DELHI — In a landmark decision on Monday, India’s Supreme Court rejected a application by pharmaceutical giant Novartis for a major cancer drug patent, a ruling that could clear the way for cheaper generic versions of medicines to continue to be distributed around the […]
It may also turn you into a hypochondriac.
In modern life, artificial light is pervasive. A lack of natural darkness not only stops city dwellers from seeing the stars, it can cause real harm to both the environment, and human health.
BYTOM – In this desolate coal-mining town in southern Poland, every fifth resident is unemployed. You can see the impact of mining on the surroundings in this rugged region of Silesia: damaged buildings and streets, and the remains of industrial structures. Many of Bytom’s store and home windows are boarded up or covered in bricks. […]
ABC NEWS, HERALD SUN, MONASH UNIVERSITY (Australia) Worldcrunch MELBOURNE – An ingredient used in cough syrup could hold the key to improving memory, language skills and learning in people with Down syndrome. Researchers from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, believe BTD-001, an ingredient in cough syrup that was discovered in the 1920s, could help with […]
Way better than an inflatable iPad!
STOCKHOLM – “This is happening right now in Homs, Syria…” Hans Eriksson shows a shaky video of column of smoke just after a bombing from Bashar al-Assad’s troops. Bambuser is the name of the service launched by this 44-year-old Swede, which allows any smartphone user to broadcast live what’s happening in front of him – […]
BERLIN – How fast is evolution? Pretty fast, according to a recent study by researchers at the University of Tulsa published in the scientific journal Current Biology. An estimated 80 million birds are killed by cars each year. In Europe too, millions of birds die the same way. But over the past 30 years, the […]
Worldcrunch MOUNTAIN VIEW – Google has made it easier to search for GIFs and other animations on their Google image search engine. Enter your search term into Google images, click the search tools button and under Any Type, click animations on the drop down menu – voilà! In celebration of this, here are some of […]
KOREA TIMES, YONHAP, KOREA INFORMATION SECURITY AGENCY (South Korea), AP Worldcrunch SEOUL – Two banks and three major broadcasting stations in South Korea went into shutdown mode on Wednesday in what is a suspected hacking from North Korea. According to Korean news agency Yonhap, three broadcasters, three banks and two insurance firms reported to the […]
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN, TEPCO, KYODO (Japan) Worldcrunch TOKYO – Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) announced on Tuesday that cooling systems at the Fukushima nuclear plant have been partially restored after a power failure had suspended cooling operations at three spent fuel ponds on Monday. Map Saneef/Babbage The shutdown of cooling systems occurred after a power […]
Can you guess what demographic smells the worst?
PARIS – “It was an intense challenge but absolutely awesome!” says actress Ellen Page (Juno, Inception) about the new PlayStation game Beyond: Two Souls. Page interprets every scene using the same performance-capture technology as Avatar, which records movement and voice. The game, created by French developer Quantic Dream, and to be released in October, pushes […]
Beware of “Ransomware”…
LES ECHOS (France), EU OBSERVER (Belgium), BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP (USA), WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM, DATA PROTECTION IN EUROPE Worldcrunch BRUSSELS – This week, more than 90 leading academics across Europe launched a petition to support the European Commission’s draft data protection regulation, reports the EU Observer. The online petition, entitled Data Protection in Europe, says “huge […]
Categories
Big Brother – Now With Added Intelligence
Advances in software for surveillance video help make cameras “smart” about the footage they are collecting of all of us.
Those who managed to survive the March 11, 2011 disaster that killed nearly 19,000 have suffered from both physical and social fallout.
Concrete Canvas, YouTube Worldcrunch CARDIFF – Introducing the concrete tent: It’s made of a material called Concrete Canvas and needs only water and air to “pitch it.” The material has all the elements of concrete, but is flexible enough to move before it hardens. Inspired by plaster casts for broken bones, the fibers of the […]
TURIN – Marco* was dragged here by his parents. He is 17 and spends 16 hours a day glued to the computer. Two years of school down the drain and no friends. But he still doesn’t get it. “I’m fine,” he says. He wakes up at two in the afternoon and goes to bed at […]
CNN (USA), THE GUARDIAN (UK), THE VOICE OF RUSSIA (Russia) Worldcrunch ATLANTA – Mississippi doctors say they have cured a two-year-old girl born with HIV after very early treatment with standard drug therapy – the first time such a case has been documented. Dr Deborah Persaud, a virologist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore who […]
Computer wizard Jinha Lee from MIT (Massachussets Institute of Technology) designed an interactive three dimensional computer called SpaceTop. With a LED screen and two cameras, the interface allows you to manipulate 3D objects. The young whiz said that “It shouldn’t be in the hands of scientists, it should be in the hands of normal people,” […]
PARIS – In 140 characters of hacker jargon, French security company Vupen tweeted on Oct. 30, 2012 that they had discovered a security flaw in Windows 8 and that they were selling it to the highest bidder. Our first 0day for Win8+IE10 with HiASLR/AntiROP/DEP & Prot Mode sandbox bypass (Flash not needed) is ready for […]
TALLINN – It’s 4 p.m., and night is already falling on Tallinn. The wind is freezing. Covered in snow, the old Soviet military barracks located on the outskirts of Estonia’s capital city look like the set of a Cold War movie. Uniformed soldiers occasionally cross the courtyard. You almost expect James Bond to suddenly come […]
Not many years ago, the concept of “neuromarketing” was presented as a revolutionary discipline. Introduced as the newest buzz word along such topics as neuroscience, emotions, sensory, unconscious, subliminal, neuromarketing was presented as the key to understanding consumer behavior. Those most passionate about the subject promised companies that it could even help them read their […]
LIMA – You’ve seen highway billboards advertising some rest-stop or hotel: “Oasis, Next Exit.” Now in Peru, there’s a billboard that actually is itself something of an oasis. The Technology and Engineering University of Peru has installed a billboard panel along the Panamericana Sur (PanAmerican highway) highway that generates 96 liters of drinkable water a […]
DIE WELT (Germany), AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MICROBIOLOGY (USA) Worldcrunch BERLIN – The main ingredient in beer is yeast, which is a complex microorganism – a microbe from the fungi kingdom. To make beer, you need microbes, fermentation and bacteria. While this may seem like too much information, here’s the cool truth: beer is actually good […]
A 30-year battle ends in victory for owners of land that French energy giant Areva wanted to mine for uranium.
MOSCOW – After the meteorite shower and the damage it caused last Friday, Russian scientists say the threat from the sky is serious — and something must be done. Scientists recommended that the threat could be minimized by creating a network of modern telescopes, at a cost of around two billion dollars. These experts suggested […]