Worldcrunch
BERLIN – It is a scientific theory of longevity that has the whiff of homemade pie: people live longer thanks to the grandmothers who help raise them. Though first put forth more than a half-century ago, the “grandmother hypothesis” has gotten renewed attention with a recent study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society […]
THE KOREA HERALD (South Korea), BBC NEWS (UK) Worldcrunch SEOUL – South Korea has shut down two nuclear reactors after it was revealed that some parts used had not been properly vetted, reports BBC News. Almost all the parts were used in a nuclear power complex in Yeonggwang, which is located some 330 kilometers southwest […]
LE MONDE (France), VICE, USENIX SECURITY (USA) Worldcrunch Remember that scene in Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi when Darth Vader learns about Luke’s sister just by reading his thoughts? “Your thoughts betray you,” says Darth Vader Well the same might just happen to you soon – and if you don’t happen to […]
Worldcrunch As Sandy pummels the United States, the Pacific typhoon season has been well underway on the other side of the world, resulting in some 500 deaths and $3.36 billion in total damages in Asia. Take a look at the five storms that you may have missed: 1. Typhoon KhanunIn mid-July, Typhoon Khanun swept over […]
PARIS – The new tablets and smartphones have blurred the boundaries between businesses and their employees, partners and customers. The danger of computer piracy has never been so great. The threat is invisible but incessant, as the recent large-scale attack on British bank HSBC shows. In information technology, we live in a time of fantastic […]
Were they the “right rats?” The controversial study by Gilles-Eric Séralini of the University of Caen, on the toxicity of genetically modified NK603 corn and the weed killer Roundup, has raised a host of questions concerning the type of rodent used in the experiment. Is the Sprague-Dawley rat appropriate for two-year feeding experiments, when this […]
LE NOUVELLISTE (Haiti), CNN, THE MIAMI HERALD (US) Worldcrunch Hurricane Sandy has torn across the Caribbean, leaving 21 people dead in its wake, and is expected to make landfall in New England early next week. Forecasters warned that the late-season storm could wreak havoc along America’s east coast, making landfall sometime before Halloween, provoking many […]
A new study finds plastic debris on the floor of the once pristine Arctic Ocean, the latest sign of environmental damage of global waste.
RAMALLAH – The smiling receptionist indicates that I should take a seat, so I settle into one of the lobby’s leather chairs. On a glass table, there’s the latest issue of an American business magazine and a day-old local paper. Flowery wall art contrasts with the space’s cool modernism. But this high tech company is […]
STERN, SPIEGEL ONLINE (Germany), DIARIO CÓRDOBA (Spain), LA STAMPA (Italy), IZVESTIA/RIA NOVOSTI (Russia), CENTRAL NEWS (Japan), PEOPLE.COM (China), EPOCH TIMES (Chinese-language, U.S.) Worldcrunch From Chinese labs to German geology groups, the aftershocks are being felt across the global scientific community. Earlier this week, six seismologists and an official in the Italian city of L’Aquila were […]
GENEVA – The female mice are chasing the males around the cage; they raise their behinds in order to sniff their genitals, some even biting the males’ private parts. It is a strange spectacle, monitored by researchers from the University of Geneva (Unige). The phenomenon is described in an article in the latest issue of […]
THE TELEGRAPH, THE BBC (UK) Worldcrunch LONDON – That mindless — and seemingless harmful — act of leafing through waiting-room magazines can pose real health risks, according to National Health Service (NHS) officials in the UK. Officials have warned dentists around the country that old magazines may be responsible for spreading bacteria and should be […]
IT SECURITY RESEARCH GROUP (Germany), HONEYNET PROJET Worldcrunch A red dot is an attack on a computer, a yellow dot is a “honeypot,” a system set to record incoming cyber attacks. On the bottom of the screen, a box tells you where the attacks are coming from (Friday was mostly Eastern Europe). You are not […]
For many researchers, one measure of intelligence is the ratio of brain size to body weight. But that would mean that the tiny mammal known as the shrew would be capable of great intellectual accomplishments, which it is not presently known for. Why is this? A human brain weighs 1.3 to 1.5 kilos (2.9 to […]
HAMBURGER ABENDBLATT, SENCKENBERG INSTITUT (Germany) Worldcrunch FRANKFURT – German scientists discovered what may be the world’s biggest spider species in a limestone cave in Laos, the Hamburger Abendblatt reports. Researchers from the Senckenberg Institut in Frankfurt, biodiversity specialists, reported that they found a spider with legs that span 33 cm (13 inches). The largest spider […]
NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR (France) Worldcrunch One hundred years before Felix Baumgartner, there was … Franz Reichelt. According to French magazine Nouvel Observateur, this tailor from Vienna had moved to France as a young man and become a French citizen — and an inventor. Reichelt created a prototype parachute that he believed could save the lives of […]
LE MONDE (France), DIE WELT, DIE ZEIT, FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG (Germany), FINANCIAL TIMES (U.K.) Worldcrunch The European Union’s privacy commission issued a sharp reprimand to Google, ordering the company to change its way of informing people how their data is being used, or face sanctions, the Financial Times reported. Le Monde reported that the decision […]
ATHENS – Everyone knows that Greece’s debt is spiraling out of control, but few know that the country is an oil producer, though its production is minimal: 2,000 barrels a day – 0.5% of just its own needs. During the 1980’s, however, Greece produced 30,000 barrels a day – 12% of its consumption – through […]
Chinese routers from Huawei and ZTE are “a threat” for the United States, or even the world, according to a U.S. Congressional intelligence committee report made public on October 8. The committee suspects that these machines, which transmit Internet communications, could be working for the Chinese government. With this report, the American Congress has launched […]
PARIS – This time, it was definitely not a bug. Facebook has admitted to spying on all private conversations on its network, looking for Internet links being exchanged and for possible “criminal activities.” The admission opens the network up to many questions concerning privacy and legal rights. The Next Web, a popular technology site, found […]
Worldcrunch One-third of the world population now has access to the Internet, according to the U.N.’s telecommunications agency. The International Telecommunications Union released its annual report, Measuring the Information Society, on Thursday. The agency’s top-ranked country for information and telecommunication technology was South Korea, followed by Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Finland. There are seven billion […]
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL LETTERS, REUTERS Worldcrunch Researchers from France and the United States have discovered a planet twice the size of the Earth, but far denser, which appears to be one-third constituted of diamond, Reuters reported Thursday. Yale researcher Nikku Madhusudhan and Olivier Mousis of the Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planetologie in Toulouse, France, […]
On the left, a wall of washing machines and stoves. On the right, a man is taking apart a vacuum cleaner, another a food processor. A little further away, an employee looking through a powerful magnifying glass pokes at a telephone with tweezers. In the background, a television set without its shell is broadcasting a […]
NOBELPRIZE.ORG (Sweden) Worldcrunch STOCKHOLM – The 2012 Nobel Prize in chemistry has been awarded to two American researchers for their studies on how body cells react to their environments. Robert Lefkowitz and Brian Kobilka were recognized for their “groundbreaking discoveries that reveal the inner workings of an important family of receptors, known as G-protein-coupled receptors,” […]
LOS ANGELES TIMES (U.S.), STERN, DER SPIEGEL (Germany) Worldcrunch A virus called Dorkbot is working its way through Skype users around the world. When users click on the English- or German-language come-on, malware is installed in their computer and it becomes part of a botnet, a network of remote-controlled computers that can conduct denial-of-service attacks. […]
CAIRO – Abdallah Seleem doesn’t watch the news anymore. It’s disheartening, he says, to see how far Egypt has slid from its initial optimism after Hosni Mubarak stepped down last year. It causes him too much stress about the future. “You’re too frustrated to talk about it,” says Seleem, 25, who is unemployed. “It’s like […]
GUARDIAN (UK), NOBEL COMMITTEE (Sweden) Worldcrunch STOCKHOLM – The 2012 Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded to British and Japanese researchers who, decades apart, helped show that mature cells can be pluripotent, the Nobel committee announced Monday. “John B. Gurdon discovered in 1962 that the specialization of cells is reversible,” noted the press release announcing […]
HAMBURGER ABENDBLATT, PRESSETEXTE (Germany) Worldcrunch HAMBURG – Aggressive dreams and other unusual sleep-related activity may be an early warning sign that someone will develop Parkinson’s disease, according to a new German neurology study, the Hamburger Abendblatt reports. At the annual convention of German neurologists this week in Hamburg, Prof. Wolfgang Oertel of the University of […]
THE KOREA HERALD (South Korea), THE FINANCIAL TIMES (UK) Worldcrunch Samsung Electronics confirmed Tuesday that it has filed papers with a U.S. court that accuse Apple’s iPhone 5 of infringing its patents. The South Korean electronics giant alleges that the new iPhone 5, launched September 21, infringes eight of its patents, including its wireless data […]
BERLIN – Everybody should have a car like KITT — the black 1982 Pontiac Trans Am that David Hasselhoff, in the TV series Knight Rider, fought crime with. Hasselhoff’s character couldn’t believe what happened the first time he drove the car. As he was driving 140 miles an hour on the highway, a truck appeared […]
LE SOLEIL (Canada), POPULAR MECHANICS, SMITHSONIAN (USA), GUARDIAN (UK) Sure, fewer party balloons and squeaky-voice clown pranks would be a shame. But recent reports of a worldwide shortage of helium could also create supply problems in the production of some of the most advanced technologies, reports Quebec news site Le Soleil. Reserves of helium, a […]
SÃO PAULO – Eight cyclists surround a black car stopping at a red light on Paulista Avenue, a major thoroughfare in São Paulo. The driver, who the cyclists had spotted committing traffic infractions, is told that he is being filmed. He immediately speeds away from the bikes — running the red light. He hits a […]
ARIRANG NEWS (Korea), BBC NEWS, CURRENT BIOLOGY (UK), MEDICAL DAILY (USA) Worldcrunch During Korea’s Chosun Dynasty, young men living in poverty often chose to castrate themselves to live within the relative comfort of the imperial palace walls, reports Arirang news. They were used to guard gates and manage food, and were the only men outside […]
LES ECHOS, METRO, 20 MINUTES (France), BBC, THE TELEGRAPH (UK) Worldcrunch Facebook has been forced to deny reports that private messages have been appearing publicly on the social networking site, as millions of users panic and company share prices plummet. France’s leading business daily Les Echos reports that the French government has summoned Facebook managers […]
CAIRO – How do you turn a blackout into a business opportunity? According to some consumption statistics, Cairo is also one of the world’s most brightly lit cities, with such high amounts of energy used for illuminating homes and streets that can often exceed the capacity of what electricity networks can deliver. That leaves the […]
LOIBOR SIRET – Laly Lichtenfeld has reason to be cautious. White outsiders have left some painful memories in this region of vast plains in the north of Tanzania. Thousands of people were expropriated to create the nearby national parks of Tarangire and Manyara, as well as the Serengeti, further north on the Kenyan border. In […]
PARIS – Pirates, spies, moles, thieves: those who want to steal the scientific treasures of French research laboratories had better be careful. With a new measure to protect the “nation’s scientific and technical potential,” in the next few months every organization, university and engineering school will be receiving instructions on how to protect themselves. Indeed, […]
EL NACIONAL, LA JORNADA (Mexico) Worldcrunch MEXICO CITY – What if that kidney you needed for a transplant showed up, but the surgeon didn’t? That scenario is too often a reality in Mexico, says Arturo Dib Kuri, the director of the country’s National Transplant Center (CENATRA). Dib Kuri warned that Mexico loses around 20 percent […]
LE MONDE (France) Worldcrunch PARIS – Genetically modified corn from Monsanto, touted as safe for human consumption, has been shown to cause breast tumors in female rats and kidney and liver disease in male rats, a new study shows. NK603 corn was originally engineered by Monsanto, a worldwide agricultural conglomerate, to be resistant to the […]
BERLIN – Till Roenneberg, a professor at the Institute for Medical Psychology at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich, is a chronobiologist – which means that he specializes in the study of how biological rhythms affect our physiology and behavior. Over the course of his career, he has gathered statistics on people from 166 countries. The human […]