Just because something’s new doesn’t mean it’s better — or even different. According to the German Medical Association, most “new” drugs are little more than repackaged – and re-priced – versions of their predcessors.
Category: Future
Not for the first time, Russian scientists are taking their considerable knowledge and moving abroad. Some of the brainy emigrants cite funding problems and Russian red tape as reasons to move. For others, heading West is simply a lifestyle choice.
Both sides of the Atlantic have been buzzing since a hacker busted into Siri, the new voice-recognition software on the iPhone 4S. Meet the man who cracked Apple’s latest secret gem. But is it legal?
As the first baby boomers turn 65 this year, high-tech is gradually making its way into the lives – and homes – of older folks. A look at the tablets, sensors, foot boards and other gadgets seniors can use to get caught up and connected.
Melting glaciers in the Himalayas put the small Kingdom of Bhutan at risk. Not only are the “frozen reservoirs” a fundamental water source, but the melting can also cause GLOFS – aka: ‘mountain tsunamis’ – killer flash floods that occur
Six would-be astronauts are confined for an unprecedented 17-month experiment in social confinement that is helping to lay the groundwork for extra long missions in space.
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Is There A Pedophilia Gene?
Italian researchers discover possible genetic origins of pedophilia, making the sexually deviant behavior a potentially treatable condition. But is it an alibi for convicted pedophiles?
Linguists from the University of Lyon in France looked at seven widely spoken languages to see how they rank in terms of efficiency. Which mother tongue works best at imparting information? A clue: it’s not French.
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Welcome To Anthropocene, Earth’s New Era
Goodbye Holocene, hello Anthropocene! The new word, used to reflect the modern age, is becoming more and more popular among the scientific community and may eventually become part of official nomenclature.
Exclusive: Pharmaceutical firm Roche offers hospitals a contract for Avastin cancer treatment where the hospital makes money whenever patients get worse. Critics warn that business models based on a medicine’s effectiveness create perilous confli
Germany has just unveiled the Euro Hawk, a prototype drone that vacuums up data – cell phone conversations, text messages, you name it – and can fly to New Zealand without refuelling. The German military is so excited about the Hawk it now wants five of t
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Placebos Can Be Bona Fide Painkillers
Memories formed following previous intake of actual drugs are triggered by a placebo pill resulting in a real effect to fight pain and inflammation, according to a new Italian study. First thing, though, you better trust your doctor.
Op-Ed: Le Monde remembers the Apple founder, as a corporate executive who was always more than a businessman. His gift was to see the ways that the latest technology could enter into ordinary lives.
The life and death of the visionary Apple founder is being shared — often on devices Jobs invented — all across the world.
Essay: From centaurs to werewolves, people have long created human-animal hybrids in their imaginations. Biotechnology is now making that possible in the real world. But there are reasons to draw a line between what science can and should do.
Some 18 months after clashing with Beijing authorities, Google seems to have found a major new way to break through in China. Not only does it avoid web censorship dilemma, its new strategy opens an opportunity for Google to capture the booming online adv
American authorities are about to get their hands on Vladislav Anatolievich Horohorin, an accused cybercriminal who is suspected of executing numerous security breaches in banks and large businesses. He has arrested 13 months ago in Nice, France.
With tainted fruits and vegetables sending scares across the globe, worried food authorities can welcome the inauguration of the world’s largest private laboratory performing safety analysis on food. But don’t expect them to announce the
A pair of cute robotic furry seals help elderly victims now in a retirement home recover from their mental scars, after Japan’s March quake and tsunami disaster.
Op-Ed: Facebook is squaring with Google in a race for control not only of the social network market, but of the Internet as a whole. Regardless of who “wins,” there’s a danger for users, who bit by bit are losing control of both their digitial profiles –
Researchers from the French National Center of Scientific Research have found out that fundamental particles known as neutrinos can travel faster than light.
Martin Meuli, a pioneer in the field of fetal surgery, is looking to operate on victims of spina bifida, a condition that can lead to severe life-long disability — and often prompts couples to choose abortion.
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How To Make A Tree Talk — And Tweet
Researchers in Germany are using special sensors and data software to both gather and broadcast real-time updates on how the surroundings are affecting the health of oak trees. And you can follow the tree’s feed on Twitter.
After Brazil successfully turned the city of Manaos into a tropical Silicon Valley, now Argentina is bringing high tech down to the far southern island of Tierra del Fuego, where Blackberry, HP and Motorola are opening operations. But is the industrial pu
Talking with the team of Swiss researchers at the Observatory of the University of Geneva, who made the important discovery that will lead to a better understanding of planetary systems outside our own galaxy, the Milky Way.
A growing number of people say they’ve found a cure for their alcoholism, Baclofen, a well-established but potent muscle relaxer. The only problem is it’s not legal – unless you suffer from Lou Gehrig’s disease, cerebral palsy or other illnesses involving
Companies are increasingly turning to specialized video games to train their employees on how to sell, manage and lead. It is largely taking the place of now outdated “e-learning”
Computers, cell phones and other electronic goods have notoriously short shelf lives. As a result they generate a tremendous amount of waste, much of it toxic. What happens to all that hazardous material? Much of it gets shipped overseas – to places like
The Russians are launching a project for a commercial space station with a hotel that will supposedly be ready for occupancy by 2016. Guests would pass the night very much under the stars – at 350 kilometers above the Earth.
The Chaos Computer Club is hosting a summer camp for 3,000 hackers from around the world in Brandenburg, formerly in East Germany. Participants talk, try stuff out on their computers and party. They’re also planning an ambitious project: a trip into outer
A month before harvest begins in Bordeaux, a new technology is being used that takes incredibly detailed images from 800 kilometers above to allow wine growers to gather their grapes at the right moment for maximizing quality.
Mount Everest is unquestionably the world’s highest mountain – but just how high, exactly, is it? Toting the latest technology, a team of climbers is heading for the rooftop of the world to find out.
Op-Ed: Some heavy skepticism, and sarcasm, by a Chinese commentator toward a new program that requires Internet cafes in Beijing to pay for a new system to allow authorities to control personal information by online users.
Modern medicine makes it possible to perform ever riskier operations on ever older patients. The result? A rising rate of post-anesthesia deaths, according to a study published in the Germany Medical Association’s Deutsches Ärzteblatt journal.
The privately-run German postal service has more logistics business than any other single enterprise. Now it is taking its stab at competing in the Internet age – and the news business.
Concluding that the “hardware” of brain activity when we sleep is basically the same as when we don’t, Italian researchers have been able to measure brain activity of people who have remembered their dreams after waking up.
The London-based European Medicines Agency (EMA) is concerned that the Pademrix swine flu vaccine may increase the risk of narcolepsy among children and teens.
The end of the U.S. space shuttle program could be just what the doctor ordered for NASA’s old rival, the Russian Federal Space Agency, whose Soyuz rockets are now the only show in town when it comes to sending humans into the great beyond.
Though no widespread risk had been identified since the release of the Gardasil vaccine, several young French women have suffered what they say are brutal side effects from what was supposed to protect them from cervical cancer.
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Swiss Study: Nuke Plants OK For Kids
Children growing up near nuclear power plants are not at higher risk of developing leukemia, Swiss researchers concluded this week.