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Big ideas in the news from around the web
Washington has dismissed claims of responsibility by a Los Angeles-based terror group of involvement in the assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist in Tehran yesterday. “’The idea that charged the United States with having anything to do with a murder in Tehran in absurd,’ Gordon K Duguld ...
A powerful earthquake struck Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince last night causing mass destruction and fears of a huge death toll in one of the Caribbean’s poorest countries. “The dead and injured lay in the streets even as strong aftershocks rippled through the impoverished Caribbean country ...
Reports of airplanes hitting birds and other wildlife have soared to more than 10,000 in the months since a US Airways jet ditched down in New York’s Hudson River. “Serious accidents are climbing at an even faster rate than minor incidents. There were at least 57 cases in the first seven months of ...
“The first-gen Honda CR-X combined sportiness with fuel economy in a package that was, and still is, an absolute blast to drive. It’s a combination the Japanese automaker offers again in the CR-Z, a hybrid that could be called a modern incarnation of that venerable hatchback. Honda unveiled the ...
Amish families in New York State will be exempt from a health-insurance mandate which requires Northern New Yorkers to carry health insurance or risk a fine. “Hundreds of Amish families in the region are likely to be free from that requirement. The Amish, as well as some other religious sects, are ...
Government pledges to halt growing biodiversity losses by this year have failed and the desecration of animal species is becoming even more severe.“Eight years ago, world governments made a pledge to put a halt to growing biodiversity loss by 2010. They have not succeeded. The ongoing loss of ...
Crystal formations on the moon’s surface, found by India’s Chandrayaan-1 probe, prove that “a rolling ocean of magma once engulfed the rocky body of our satellite,” says The New Scientist. “The moon is thought to have coalesced more than 4 billion years ago from the molten debris of an impact ...
A new human sex hormone that has been found in men could lead to the development of the male birth control pill, researchers have said. “Gonadotropin-inhibitory hormone (GnIH)—first identified in birds about a decade ago—was recently discovered in the hypothalamus of the human brain. The ...
British candy manufacturer Cadbury has stepped up its defence against a hostile takeover bid from US-based Kraft Foods worth $17.4bn. “The UK-based confectionery multinational made the dividend pledge in its second formal response to Kraft’s cash-and-shares offer, which is looking more competitive ...
The last surviving member of the group who helped shelter Anne Frank’s family from the Nazis, Miep Gies, has died in a Dutch nursing home aged 100. “Mrs Gies, who was an office assistant, and other employees of Anne Frank's father Otto supplied food, books and news to the family as they hid in a ...
An Iranian nuclear scientist has been killed by bomb in a booby-trapped motorbike which exploded outside his home in a suburb of Tehran. “State television blamed ‘Zionists and American agents’. No specific motive was suggested for the attack, though it described Dr Ali-Mohammadi him as a ‘staunch ...
China has “successfully tested a missile interceptor” according to state media – with officials insisting the technology is “defensive” and “not targeted at any country”. “The announcement came amid repeated complaints from Beijing over the US sale of weaponry including Patriot PAC-3 air defence ...
Product safety officers are launching an investigation into the presence of the toxic metal cadmium in children’s jewelry import from China after evidence of the substance was found. “The promise to ‘take action as quickly as possible to protect the safety of children’ followed by hours the release ...
Heineken is planning on buying the beer operations of Mexican brewers Femsa in an all-share transaction valued at $7.6 billion. “The move will make Heineken a ‘more competitive player in Latin America, one of the world’s most profitable and fastest-growing beer markets,’ the chairman and chief ...
A cure may have been found for a defective alcohol metabolism enzyme that affects and estimated 1 billion people worldwide, according to research by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). “The findings, published Jan. 10, 2010 in the advance online edition of Nature ...