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Big ideas in the news from around the web
As the Philippines-based volcano Mount Mayon continues to show signs of erupting residents who are refusing evacuation are being asked to sign waivers by rescue services. “Radio dzBB’s Alan Gatus on Tuesday reported that troops from the Philippine Army went back to some Albay villages that are ...
The US Army general in northern Iraq has added pregnancy to the list of behavior which could lead to a court martial while serving under his command. “The new policy would apply to both female soldiers who become pregnant on the battlefield and the male soldiers who impregnate them. Civilians ...
Israel has admitted harvesting organs from the bodies of Palestinians and Israelis without permission from their families during the 1990s. “The admission follows the release of an interview with Jehuda Hiss, the former head of Israel's forensic institute, in which he said that workers at the ...
“A leading rabbi accused Pope Benedict XVI of ‘insensitivity’ towards Jews yesterday after the head of the Catholic Church moved his controversial World War II-era predecessor Pope Pius XII a step closer to sainthood. Pius XII, who served from 1939 to 1958, is regarded by conservative Catholics as ...
The “Arbeit macht frei” sign stolen from Auschwitz on Friday has been recovered in Northern Poland and five men are now being questioned by police. “The five suspects, aged in their 20s and 30s, were not members of a neo-Nazi group, Krakow police said. The metal sign from the main gate, which ...
Iran’s opposition has seized upon the death of one of the republic’s founding fathers, Grand Ayatolllah Hossein Ali Montazeri, to take to the streets in mourning. “Tens of thousands of Iranian mourners--many chanting protest slogans--joined the funeral procession Monday for Grand Ayatollah Hossein ...
“Democrats won a major victory in their push for health care reform early Monday morning as the Senate voted to end debate on a package of controversial revisions to a sweeping $871 billion bill. The 60 to 40 party-line vote, cast shortly after 1 a.m., kept Senate Democrats on track to pass the bill ...
“A NASA satellite has created a new map of so-called ‘night-shining clouds,’ which form at high altitudes on Earth and glow even after the sun sets. These mysterious clouds, also called noctilucent clouds or Polar Mesospheric Clouds (PMCs), appear about 50 miles (80 km) above Earth's surface during ...
Scientists paid a load of young people to get drunk and then analysed the results to find out which alcoholic beverages produced the worst hangover – with interesting results! “A new study finds that, compared with vodka, if you down too much bourbon, you're likely to have a worse hangover. But when ...
“An engineering team has developed a face recognition system that is remarkably accurate in realistic situations. Unlike existing face recognition programs that try to find ‘optimal’ facial features, the new program uses sparse representation. One of the program’s developers, Yi Ma, an associate ...
Aurora borealis, or the Northern Lights, can sometimes collide producing spectacular displays of light according to NASA which deployed cameras around the Arctic to catch the phenomenon. “’Our jaws dropped when we saw the movies for the first time,’ said space scientist Larry Lyons of the University ...
“At age 50, Miles Davis' album Kind of Blue has been officially and unanimously hailedby the US House of Representatives. Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan) sponsored H.Res 894, which on Tuesday passed 409 to 0, recognizing the ‘unique contribution’ of the 37-minutes of modal improvisation trumpeter ...
“Just in time for the holidays: a Hubble Space Telescope picture postcard of hundreds of brilliant blue stars wreathed by warm, glowing clouds. The festive portrait is the most detailed view of the largest stellar nursery in our local galactic neighborhood. The massive, young stellar grouping ...
“More than 100 hopefuls vied Saturday for the title of India's most beautiful transsexual at the country's first such pageant for members of the marginalised community, an organiser said. The event in the southern city of Chennai was unique in a country where transsexuals live on the fringes of ...
“Yesterday, Thom Yorke got a hold of a press pass and crashed the United Nations Climate Change Conference currently going down in Copenhagen, Denmark. And it looks like Yorke is putting his journalist credentials to good use. The Radiohead frontman has posted reportsfrom the conference on the band ...