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Big ideas in the news from around the web
Grave robbers have stolen the body of Tassos Papadopoulos the former president of the Republic of Cyprus a year after his death. Witnesses at the Deftera cemetery where he had been buried said the coffin had been opened and the grave left empty and that scores of police officers were investigating ...
A simple genetic “flick switch” can transform female ovary cells into male testicular ones according to scientists who have been experimenting on mice. “The battle of the sexes is a never-ending war waged within ourselves as male and female elements of our own bodies continually fight each other for ...
A breakthrough has been made in wireless brain-to-computer connection speech synthesizer technology which could allow victims of paralysis the ability to speak again. “A system that turns brain waves into FM radio signals and decodes them as sound is the first totally wireless brain-computer ...
“When it comes to passing sensible gun laws, Congress typically offers Profiles in Cowardice. The National Rifle Association wields power that would make an Afghan warlord jealous because the organization is thought to command legions of one-issue voters ready to punish any deviationism from the ...
“Research has revealed details of the catastrophic Zanclean flood that refilled the Mediterranean Sea more than five million years ago. The flood occurred when Atlantic waters found their way into the cut-off and desiccated Mediterranean basin. The researchers say that a 200km channel across the ...
A Palestinian shopkeeper called Ayman Abu Aita who was portrayed as a terrorist in the film “Bruno” is suing Sacha Baron Cohen, David Letterman and others for $110m. “In the film, Cohen plays a gay Austrian fashion journalist trying to make it big in the US. To achieve worldwide fame, Bruno travels ...
“The United States and Russia said they were closing in on a successor arms reduction treaty that would further slash their nuclear arsenals and put their relations on a more solid footing. ‘We're getting closer,’ White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters here, asked about the prospect for ...
The new Google tool, Google Goggles, which allows users to search using pictures and not words, will exclude faces from its results for fear of a privacy backlash. The service, currently available only on Google Android cell phones, allows users to focus their phone camera on an object and the ...
A new report from the University of California, San Diego, suggests that the average American household consumed a staggering 3.6 zettabytes of information in 2008. “If a zettabyte is beyond your comprehension, too, it’s essentially one billion trillion bytes: a 1 with 21 zeros at the end. To put ...
Facebook has announced measures to encourage its 350m users to make their status updates and shared content visible to the search engines – and the world at large. “The company says the move is all about helping users protect their privacy and connect with other people, but the new default option is ...
“Five young Americans detained in Pakistan, which is fighting an increasingly violent Taliban insurgency, wanted to join a jihad, or holy war, a police official said on Thursday. The five men, students in their 20s from northern Virginia, were detained this week in the city of Sargodha in Punjab ...
President Obama, who arrived in Oslo to collect his Nobel Peace Prize today, has angered Norwegians over his decision to cancel a series of events normally attended by the winner. “Obama is scheduled to meet the Norwegian prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg, and the Norwegian royal family before ...
“The US Air Force on Tuesday confirmed for the first time that it is flying a stealth unmanned aircraft known as the ‘Beast of Kandahar,’ a drone spotted in photos and shrouded in secrecy. The RQ-170 Sentinel is being developed by Lockheed Martin and is designed ‘to provide reconnaissance and ...
“After days of secret talks, Senate Democrats tentatively agreed Tuesday night to drop a full-blown government-run insurance option from sweeping health care legislation, several officials said, a concession to party moderates whose votes are critical to passage of President Barack Obama's top ...
After the synchronised car bomb attacks which devastated the Iraqi capital Baghdad yesterday killing 112 and injuring hundreds, the Iraqi government has been quick to speculate about who was behind the attacks. “The prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, and his senior officials quickly blamed the ...