Finally, the average layperson will be able to write and solve invisible ink messages. And not with those funny highlighters that did the rounds in the 90’s either. The CIA has no doubt allowed us all to become privy to this information because they have no need for invisible ink anymore. Data encryption has progressed somewhat.
On Monday NASA announced it was distributing $269 million to four companies for them to develop spacecraft to take astronauts into orbit. The investment is an Obama administration gamble that will enable commercial companies to get people to and from orbit in quicker time and with less cost.
That is correct, that grass might not be that green after all. A researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has revealed in a report entitled “Energy up in Smoke: The Carbon Footprint of Indoor Cannabis Production” that indoor growers account for approximately one percent of total US electricity use.
A new study has found that drinking alcohol primes certain areas of our brain to learn and remember better. In a nutshell, when we drink alcohol (or take certain other drugs) our subconscious is learning to consume more. But it also becomes more receptive to forming subconscious memories and habits with respect to food, music, and even people or social situations. I’ll toast to that!
The University of Illinois, collaborating with the Equid Research and Conservation lab at Princeton, have put together software that can uniquely identify any striped, spotted or otherwise marked animal with a clear digital photo. Like a barcode!
The headline says it all. Students from the Siberian State Aerospace University decided to mark and honour Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin’s first flight into space, which was 50 years ago today, by building a rocket out of a guitar. Coincidentally it resembles a Gibson Flying V.
Engineers have used a flying drone to peer into the damaged reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on Sunday. The drone has been used by the US military and reportedly weighs about 23kg and has the propensity to withstand winds of up to 20 knots.
Hooray for science. US government scientists say they have discovered three powerful HIV antibodies, the strongest of which neutralizes 91% of HIV strains, more than any HIV antibody yet discovered. Details inside.
It’s safe to say that tests are still in their early stages but it’s also safe to say that scientists are quite a bit closer to helping people overcome their fear of heights. They have discovered that by giving people a tablet of the stress hormone cortisol, they can help reduce their phobia.
It seems this is a common problem that the US Naval Academy faces. Another midshipman was expelled from the force for using or having a banned weed-like substance known as “spice”. No spice. This brings the total number of expulsions to 12.
Two vegans who fed their 11 month old daughter only on her mother’s breast milk went on trial in northern France on Tuesday. They have been charged with neglect after their baby died as a result of suffering from vitamin deficiencies and could face up to 30 years in prison if convicted.
What with radiation being the topic du jour at the moment (Google Japan), I thought it my civic duty to share this chart that shows very simply just how much radiation you’ll need to absorb before turning into a sludgy mass.
Jacob Barnett has an IQ of 170. According to some, this is reportedly higher than Albert Einstein’s was, although Einstein himself never took the test. Jake is now so far advanced in his Indiana University studies that professors are lining him up for a paid PHD research role. He also finished high school at eight years old.
Not even designers of world class video games have thought of this one yet. I bet the Qatari engineers are hunched up and sniggering through their beards into their cupped, fist-shaped hands right now. Their World Cup is only in 2022, but these guys clearly have the money to blow to make magic. Very Bruce Almighty of them.
I’m all for advances in alternative medicine but this is a little too alternative. A German doctor has been found guilty of endangering the lives of 25 patients due to his highly eccentric methodologies which included using lemon juice to sterilise his surgical procedures.
A report about a month ago attributed that South Africa indeed stared a water crisis directly in the eye. Experts told the inaugural South African Water and Energy Forum in Johannesburg that we even face the possibility of chronic water shortages as early as 2020. Now Eskom-esque tariff hikes loom too.
Take a deep breath and don’t panic. It’s nothing to be alarmed about and this is why we have eased it in on this beautiful Tuesday afternoon in Cape Town. Unit two actually shut down yesterday already and we thought we’d now explain why you might see it puffing the odd bit of steam from time to time.
Aside from hunting, interbreeding and kicking back in caves, looks like our ancestors were totally into hallucinogenics. Researchers have been analysing cave paintings in Spain, and have come to the conclusion that our long lost relatives weren’t adverse to dabbling with ‘magic mushrooms’ from time to time.
Everybody loves a little bit of sensationalism, especially when the majority of news starts becoming rather bland and repetitive. Take for example the way The Sun headlined this piece: “Disaster as moon closes in” – awesome vibe. Fact is though, that no disaster should technically happen and surfers should actually be getting amped for a mission, bru.
That’s right, camel milk demand is on the up and the word is getting out. Demand from diabetic patients, parents of autistic children and sufferers of Crohn’s disease has resulted in them becoming their own powerful lobbyists. Internationally that is. So when will camel milk sail into the mainstream market here at home I wonder?
So hey, congrats to all you non-male, non-Chinese folks who were worried about looking average! Because according to a decade’s worth of research by the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing for National Geographic, a 28-year-old Han Chinese male is the mean. Numbers, explanation after the jump.
Perlemoen, in particular. I know a few chaps who used pull out the odd perly when we were younger. It was childish and naive at the time I thought, although I too engaged in other unrelated mischief of my own. Anyway, aquaculture has always fascinated me and the recession did it no favours. This however, might be the new oil.
Take us to your leader. We come in peace. ET phone home. They don’t say much, but they sure know how to get to the point! ‘The X-Files’ knew “The Truth Is Out There” with dramatised cases of real government conspiracies and where there’s smoke, there’s a smouldering alien spacecraft. Don’t just take it from […]
South Africa’s very own surgery tourism trade has boomed for a while. We’ve been well-known as a great destination for the industry because we’re inexpensive. Now the smoke around the kidney transplant scam has finally begun to bellow. Over the weekend Netcare decided it was no longer going to comment on the scandal.
Oh, scientists. You discover an entirely new species of dinosaur on a quarry dig, and then you come up with a name for it that non-scientist people use to insult hefty folk with. I mean sure, you use the fancy Latin Brontomerus mcintoshi, but Thunder Thighs is the sort of thing people remember.
You’re going to want to have a little look at this. Remember we talked about John Somers’ passionate encounter with Amarula the elephant yesterday? Well, a little earlier I received an email purportedly containing some shots of Amarula, doing his thing as you might say, to John’s new car.
This was one of the remarks made by Trevor when he addressed a press briefing relating to the acid mine water drainage situation around jozi. We should take cognisance as it comes from the man who spent many years in charge of our country’s finances and who is also arguably the most trustworthy politician around. If that exists.
Ha! Yes. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), is looking at plans to send a humanoid robot to the International Space Station. Except by humanoid I mean it will look attempt to look sexy but end up being insanely creepy. Also, it’s going to post photos and text to Twitter.
If you think about it, music is simply data ordered in a specific way by a clever human and then executed by either man or machine. So why not take some existing data from a very clever machine and see if it makes music? Well that’s what the very very clever people at CERN have done.
So here’s something we don’t normally discuss, in general, but it’s actually really fascinating and I’m sure you, like me, wouldn’t have ever described flies mating quite like this: “They get up to the craziest stuff. Amazing genitalia.” Well, now London’s Natural History Museum has put it out there, so to speak.