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February 3rd, 2012 at 12:04 pm »
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Are you ready for Google’s new privacy policy?
Google’s new privacy policy has already caused a stir among users. Now, Congress and EU regulators are sniffing around the changes and aren’t happy about them — but Google doesn’t seem to care in the slightest.
According to The Hill, house lawmakers questioned Google representatives for two hours yesterday [...]
January 29th, 2012 at 11:10 am »
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It is really only a matter of time before our food crisis becomes crippling.
In the past few days a number of interesting articles have been circulating, all discussing genetically modified crops and starkly different versions of the future of food. One one hand we have the state of affairs in the US. On the other [...]
January 27th, 2012 at 1:00 pm »
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Some Twitter users are planning to go all of Saturday without tweeting to show their displeasure.
There are fears of Twitter censorship among bloggers and activists from China, the Middle East and Latin America as new Twitter policies could allow governments to censor messages, stifling free expression.
January 24th, 2012 at 3:26 pm »
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Invisible DNA mist is traceable under blacklight for two weeks.
Apparently, robbing McDonald’s has become a thing in Australia. McRobbery’s are so rampant down under that McDonald’s locations in Aussieland are taking measures to protect themselves by spraying criminals with an invisible mist of DNA. I repeat, AN INVISIBLE MIST OF DNA. The DNA seeps into [...]
January 18th, 2012 at 6:28 pm »
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A new way to deal with political problems.
Over the past two weeks, staffers from HUGE, the Dumbo-based digital agency, have been at work on a different kind of interactive campaign. Yesterday around noon, a skunkworks team made up of software engineers, interaction designers, information architects, and more finally unleashed their side project on the [...]
January 18th, 2012 at 4:46 pm »
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Two new laws proposed by US legislators, the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act, have been attracting a very negative reaction from the web community over the past couple of months, which is today culminating in a day of protests. Aiming to curtail copyright infringement on the web by giving the US government [...]
January 17th, 2012 at 1:58 pm »
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“[SOPA and its Senate counterpart Protect IP] allow people with lots of money, and lots of lawyers to take down Internet sites they don’t like”
Wednesday will be a day against an anti-piracy bill as the world’s biggest websites call for a day of dramatic action. They fear the legislation will reshape the [...]
January 6th, 2012 at 2:09 pm »
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Recycling can lids can turn into a heated situation.
It takes two hours on a sunny day, but this solar heater built by engineering students at Humboldt State University in California works. It’s made from waste materials, specifically can lids. These are held together by vines from Himalaya blackberry plants, which are an invasive species in [...]
January 3rd, 2012 at 12:26 pm »
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A hybrid black tip shark containing both common and Australian black tip DNA
Scientists said on Tuesday that they had discovered the world’s first hybrid sharks in Australian waters, a potential sign the predators were adapting to cope with climate change.
The mating of the local Australian black-tip shark with its global counterpart, the common black-tip, was [...]
January 2nd, 2012 at 3:01 pm »
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No drilling here for now.
Ecuador had agreed last year to accept money in exchange for not drilling foroil in Yasuní National Park, an area of the Amazon rainforest that last year set a record for the most mammal, bird, amphibian and plant species in the world.
But a fundraiser was held last night that collected the [...]
December 29th, 2011 at 12:31 am »
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Brominated vegetable oil is patented as a flame retardant and it’s banned in food all over Europe and Japan, but it’s on the ingredient list of about 10 percent of sodas in the U.S. It’s not in Coca-Cola, but is in Mountain Dew, Fanta Orange, and in some flavors of Powerade and Gatorade.
What brominated vegetable [...]
December 22nd, 2011 at 5:20 pm »
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The mystery sphere.
For a few days, people living in a remote area of Namibia heard strange explosions. Then they found this sphere, which about 43 inches in diameter, in an impact crater about 12 feet across. What is it for? Who does it belong to?
December 21st, 2011 at 2:49 pm »
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Hear no pandemic, see no pandemic, speak no pandemic.
The US government has approached the scientific journals Nature and Science in order to censor data on a lab-made version of bird flu, because it could potentially be used as a weapon. That’s not cool!
According to the Guardian, the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) [...]
December 19th, 2011 at 12:05 pm »
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Change your permissions and change your Facebook life.
fPrivacy is a Chrome plugin that lets you granularly opt out of stalker-esque Facebook app permissions like “Post to my wall” or “Access profile info” whenever the app authorization dialog appears. Woohoo!
Creator Chad Selph made the extension because Facebook apps have been too grabby for far too long [...]
December 19th, 2011 at 12:07 am »
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Heidemarie Schwermer, a 69-year-old woman from Germany, gave up using money 15 years ago and says she’s been much happier ever since.
Heidemarie’s incredible story began 22 years ago, when she, a middle-aged secondary school teacher emerging from a difficult marriage, took her two children and moved to the city of Dortmund, in Germany’s Ruhr area. [...]