U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher (D.-Va.), a longtime champion of fair use rights, said Thursday the Copyright Office’s ruling earlier this week denying consumers the right to make “fair use” copies of digitally recorded material except in very narrowly defined cases, was a “misguided decision.”

The amount of digital data that exists in the world is growing at a staggering rate, according to a new report issued by the University of California at Berkeley. The results of the report lend credence to the need for better analytics and data mining tools.

WASHINGTON,— The mysterious 5,200-year-old iceman found in an Alpine glacier was born in a valley in what is now northern Italy and didn’t travel far from home, an international team of researchers has concluded.

“HERE WE GO again,” said Joe Kunches, lead forecaster at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Environment Center.
Meanwhile, the most powerful solar storm in decades, which first struck Wednesday, continued to buffet Earth on Thursday. The back-to-back pairing of two historically huge flares was unprecedented, one physicist said.
The two storms may […]

BROCKTON, Mass. — The restyled, color-rich $20 bill, in circulation for just three weeks, has been touted by the government as the “most secure currency in U.S. history.” Well, that’s not true in Brockton, Mass., where a bunch of computer-generated phonies have turned up.

Monday sees the first issue of a new magazine for scientists. Its arrival is already causing a stir: unlike other journals that record research about biology and medicine, this one is free.

Research in the US has found that songs get stuck in our heads because they create a “brain itch” that can only be scratched by repeating the tune over and over.

HealthDayNews– Many people who take aspirin for a heart condition appear to have an unexpectedly high risk of serious cardiac problems when they stop the medication, even on a doctor’s order.

How Linus Torvalds became benevolent dictator of Planet Linux, the biggest collaborative project in history.

Linus Torvalds wants me to believe he’s too boring for this story. The creator of the Linux operating system portrays himself as a mild-mannered soul leading a humdrum life, just another…

COHOES, N.Y.— In its 19th-century heyday, pioneers, immigrants and cargo swarmed the Erie Canal, a bustling, fluid gateway that opened up the country’s heartland and the West. When the canal faded from prominence at the turn of the last century, a myth arose that it had been destroyed. Armed with old maps and shovels, […]

Popular culture has long pondered the question, “If it looks like a human, walks like a human and talks like a human, is it human?” So far the answer has been no. Robots can’t cry, bleed or feel like humans, and that’s part of what makes them different.

Will suburban Elk Grove Village be the Ft. Sumter of the American privacy revolution?
Here’s hoping.

If so, Elk Grove Park District Commissioner Ron Nunes will go down in history as the soldier who fired the first shot by proposing a ban on the use of camera-equipped cell phones in locker areas, shower facilities and restrooms at […]

Scientist have taken a step towards finding a cure for permanent deafness by growing inner-ear hair cells in the laboratory, it was disclosed last night.

Tiny hairs inside the ear that respond to sound are an essential part of the hearing apparatus, but they degrade throughout life and may be damaged by birth defects, drugs and […]

The Scot whose life was transformed when he was given the world’s first ‘bionic’ arm has had to give it back to its inventors, who have stored the revolutionary limb away in a box, calling it nothing more than a “museum piece”.

Tiny radio tags that track our purchases could be commonplace on supermarket items within the next decade - a time-saver with serious privacy implications.

STANFORD, Calif.- Intel Corporation and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center today announced a collaborative research effort to apply Intel’s expertise in nanotechnology to develop improved methods of studying, diagnosing and preventing cancer.

New York (October 23, 2003)–At a ceremony held at the New York Public Library, the Collegiate Inventors Competition announced its 2003 winners. This year’s winners have found ways to generate insulin for diabetics, perform environmental testing with microscopic sensors, and make electronic circuits smaller than ever before.

Two undergraduate winners, two graduate winners, and one grand […]

Integral, ESA’s powerful gamma-ray space telescope, has discovered what seems to be a new class of astronomical objects. These are binary systems, probably including a black hole or a neutron star, embedded in a thick cocoon of cold gas.

MADISON - For more than a century, biologists have been working to assign plants, animals and microbes their respective places on the tree of life. More recently, by comparing DNA sequences from a few genes per species, scientists have been trying to construct a grand tree of life that accurately portrays the course of life […]

The discovery of a series of mysterious rock carvings in Northern England has sparked a quest among experts to find out exactly what they are. Archaeologists from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, who were alerted to the carvings by a local farm-hand, are baffled as to what they mean or who created […]

Unpleasant shocks await car thieves in Karachi. With the click of a computer mouse, a satellite tracking system allows remote operators to seize control of the stolen vehicle, bring it grinding to a halt, and snap its locks shut as police swoop in.

It’s a legend about as popular, and generally believed, as the reputed presence of alligators in the sewers of New York — namely, that the only human-made edifice astronauts can see from space is the Great Wall of China. Well, forget it.

ANN ARBOR, MI – Scientists at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center have identified a gene that controls the amazing ability of adult stem cells to self-renew, or make new copies of themselves, throughout life.

VANCOUVER, Canada — The approximately 50 million people in the U.S. who suffer from autoimmune diseases like HIV/AIDS, multiple sclerosis, and arthritis, may soon be able to control their immune responses, thanks to a breakthrough discovery by a researcher at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.

The Nuna II vehicle has won the 2003 World Solar Challenge in Australia for cars that are powered only by sunlight. The Dutch machine completed the 3,010 km race distance in just 30 hours and 54 minutes - a record for the event.