Category: Current Events

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Congress and the EU are fighting to change Google’s privacy policy

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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 about the changes, but they still aren’t satisfied with the company’s explanations. Speaking to The Hill, Representative Mary Bono Mack said…

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Breakthrough Thinking, Current Events, Historical Perspectives, New Discoveries

Fifth Grader concocts a new explosive molecule accidentally

Chemistry Professor Robert Zoellner

Chemistry Professor Robert Zoellner

Admittedly, I did spend my childhood playing with explosives. But I certainly never had as much success as 10-year-old Clara Lazen (not pictured), who accidentally created a new energy storing molecule, tetranitratoxycarbon, that could be used as an explosive…

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Analysis, Animals, Crazy Stuff, Current Events, Education, Historical Perspectives, Latest News, New Discoveries

Road Runoff Spurring Spotted Salamander Evolution

salamander

A female spotted salamander gravid with eggs in route to her breeding pool. There she will lay a cluster of approximately 100 eggs. Eight to ten weeks later, those eggs will hatch as larvae. In late summer, if the pool has not already dried, larvae will metamorphose into juveniles that migrate to the adjacent upland habitat.

Spotted salamanders exposed to contaminated roadside ponds are adapting to their toxic environments, according to a Yale paper in Scientific Reports. This study provides the first documented evidence that a vertebrate has adapted to the negative effects of roads apparently by evolving rapidly…

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Crazy Stuff, Current Events, Health & Fitness, Historical Perspectives, New Viewpoints

According to the FDA, your stem cells are now drugs

STEM CELLS

This ruling makes it physically impossible NOT to be on drugs.

In recent court filings, the Food and Drug Administration has asserted that stem cells—you know, the ones our bodies produce naturally—are in fact drugs and subject to its regulatory oversight. So does that make me (or you) a controlled substance?

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Analysis, Big Problems, Corporate Manipulation, Crazy Stuff, Culture, Current Events, Economy, Globalism, Health & Fitness, Historical Perspectives, Hot Issues, New Viewpoints

Is there any hope for a non-genetically modified future in America, or Africa?

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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 we have the future Bill Gates would like to manifest in Africa, all in the supremely laudable goal of reducing poverty and hunger, which looks an awful like the current situation in America.

It’s not a pretty picture, for people, for farmers, for the planet…

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Art, Current Events, Food, Health & Fitness

Clever modular hydroponics system

An indoor garden can improve air quality, make you more productive, and, of course, add a lovely touch of green to an otherwise drab office cubicle or apartment. Here’s a design for bringing nature inside of which I’m particularly fond: the Live Screen by Danielle Trofe, which is a hydroponics system inspired by vertical gardens.

Trofe’s creation works much like hydroponic systems, which grow plants using nutrients without soil. Electric pumps send water up the stands based on a timing system that can be customized for each pod. Excess water trickles back down the shaft and into the reservoir at the foot of the unit. Each pod has an LED light built into its underside to provide extra ‘sunlight’ for the plant below it…

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Analysis, Art, Big Problems, Breakthrough Thinking, Business, Corporate Manipulation, Crazy Photos, Crazy Stuff, Current Events, Economy, Education, Entertainment, facebook, Historical Perspectives, Hot Issues, Internet, Latest News, New Viewpoints

The SOPA blackout: Wikipedia, Reddit, Mozilla, Google, and many others protest proposed law

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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 unprecedented new powers, both SOPA and PIPA have been rejected as overreaching and unhelpful laws that cannot coexist with a free and open internet.

A lot of websites (most notably Wikipedia) are going dark today in protest of SOPA.

But the humor site The Oatmeal easily wins for its hilarious GIF about the proposed law. In its own way, it does a better job of explaining what SOPA means than a lot of the serious sites out there.

Here it is after the jump. Watch and laugh…

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Art, Breakthrough Thinking, Crazy Stuff, Current Events, DIY, Education, Entertainment, Historical Perspectives

Balloon mapping kits by Mathew Lippincott

IL Kickstarter Creativity Spotlight

Today’s Kickstarter Creativity Spotlight focuses on balloon mapping. What the heck is balloon mapping you may ask?

Balloon mapping is sending a camera up on a balloon, snapping photos, and stitching them into a map. Over the past year and a half these fine folks have built a global mapper community and this is your chance to participate in all the excitement…

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Breakthrough Thinking, Crazy Stuff, Culture, Current Events, Entertainment, Historical Perspectives

File sharing now a religion in Sweden

kopimichurch header

Will you become a member?

Pirates and file-sharers, rejoice! The Missionary Church of Kopimism (just say it out loud) has been recognized as a religion in Sweden:

Since 2010 a group of self-confessed pirates have tried to get their beliefs recognized as an official religion in Sweden. After their request was denied several times, the Church of Kopimism – which holds CTRL+C and CTRL+V as sacred symbols – is now approved by the authorities as an official religion. The Church hopes that its official status will remove the legal stigma that surrounds file-sharing.

All around the world file-sharers are being chased by anti-piracy outfits and the authorities, and the situation in Sweden is no different. While copyright holders are often quick to label file-sharers as pirates, there is a large group of people who actually consider copying to be a sacred act…

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Animals, Crazy Stuff, Current Events, Historical Perspectives, Human Behavior

Woman pays $50k to clone her dog

The death of a beloved pet can be a traumatizing experience, and most people love their pets as they would any other member of their family. But would you pay $50,000 to clone a new version of your beloved pet from the DNA of the deceased? The lady in this clip didn’t hesitate to head over to South Korea, shell out the cash and clone her deceased dog Trouble, and she seems to have no regrets about her decision…

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Animals, Award Winner, Current Events, New Discoveries

World’s smallest vertebrate discovered in New Guinea

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Small but landmark frog.

SU’s Chris Austin recently discovered two new species of frogs in New Guinea, one of which is now the world’s tiniest known vertebrate, averaging only 7.7 millimeters in size — less than one-third of an inch. It ousts Paedocypris progenetica, an Indonesian fish averaging more than 8 millimeters, from the record. Austin, leading a team of scientists from the United States including LSU graduate student Eric Rittmeyer, made the discovery during a three-month long expedition to the island of New Guinea, the world’s largest and tallest tropical island…

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