Category: Current Events

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Animals, Current Events, Globalism, Historical Perspectives, Latest News

Builders in Chile Find Mastadon Remains

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The remains of a mastodon discovered on the building site of a hydroelectric plant in Chile.

The skull and tusks of a giant primitive elephant that died up to 2million years have been discovered by builders in Chile, it emerged today.
The mastodon, around the same size as modern elephants, is thought to have roamed forests and plains before dying and sinking into a swamp that preserved it.
The find, beside a river, could allow scientists to piece together more information about the DNA they share with their much bigger relative, the woolly mammoth…

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Breakthrough Thinking, Business, Current Events, Entertainment, Internet, Latest News

Google’s Answer to the Facebook “Like” Button: The “+1”

Google is making a big new push into social with a feature called “+1” that is similar in purpose to the Facebook “Like” button, but integrated directly into the world’s biggest search engine.

Starting Wednesday, users who opt into the +1 button experiment (and soon everyone else) in Google Labs will start seeing a +1 icon next to each link in Google search results…

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Analysis, Big Problems, Current Events, Historical Perspectives, Hot Issues, Latest News

Marine Microbes Found Feasting On Plastic

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Marine Microbes doing their thing.

Plastics have officially entered the food chain, as seen in the deadly effect things like Styrofoam and bottle caps have on sea turtles and albatross, and even whales. However, how far into the food chain is plastic going? It seems even microbes are eating their fill, though whether or not they’re actually digesting the plastic or just passing it up the chain to larger life forms is still a big question. Regardless, researchers including Tracy Mincer of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts and colleagues have found bacteria that is feasting on plastics found in the ocean.

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Animals, Big Problems, Current Events, Health & Fitness, Historical Perspectives, Hot Issues

Trees Cocooned in Spiders Webs Reducing Risk of Malaria in Pakistan

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Wow. Now that’s a lot of spiders!

Millions of spiders have crawled into trees in Pakistan to escape flood waters, shrouding them with their silky webs. The eye-catching phenomenon is an unexpected side-effect of last year’s flooding which claimed the lives of almost 2,000 people.

However, since the monsoon weather devastated the nation last July, much of the water has still not yet receded. The tiny insects have sought refuge amongst the trees weaving beautifully intricate webs between the leaves. The branches are now so cocooned in spiders webs it gives the appearance of them being shrouded in a large net…

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Breakthrough Thinking, Business, Crazy Stuff, Current Events, Historical Perspectives, Human Behavior, Latest News

Montana RadioShack Offers Free Gun With Dish Network Subscription

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Get some BANG with your dish.

For some reason, a RadioShack in Hamilton, Montana thought it would make sense to offer a free gun with every Dish Network subscription, using the humorous and somewhat clever slogan pictured above. Even weirder than the pairing of the Dish Network and guns, is that the store’s owner claims business has tripled since the promotion began in October. In order to qualify for the deal, customers sign up for the Dish Network, pay for installation and buy a specific amount of related equipment from the RadioShack, at which point, they receive a gift certificate for a local gun store and can choose between a Hi Point 380 pistol or a 20-gauge shotgun…

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Big Problems, Culture, Current Events, Health & Fitness, Historical Perspectives, Hot Issues

Drug Resistant Superbugs Hit U.S. Hospitals and Nursing Homes

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Overuse of antibiotics is starting to take its toll.

A deadly drug-resistant bacteria is spreading to elderly patients in nursing and long-term care facilities in Los Angeles County, according to CBS Local Los Angeles. Today 350 cases have been counted, most found in the elderly population. It’s called the CRKP bacteria and currently, it has no cure…

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Big Problems, Crazy Stuff, Culture, Current Events, Globalism, Historical Perspectives, Hot Issues, Internet, Latest News, Latest Trend

Microsoft Switches Off Privacy for Hotmail Users in War-Torn and Repressive States

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Say goodbye to privacy on Hotmail if your country is in a state of chaos.

For reasons unknown, Microsoft has changed the settings on Hotmail to disable HTTPS for users in several countries including Bahrain, Morocco, Algeria, Syria, Sudan, Iran, Lebanon, Jordan, Congo, Myanmar, Nigeria, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan. Hotmail users in those countries can now be readily spied upon by ISPs and their governments. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has some good perspective…

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Art, Breakthrough Thinking, Crazy Stuff, Current Events, Great Videos, Historical Perspectives, New Viewpoints, Record Breaker

The Longest Film Of All-Time Screening In Helsinki, Finland

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Screening the longest film of all time.

Superflex, a group of Danish artists, have created a 240-hour film titled Modern Times Forever (Stora Enso Building, Helsinki) and will screen it in Helsinki for the festival IHME Project 2011.

The film shows ‘ravages of time marking a box-like office block, Helsinki’s Stora Enso building,’ and they are in fact projecting the film on that same building. In the film, ‘centuries of decay are apparently compressed into the span’ of the 10-day runtime…

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Analysis, Culture, Current Events, Globalism, Historical Perspectives, Hot Issues, Music

U.S. Internet Piracy Is on the Decline

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Internet piracy is on the decline in the U.S., according to new research from NPD Group.

The percentage of the U.S. Internet population using a P2P file-sharing service to download music has decreased from 16% (28 million users) at the end of 2007, to 9% (16 million users) in the fourth quarter of 2010 — the very quarter that LimeWire was forced to shut down its file-sharing service. In the quarter previous, a federal judge ruled against LimeWire in a copyright infringement case versus the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)…

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