Google forges forward with new privacy policies.
With Google’s privacy policy change looming, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has published a guide to turning off Google’s search-history logging, thus preventing your search-history from all of Google’s services, including YouTube, from being merged and tracked together. You can also erase your stored search-history while you’re there…
Continue reading… “How to turn off Google’s search-history logging and erase your stored history”
Understanding the chemistry of phytoplankton is key to controlling Earth’s climate.
Tiny ‘phytoplankton’ in the oceans have a huge impact on Earth’s climate – and understanding them could be key to the planet’s future health.
Continue reading… “Ocean plankton the key ingredient that decides the future of Earth’s climate”
Google knows a thing or two about complex calculations performed across very big data sets. Which is why chemists are borrowing ideas from the search company to help them predict how substances react with each other.
PageRank is the algorithm that Google uses to determine the relevancy of links. Now, scientists from Washington State University have borrowed ideas from the code to understand how molecules interact with each other…
Continue reading… “How Google’s algorithms are solving chemistry’s trickiest calculations”
Sending e-waste to better destination.
Mobile telephones and personal computing devices have taken a lot of business out of the post office. Personal letters and corporate mailings now largely have been replaced by digital-age communications.
But the post office may get the last laugh. In Germany, the post office plans to make a good business by collecting old mobile phones, household electronic devices, used printer cartridges, and any other e-waste that is small enough to fit in an A4-size envelop (the size of a flat sheet of standard paper)…
Continue reading… “German post offices to cash in on e-waste”
Otavia antiqua
It looks like an insignificant spec of dust, but if scientists are right, it could be the ancestor of us all.
Meet Otavia antiqua, a microscopic, sponge-like African fossil that could be the earliest known animal…
Continue reading… “Meet Otavia antiqua, possibly the ancestor of all animals”
Another step ahead.
After what seemed like an eternity of mostly stagnation, average fuel economy for new vehicles has been going up in the United States. Researchers at the University of Michigan have conducted a study showing that for current model year vehicles, fuel economy is 14% higher than just four years ago, which might not sound like much, but it’s much better than what we’ve got in the recent past.
The study concludes that average fuel economy…
Continue reading… “Over past four years, new vehicles became 14% more fuel-efficient in U.S.A.”
The United States lags well behind other advanced democracies, ranking just behind Turkey and Spain, when it comes to churning out young workers with college degrees in math and science, according to a new analysis.
Continue reading… “U.S. lags way behind in young workers with college degrees in science and math”
A prediction of the future supercontinent, Amasia.
The Earth has been covered by supercontinents, giant combinations of continents, many times in its past, and it will be again one day in the distant future. The next predicted supercontinent, dubbed Amasia, may form when the Americas and Asia both drift northward to merge, closing off the Arctic Ocean, researchers suggest. (video)
Continue reading… “Amasia – the next supercontinent”
The Peoria Carp Hunters began as ordinary aerial bowfishermen — people who shoot arrows at fish jumping out of the water. But when they saw that their efforts were not reducing the numbers of Asian flying carp, an invasive species in the United States, the heroes took more extreme measures. Watch and wonder at the weapons and armor that they have devised to battle our piscine foes….
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…
Continue reading… “Congress and the EU are fighting to change Google’s privacy policy”
The countries with the most highly educated citizens are also some of the wealthiest in the world.
College graduation rates in developed countries have increased nearly 200%, in the past 50 years according to Education at a Glance 2011, a recently published report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). While education has improved across the board, it has not improved evenly, with some countries enjoying much greater rates of educational attainment than others, according to the report.
Continue reading… “Top 10 most educated countries in the world”
The world of academics is changing rapidly.
OpenCourseWare, or OCW, is a term applied to course materials created by universities and shared freely with the world via the internet. The movement started in 1999 when the University of Tübingen in Germany published videos of lectures online in the context of its timms initiative. The OCW movement only took off, however, with the launch of MIT OpenCourseWare at MIT in October 2002 and has been reinforced by the launch of similar projects at Yale, Michigan University, and the University of California Berkeley…
(infographic after jump)
Continue reading… “The state of OpenCourseWare (infographic)”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.