7 Billion

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Sometime this year, the world’s population will pass the 7 billion mark. By 2045, that figure is expected to be 9 billion. National Geographic is beginning a year-long series on how the world’s population came to be, where we are headed, and the challenges that come with so many of us living together. Those challenges include energy consumption, education, birth control, natural resources, immigration, and more.

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10-Year-Old Canadian Girl Discovers Supernova

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Supernova girl Kathryn Gray

A 10-year-old girl in Canada has become the youngest person to discover a supernova – an exploding star which can briefly outshine a whole galaxy. Kathryn Gray was studying images taken at an amateur observatory which had been sent to her father. She spotted the magnitude 17 supernova on Sunday.

Supernovas – which are rare events – are stellar explosions that mark the violent deaths of stars several times bigger than the Sun. The supernova was discovered in the galaxy UGC 3378, about 240 million light years away, in the constellation of Camelopardalis. “I’m really excited. It feels really good,” Ms Gray said…

(video after jump…)

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Weather.com Text Alerts

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I used to be a weather idiot. When it was going to rain, I usually found out by getting wet or by seeing everyone else holding an umbrella or rain coat on public transportation. I wanted something that informed me when it was going to rain (but not something that I had to look for). I wondered if there was a text message alert system for when it rained…

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Ancient Rock Art In Western Australia Maintains Its Vivid Colors Because It Is Alive

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(Scale bar = 1mm. Rectangle left shows approximate location of digital micrograph illustrated right).
‘Cherry’ figure. Note that red organisms predominate, but black fungus is also present.

While some rock art fades in hundreds of years, the “Bradshaw art” remains colourful after at least 40,000 years.

Jack Pettigrew of the University of Queensland in Australia has shown that the paintings have been colonized by colorful bacteria and fungi.

These “biofilms” may explain previous difficulties in dating such rock art…

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Scientists Find Evidence For ‘Chronesthesia,’ or Mental Time Travel

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Is your brain aware of more than the time right now?

Researchers have found evidence for “chronesthesia,” which is the brain’s ability to be aware of the past and future, and to mentally travel in subjective time. They found that activity in different brain regions is related to chronesthetic states when a person thinks about the same content during the past, present, or future…

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All Plane Flights in the World in a Day

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx7_yzypm5w[/youtube]

This one is quite neat. Here’s a YouTube clip showing all of the air traffic in the world in a single day, condensed to a little over a minute:

The yellow dots are airplanes in the sky during a 24 hour period. Stay with the picture. You will see the light of the day moving from the east to the west, as the Earth spins on its axis…

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Apple Is Now Worth More Than $300 Billion

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Did you invest in Apple by buying an iProduct?

Apple has surpassed $300 billion in market capitalization, achieving a distinction shared currently by only one other company in the world.

By Monday at 12:10 p.m. ET, the price of Apple Inc. shares has risen by more than seven points to 329.75, giving the company an approximate market capitalization of $302.47 billion…

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Scientists Created Singing Mouse. No, Seriously.

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Fa, la, la, la, la, la.

Having cured cancer and other serious ailments, a team of Japanese scientists from the University of Osaka turned to the next most vexing scientific problem facing the world today, the lack of singing mice, and licked that problem too. No seriously. Singing mouse.

A team of researchers at the University of Osaka created the animal in their “Evolved Mouse Project”, in which they use genetically modified mice that are prone to miscopying DNA and thus to mutations…

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12 Tips From The Stupidest Criminals Of 2010

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Criminals are not always the smartest or luckiest people

If you’re robbing a pizza joint asking for ‘dough’ and pointing to a bag behind the counter, don’t look surprised when you end up with a bag full of pizza ingredients.
Most lawbreakers aren’t exactly geniuses, but these troublemakers cross the line between foolishness and downright ineptitude…

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Discover the Hidden Patterns of Tomorrow with Futurist Thomas Frey
Unlock Your Potential, Ignite Your Success.

By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.

Learn More about this exciting program.