Latest News – Page 64

Animals, Historical Perspectives, Latest News, New Discoveries, New Viewpoints, Science & Technology News

Promiscuous Apes Make More Sperm

February 17, 2011

Promiscuous ape species have bigger testicles

Chimpanzees produce 200 times more sperm than gorillas, the world’s largest primates, and 14 times more than orangutans, scientists based in Japan reveal.

Promiscuous ape species have bigger testicles, and the latest discovery finally provides evidence that they also produce more sperm.
Scientists previously proposed that chimps have large testicles because several males mate with a single female, and so have to produce more sperm in order to compete.

For their research, published in the American Journal of Primatology, scientists studied chimpanzees, orangutans and gorillas from zoos in Japan and Indonesia.

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Art, Breakthrough Thinking, Entertainment, facebook, Great Videos, Historical Perspectives, Human Behavior, Latest News

HOW TO: Turn Your Facebook Profile Photo Into a Video

February 15, 2011

Say goodbye to boring old profile photos.

Some Facebook users — myself formerly among them — are obsessive profile tweakers. We edit our list of interests. We reorganize our photo albums and experiment with awesome profile photo hacks. We weigh carefully whether we want to “Like” this Page or that, because we wonder how that information will be inferred. And we’re always just a little bit, well, bored with our profiles.

Enter FlipYourProfile, a new Facebook app slash browser plugin that allows you to replace your profile photo with a video. That’s right…

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Big Problems, Global Warming, Globalism, Historical Perspectives, Hot Issues, Latest News

After Almost 20 Years of Legal Battles, Chevron Fined $8 Billion for Amazon Pollution

February 15, 2011

A slap on the hand or a slap in the face?

It’s been a long battle: people of the Ecuadorean Amazon against Chevron, which is accused of dumping more than 18 billion gallons of toxic waste sludge into the Amazon, leaving people sick with cancer and suffering miscarriages and birth defects. But the BBC reports that, after a lawsuit lasting nearly 20 years, a court in Ecuador has fined Chevron $8 billion for the pollution…

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Breakthrough Thinking, Culture, Education, Historical Perspectives, Latest News

Fixing The Official Kilogram

February 14, 2011

Fixing the problem with the kilogram.

The “reference kilogram” is a lump of metal in France — the kilo being the only metric measurement not based on some objective standard. A project is underway to replace the kilo with something independently reproducible: perfectly spherical balls of based onCarbon-12. Incidentally, these new kilos would also be “the roundest objects in the world.”

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Breakthrough Thinking, Ecological Products, Great New Product, Health & Fitness, Historical Perspectives, Hot Issues, Latest News

Zapping Microbes With Electricity Could Cut Chemical Use in Wastewater by 50%

February 14, 2011

Changing the face of mining?

The mining industry requires significant amounts of water, and the water used becomes polluted with toxins including arsenic, mercury and sulfates. Typically, the water is cleaned with microbes which do their job by adding or removing electrons from the soup, but they need to be supplemented with chemical additives. But a new process could change that, feeding microbes with electric charges instead, and cutting the need for chemicals by half, or possibly even more…

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Award Winner, Baby Gadgets, Birth, Crazy Stuff, Health & Fitness, Historical Perspectives, Latest News, New Viewpoints, People Making a Difference

Girl’s 26 Digits Breaks World Record for Most Fingers and Toes

February 14, 2011

Behold the many digits of Lei Yadi Min.

A one-year-old girl from China has set a new world record for having the most fingers and toes on any living person…

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Breakthrough Thinking, Crazy Stuff, Culture, Historical Perspectives, Human Behavior, Latest News

32 Percent of Russians Think the Sun Revolves Around Earth

February 13, 2011

Many Russians are a little off on their science.

Does the sun revolve around Earth? Is radioactivity a human invention? Did humans ever live side by side with dinosaurs? A surprising number of people in Russia answered those and other questions with a resounding “yes.”

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Breakthrough Thinking, Great New Product, Latest News, New Discoveries, New Inventions, New Viewpoints

Get Your Kid a KIDGET

February 13, 2011

A multi-touching touch screen device.

Technology and the present generation of kids go hand in hand. No matter how hard you try you cannot take the technological aspect out of a child. Taking advantage of this factor Lim Hojoon, the designer from South Korea, has come up with an educational gadget especially for children.

Kidget, as the name suggests, is a combination of two words – kid and gadget. This kid friendly gadget has various uses. When your child is in a mood to read it takes the form of a storybook. When the mood is to draw and color this wonder gadget turns in to a perfect canvas. Your child can freely give color to all his/her imaginations. Should s/he wish to have some fun, see this device convert into a musical instrument. You too would enjoy doing activities with your loved one using this gadget. This multi-touching touch screen device will definitely prove to be an ideal friend for your budding genius.

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Award Winner, Crazy Stuff, Culture, Current Events, Health & Fitness, Historical Perspectives, Human Behavior, Latest News

64-Year Old Man First to Cross the Atlantic in a Kayak Nonstop

February 12, 2011

Kayaking to the beat of a different paddle.

Aleksander Doba, 64, crossed the Atlantic Ocean from Dakar, Senegal to Acaraú, Brazil in almost a hundred days. He’s the first person to do so nonstop:

After 98 days, 23 hours, 42 minutes at sea, Doba and his custom 23-foot-long, 39-inch-wide human-powered kayak landed at Acaraú, a city on Brazil’s northeast coast. The trip covered some 3,320 miles in all, and Doba became only the fourth known person to accomplish such a feat, and the very first to do it nonstop…

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Breakthrough Thinking, Globalism, Historical Perspectives, Hot Issues, Human Behavior, Latest News, New Discoveries, People Making a Difference, Science & Technology News

Chinese Develop Gait-Biometrics Surveillance

February 12, 2011

Another way to be under surveillance.

A confidential United States embassy dispatch released by Wikileaks provides details about a new technology developed by the Chinese Academy of Science to identify people by their gait.

The technology is designed to be deployed beneath existent flooring. From there it measures pedestrian pace and walking pressure to create a unique biometrics profile which can be used to identify and track the movements of individuals without their knowledge…

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Crazy Stuff, Current Events, Economy, Food, Global Warming, Globalism, government, Health & Fitness, Hot Issues, Latest News, Money Talk, New Viewpoints

EPA’s Budget To Be Slashed

February 11, 2011

77% of Americans support the EPA

Okay, okay, we get it. House Republicans don’t like the idea of trying to reign in pollution. I mean really don’t like it. Many of them already claimed that climate change wasn’t real on the campaign trail, and said they’d fight climate legislation. Then, the powerful chairman of the House Energy Committee, Fred Upton (R-MI), has already sponsored a bill designed to prevent the EPA from enforcing the Clean Air Act, claiming it would kill jobs and whatnot. Now, House Republicans have released their vaunted plan for massive federal spending cuts. At the top of the list? The EPA.

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