A student holds his hand-held GPS, which will help track his whereabouts and will help him stay in school.
Frustrated by students habitually skipping class, police and school officials in Anaheim are turning to GPS tracking to ensure they come to class.
Continue reading… “Kids Who Skip School in California Are Tracked by GPS”
The world’s most detailed 3D model of HIV.
We’re always suckers for a good art/science mashup, so perhaps it’s no surprise that we’re feeling pretty good about today’s release of the 2010 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge winners. This year’s winning entries included the most detailed 3-D model of the HIV virus ever made (above), a sweeping infographic primer on the many ways fungi impact our lives, and a non-interactive media project that tracked 3,000 pieces of garbage from their origins in Seattle to destinations across the U.S. (Pics)
Anti-lasing
The laser — a 50-year-old invention now used in everything from CDs to laser pointers — has met its match in the “antilaser,” the first device capable of trapping and canceling out laser beams.
Continue reading… “Scientists Invent World’s First Anti-Laser”
Two TSA screeners from New York’s Kennedy airport were busted for stealing over $200,000 in cash from fliers. They targetted people they thought were drug dealers, since they didn’t think their victims would complain…
Continue reading… “TSA Screeners Stole Over $200K From Fliers’ Baggage”
Architect Didier Faustino made Double Happiness out of an old billboard in New York City:
Double Happiness responds to the society of materialism where individual desires seem to be prevailing over all. This nomad piece of urban furniture allows the reactivation of different public spaces and enables inhabitants to reappropriate fragments of their city…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRe79QxzxWY[/youtube]
The X PRIZE Foundation has announced the official roster of 29 registered teams competing for the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE, an unprecedented competition to send a robot to the Moon that travels at least 500 meters and transmit video, images, and data back to the Earth. This group of teams signifies this new era of exploration’s diverse and participatory nature as it includes a huge variety of groups ranging from non-profits to university consortia to billion dollar businesses representing 17 nations on four continents. The global competition, the largest in history, was announced in September 2007, with a winner projected by 2015.
Perhaps inspired by the Seinfeld episode where Kramer and Newman try to set up a business using homeless men to pull rickshaws through New York, a Japanese firm has designed an electric rickshaw. Called the “Meguru,” it’s a spin on the traditionally man-powered vehicle that first appeared in Japan at the end of the 19th century and that has since spread around the world.
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.
If running a marathon sounds like a daunting feat, try covering 26 miles in freezing February weather through hills, mud and streams — while carrying a 60-pound backpack.
On Monday, that’s just what Paddy Doyle, a former paratrooper and amateur boxer from Birmingham City, U.K., did to achieve his 200th fitness endurance record…
Continue reading… “World’s Fittest Man Sets 200th World Record”
Largest churches in the U.S. see a decline in membership.
Mainline Protestant denominations in the United States continue their decades-long membership decline, while the membership in Pentecostal churches are on the rise, according to new figures compiled by the National Council of Churches.
Continue reading… “Membership Declines in Largest U.S. Churches”
To most of us, chocolate is a delicious substance. To dogs, chocolate is also delicious, but potentially lethal. Chocolate contains theobromine, a naturally occurring stimulant found in the cocoa bean. It affects the central nervous system as well as heart muscle.
It’s the theobromine that is poisonous to dogs in sufficient quantities. But it takes, on average, a fairly large amount of theobromine to cause a toxic reaction…
