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Biting the hand that feeds IT

Fri, 16 May 2008 12:08:38 +0200

.::'Crazy rasberry ants' target Texan tech::.

Electronics on the menu for rampaging nutter insects

Texans in the Houston area are battling rampaging hordes of "voracious swarming ants" which have inexplicably developed a taste for electronic equipment, Chicago Tribune reports.…

Thu, 15 May 2008 14:47:27 +0200

.::Chinese boffins show off unbelievably tight ring::.

Golden monomolecular nano wedding-band is largest ever

Chinese nanojewellery experts have managed to fashion an exceptionally tiny ring out of just 36 atoms of gold. Incredibly minuscule as the golden nano-ring is, however, it is in fact the world's largest of its type.…

Thu, 15 May 2008 11:36:03 +0200

.::Swiss birdman in Alpine backpack-jetplane stunt flight::.

'I'm not married any more,' says fanatical air-head

Famous backpack-jetplane pilot Yves Rossy has given his most daring public performance yet, leaping from an ordinary aeroplane to perform a variety of stunts above the Swiss Alps. He says he will fly his four-engined strapon flying wing across the English Channel later this year.…

Thu, 15 May 2008 08:02:03 +0200

.::European manned spaceflight plan proposed::.

Get into this cargo container, astronauts told

Strong rumours are circulating regarding plans for a European manned spaceflight capability. A firm announcement is expected later this month, which would outline a scheme based on modifications to the existing "Jules Verne" automated cargo module used to supply the International Space Station.…

Wed, 14 May 2008 22:54:30 +0200

.::Scientists discover galaxy's youngest supernova::.

Victorian stellar explosion

Where have all the Milky Way's supernovas gone?…

Wed, 14 May 2008 13:16:39 +0200

.::Vatican star watcher says aliens may be out there::.

ET spiritus sancti

The Catholic Church’s top astronomer has said there is no contradiction between the one true faith and believing in aliens.…

Wed, 14 May 2008 11:25:21 +0200

.::NASA bites nails over Phoenix landing::.

Lander's Red Planet encounter looms

NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander is on its final approach for a slated touch-down on the Red Planet's Arctic region on 25 May amid a certain amount of nail-biting as to whether it will survive the landing.…

Wed, 14 May 2008 11:04:46 +0200

.::MoD begins full UFO-files public release::.

Alien puppet regime starts coverup propaganda dump

The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has begun releasing its voluminous files regarding unidentified flying objects, aerial phenomena, possible alien visitations etc. The documents will all become available to the public via the National Archives over the next three years.…

Tue, 13 May 2008 21:59:37 +0200

.::Romanian and Turkish scientists turn circuit boards into oil::.

Biomess goes biomass

Whether through a force of expanding environmental activism or just compliance with government edicts, the IT sector is in a pinch over how to safely recycle defunct computers and equipment.…

Tue, 13 May 2008 14:04:08 +0200

.::Heathrow 777 crash: Siberian cold to blame?::.

Probe into 'reduced fuel flow' considers possible freezing

The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) yesterday issued a further update (pdf) on its investigation into the 17 January crash-landing of a Boeing 777 at Heathrow following an otherwise uneventful long-haul flight from Beijing.…

Tue, 13 May 2008 12:19:39 +0200

.::Airbus revises A380 delivery schedule::.

Further delays

Airbus has confirmed it's cutting the number of A380s due to be delivered in 2008 and 2009 - from 13 to 12 and 25 to 21, respectively.…

Tue, 13 May 2008 10:45:50 +0200

.::UK's tallest bovine soars to 6ft 6in::.

An awful lot of bullock

A Friesian bullock who measures a towering 6ft 6in at the shoulder is expected to claim the Guinness World Record for the UK's tallest bovine, the Times reports.…

Mon, 12 May 2008 13:37:25 +0200

.::Weapons, oil prices driving worldwide atom ambitions::.

Join the Nuclear Club, get a nuclear club

A crush of developing nations trying to gatecrash the nuclear power club has prompted fears of a subsequent race to develop nuclear weapons.…

Mon, 12 May 2008 11:42:41 +0200

.::Shuttle astronauts: Aliens are definitely out there::.

Haven't personally seen any - it's more of a feeling

Space shuttle astronauts, recently returned from a visit to the International Space Station, have told reporters in Japan they believe that extraterrestrial life exists. However, the space explorers added that none of them had actually seen any.…

Fri, 09 May 2008 12:19:52 +0200

.::Swiss ponder the 'dignity of plants'::.

Biotech guidelines tackle thorny issue

A Swiss government ethics committee has issued guidelines on the thorny issue of the "dignity of plants" in relation to biotech research after the country's 2004 Gene Technology Law declared that "the dignity of creatures" should be considered in any grant-funded research.…

Fri, 09 May 2008 12:12:55 +0200

.::EDF circles British nuclear powerplant sites::.

Buys farmland to secure juice futures

French nuclear energy colossus EDF, which also operates various types of non-nuclear generation in the UK, has been buying up farmland close to existing British nuke plants.…

Thu, 08 May 2008 11:18:05 +0200

.::Blighty to become old-time Inundation Nation::.

Floods are the new terrorism, says expert

A top boffin has warned that Blighty may be headed into a "monsoon" period, possibly a decade or more in duration, in which we can expect much more flooding than has been the norm for the past generation or so. Interestingly, Professor Stuart Lane doesn't ascribe his predicted watery onslaught to climate change. He says the UK has often suffered such flooding epidemics in the past.…

Wed, 07 May 2008 13:25:03 +0200

.::US boffins puff off 'living nose on a chip' tech::.

Stink feared over Smelltard digi-nostril bootlegs

American boffins have revealed that they are working to perfect a new technology in which "living olfactory cells" would be placed on electronic chips, offering an accurate sense of smell as an option for portable devices.…

Wed, 07 May 2008 13:02:02 +0200

.::Scientists create Chewbotca robot muncher::.

Om nom nom nom 2.0

During private and quieter moments, it does a person good to assess the present threat of robots.…

Tue, 06 May 2008 14:00:33 +0200

.::Defra steps up probe into honeybee wipeout::.

UK hives hit hard

The Department for Environment, Food And Rural Affairs (Defra) has announced it is giving "higher priority" to the investigation of bee fatalities following "early signs of significant colony losses across the country".…

Tue, 06 May 2008 12:51:41 +0200

.::NASA invites you to travel to the Moon::.

Well, your name at least

NASA is inviting citizens of Earth to add their name to an electronic roll-call destined to travel to the Moon aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) later this year.…

Sun, 04 May 2008 09:02:03 +0200

.::Added green burden could ground flying cars for good::.

Get off my flying car, hippies!

Analysis Regular readers of the Reg will be familiar with the many obstacles that lie between us and our long-desired flying cars. Unfortunately, rather than any boxes being ticked off on the checklist, it rather appears as though yet another has been added. More and more, people seem to expect their already difficult enough flying car to be green.…

Fri, 02 May 2008 13:04:58 +0200

.::Robot aircraft 'sense and avoid' gear in flight tests::.

Auto-safety kit good for droids - and flying cars

US aerospace titan Northrop Grumman has commenced flight tests of new "sense and avoid" technology which could be fitted to existing and future unmanned aircraft - or indeed to the long-awaited flying cars - allowing them to fly routinely in civilian airspace. At present, planes which don't carry qualified pilots are subject to special time-consuming bureaucracy before they can make such flights.…

Fri, 02 May 2008 12:02:02 +0200

.::Is the earth getting warmer, or cooler?::.

A tale of two thermometers

Analysis A paper published in scientific journal Nature this week has reignited the debate about Global Warming, by predicting that the earth won't be getting any warmer until 2015. Researchers at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences have factored in cyclical oceanic into their climate model, and produced a different forecast to the "consensus" models which don't.…

Thu, 01 May 2008 17:04:38 +0200

.::DARPA reveals 2009 hyperplane test schedule::.

NZ weekend getaways to spread choc-cheese slice fad worldwide?

Further details of the US military hypersonics programme have emerged, with confirmation of planned tests above the Pacific in 2009.…

Thu, 01 May 2008 14:34:58 +0200

.::Shell pulls out of Thames Estuary mega-windfarm::.

Project could supply a thousandth of UK's energy

Oil giant Shell has pulled out of the world's biggest windfarm project, in a move which has cast doubt over the scheme's future.…

Thu, 01 May 2008 10:58:19 +0200

.::'Space gemstone' meteorite crashes at auction::.

Buyers shun $2m rock for dino dung

A "magnificent" 420kg meteorite crammed with "spectacular olivine crystals" failed to move buyers at Bonhams New York yesterday and went unsold, Reuters reports.…

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 14:50:51 +0200

.::Vultures crash out of the Indian skyscape::.

Could be extinct in a decade

A catastrophic decline in the number of Asian vultures due to the continued use of drugs in livestock means the noble, if picky, birds could be extinct within a decade.…

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:45:16 +0200

.::UK physics chief next for the chop in funding bloodbath?::.

Select committee evidence 'inaccurate, unconvincing and unacceptable'

Professor Keith Mason, the man in charge of scything £80m from the UK's physics research budget, has been sharply criticised by MPs investigating cutbacks which have forced job losses in labs and threaten to shut down many projects.…

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:14:25 +0200

.::Discoverer of LSD dead at 102::.

Albert Hofmann takes his final trip

Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann, who in 1943 accidentally discovered the hallucinogenic effects of Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), has died at the age of 102, Reuters reports.…

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:30:52 +0200

.::Astroboffins moot massive Moon-mirror heliograph::.

How to catch ET's eye

A pair of US astrobiologists have come up with a cunningly simply way of attracting the attention of alien lifeforms - just cover half the Moon's surface with mirrors to throw back some extra sunlight in ET's direction.…

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 14:54:34 +0200

.::Dogs reduce allergies in kids::.

The benefit of mutts as pets

German researchers have apparently confirmed that keeping a dog as a family pet will reduce the chance that kids will develop allergies - a finding which backs a theory that having a mutt about the house "trains the immune system to be less sensitive to potential triggers for allergies like asthma, eczema and hay fever".…

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 14:13:36 +0200

.::Men could have kids with chimpanzees - gov must act::.

Religious bioethics hardliner's amazing claim

A leading Scottish churchman and bioethics thinktank operator has warned again of the dangers attendant on genetic research, and recommended that there should be a law against men having children with female chimpanzees.…

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 16:44:30 +0200

.::Natasha Henstridge braces for Impact::.

Dwarf star hits Moon, Earth has bad hair day

In what is quite possibly the most ominous sci-fi news so far this year, Variety reports that Species minx Natasha Henstridge will star in Impact - a TV two-parter featuring a dwarf star hitting the Moon, followed by the usual apocalyptic pandemonium down on Earth.…

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 11:50:24 +0200

.::Second Galileo test sat now in orbit::.

GIOVE-B lifts off after long delays

The second test satellite for Europe's planned Galileo satnav constellation went into orbit at the weekend. The GIOVE-B (Galileo In Orbit Validation Element B) satellite took off aboard a Soyuz rocket from Baikonur in Kazakhstan on Saturday.…

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 02:10:41 +0200

.::NASA researching 'nanosats' for orbiting 5G space network::.

Sarah Connor never easier to find

NASA's Ames Research Center is teaming with the often sinister-sounding Machine-to-Machine Intelligence Corporation (m2mi) to create a global networking system using small satellites they call "nanosats."…

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 00:46:48 +0200

.::Governator outs Dubya's global-warming 'time bomb'::.

'I preempt your preemption'

The Governator thinks W is useless when it comes to regulating stuff spewed into the atmosphere by American cars and trucks.…

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 20:52:24 +0200

.::Motorised meat-smoker droid vigilante patrols Atlanta::.

Vagrants live in fear of the 'Bum Bot'

A former US Marine bar owner has built a home-made robot which patrols the streets of Atlanta rousting winos and vagrants. The so-called "Bum Bot" is equipped with a panoply of glaring lights, an infrared camera, and a water cannon in a "spinning turret".…

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 15:32:28 +0200

.::DARPA wants microscopic atom clocks on chips::.

To put inside brainchip zombie cyborg moths, of course

Pentagon boffinry chiefs have announced that they'd like a very small, super-accurate atomic clock, so small that one day you might build it on a chip. Apparently, they would like to mount these nano superclocks inside the heads of their planned spy legion of brainchipped cyborg zombie insects.…

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 12:58:38 +0200

.::Do biofuels cause famine? EU President opens probe::.

Culprit sought for higher food prices

The President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso has asked for an investigation into whether the push for biofuels is to blame for rising food prices.…

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:24:45 +0200

.::Colliding galaxies mark Hubble anniversary::.

New set of galactic pile-up snaps released

Aficionados of galactic pile-ups can avail themselves today of a set of 59 Hubble images of colliding galaxies, released to commemorate the 18th anniversary of the space telescope's launch.…

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 13:24:44 +0200

.::Brown gov will make 'big commitment' to carbon capture::.

Big as in small

The Brown government, having previously stated that it is one of very few national administrations worldwide taking the idea of carbon capture seriously, has reportedly disclosed that its seriousness will not take the form of cash.…

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 20:42:25 +0200

.::Brain-plug weapons could provide war crime immunity::.

Lawyer spots future brainhat-slaughter atrocity loophole

Comment An American law student has published an analysis of international law regarding war crimes that might be committed using future brain-interface-controlled weapon systems.…

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 15:11:18 +0200

.::Girl-only fish species survives by cloning::.

No men or bicycles required

Researchers are pondering how an exclusively-female fish species has survived without genetically self-destructing itself into extinction, the BBC reports.…

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 15:02:03 +0200

.::Wake me up when Global Warming's over::.

Pollution, conservation bigger worries than climate

It looks like Al Gore is going to need every cent of the $300m war chest he's amassed for climate persuasion. Americans polled by Gallup for 'Earth Day' value "traditional", bottom-up environmental issues such as pollution and conservation as being more worrying than Global Warming. Remarkably, the level of concern about greenhouse gas emissions has barely wavered in a generation. Recklessness, or Huck Finn-style American common sense?…

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 13:03:10 +0200

.::EU plans to boost organ donor numbers::.

With region-wide card and 24/7 hotline

The European Parliament is calling for a Europe-wide donor card in order to reduce the shortage of organs available for transplant.…

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 15:09:11 +0200

.::The American way of bioterror - an A-Z of ricin crackpots::.

Homebrew poison of choice to the hard of thinking

It takes a special kind of American to be fascinated by ricin, and last week the latest, Roger Von Bergendorff, was indicted in the District Court of Nevada. Bergendorff possibly qualifies for an award in failed Darwinism, being the only person in recent times to have seemingly accidentally poisoned himself with the protein toxin, but not quite effectively enough for the FBI to have nothing to do except attend his funeral.…

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 12:15:24 +0200

.::South Koreans clone sniffer dog::.

Canadian labrador retriever x 7

South Korea has begun training seven puppies cloned from a Canadian labrador retriever named Chase, reckoned by the country's customs officials to be their best sniffer dog, the BBC reports.…

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 03:07:23 +0200

.::PETA offers $1m for test tube chicken::.

Cock without the a-doodle-doo

PETA, the US Animal rights organization, is challenging scientists to create test-tube meat for a cash reward, in a similar vein as X Prize Foundation.…

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 15:21:14 +0200

.::Korean astronaut recounts 'ballistic' Soyuz re-entry::.

'At first I was scared', admits Yi So-Yeon

Korean astronaut Yi So-Yeon has recounted the "ballistic" re-entry of the ISS Mission 16 Soyuz capsule on Saturday which, due to a technical hitch, "exposed the crew to twice the usual gravitational forces", put on a nice display of external flames for the understandably nervous 29-year-old biotechnology engineer, and eventually carried her and her fellow passengers to a touch-down in the steppes of Kazakhstan some distance from the intended landing site.…