The story, still sometimes repeated in creationist circles, goes like this: it is the 1960s, at Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland, and a team of astronomers is using cutting-edge computers to recreate the orbits of the planets, thousands of years in the past. Suddenly, an error message flashes up. There's a problem: way back in history, one whole day appears to be missing.
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We’ve got a lot of problems when it comes to our food system, but one of them was clearly articulated with a simple graphic. How do food subsidies affect what we’re eating? Check this out:.
This graphic was recently published by the Consumerist, with the few words, “This is why you’re fat.”
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What can make tens of millions of people – who are in their daily lives peaceful and compassionate and caring – suddenly want to physically dismember a man for drawing a cartoon, or make excuses for an international criminal conspiracy to protect child-rapists?
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Google, Facebook and eBay are among the tech giants that have slammed the government's plans to tackle internet piracy, claiming it will "threaten freedom of speech".
In a letter to the Financial Times, the group, which also includes UK ISPs such as BT and TalkTalk, said the amendment to the Digital Economy Bill has "obvious shortcomings" and will lead to an "increase in internet service providers blocking websites accused of illegally hosting copyrighted material without cases even reaching a judge".
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Air pollution may be leading to the premature deaths of 35,000 people in Britain a year, nearly 50% more than has been previously admitted by government, a committee of MPs has heard.
The figure was used for the first time by environment minister Jim Fitzpatrick when giving evidence to the Commons environment audit committee.
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As recently as 2008, scientific research papers were citing the theory that endurance performance is limited by the capacity of the skeletal muscles, heart and lungs and that exhaustion occurs when the active muscles are unable to produce the force or power required by prolonged exercise.
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Britain's biggest banks were yesterday given the green light to continue charging hugely controversial penalty fees after agreeing a deal with regulators that was branded "flaccid" and "weak" by consumer groups.
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While politicians banter about NASA’s budget and the future of manned space flight, the space agency is prepping the critical technology its remaining four space shuttle missions will deliver to complete the International Space Station.
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We turned off the main road to Awassa, talked our way past security guards and drove a mile across empty land before we found what will soon be Ethiopia's largest greenhouse. Nestling below an escarpment of the Rift Valley, the development is far from finished, but the plastic and steel structure already stretches over 50 acres* -- the size of 20 soccer fields.
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American media conglomerate Viacom considered buying YouTube just months before it launched a $1bn (£655m) piracy lawsuit against the video sharing site, according to court documents.
Files released today by a US court suggest that the television giant - which owns channels including MTV, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central - had considered purchasing YouTube in 2006 in what executives said could prove a "transformative acquisition".
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While admiring line drawings by Hokusai Katsushika, psychophysicist Naoyuki Osaka of Kyoto University, Japan, was struck by the vivid motion they convey. Instead of using blur to suggest movement, as much modern art has done since the advent of photography, Katsushika created motion by drawing bodies in highly unstable positions (see picture).
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Two old friends, civil rights activist David Mixner and former U.S. Senator (and my oft co-author) Don Riegle (D-MI), believe that in the economic recovery, not enough attention is being given to 'who's really poor' now. David and Don have for years advised me -- and others -- on the issue of poverty in America, and they are worried that too many people, and especially too many people in the administration and Congress, are missing this imperative.
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The first planet with a "temperate" climate to orbit a distant star has been discovered by astronomers, who claim that the techniques used to study it will be critical in the search for Earth-like worlds beyond our own solar system.
Corot-9b, as the planet is called, is one of more than 400 "exoplanets" found to be orbiting other stars, but it is the first one with a near-normal temperature range that can be studied as it moves across (or "transits") the sun it orbits.
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Ongoing computer scams targeting small businesses cost US companies $25 million in the third quarter of 2009, according to the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
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One in four UK youngsters have tried hacking into Facebook or webmail accounts, according to a new survey.
An online poll of 1,000 school-age children in London and 150 in Cumbria discovered that the vast majority (78 per cent) knew that hacking was wrong.
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