If the US government had any capacity for self-reflection, this turning of the tables by Wikileaks might spark a feeling of identification with, and empathy for, its beleaguered citizens, whose Constitutional right to privacy it is currently violating with its airport pornoscanners and sexual assaults, by its warrantless reading and storage of emails, by its warrantless eavesdropping on, and recording of, phone calls, by its analysis and storage of every credit-card purchase, and by its stalking and storage of every click we make, and bit of information we post, on the internet.
- US cables leak, via Wikileaks, sparks global diplomatic crisis. Links to more stories about the leaked cables can also be found on this page.
- Why nuclear holocaust really is ‘the sum of all fears’.
- The Front Lines of Disarmament: Trying to block a new US nuclear weapons facility that will cost six times the Manhattan Project.
- The teeth of a 200 million year old reptile reveal how snakes got their fangs.
- Dinosaurs’ living descendants: China’s spectacular feathered fossils have finally answered the century-old questions about the ancestors of today’s birds.
- Fate of the Cave Bear: The lumbering beasts coexisted with the first humans for tens of thousands of years and then died off. Why?
- Hunters may have delivered fatal blow to mammoths.
- Rehabilitating Cleopatra: Egypt’s ruler was more than the sum of the seductions that loom so large in history — and in Hollywood.
- The Edison Curse: Thomas Alva Edison Junior could never get a break. Part one and part two.
- The species seekers: The 18th century was a great age of discovery when a frontiersman mentality yielded scientific breakthroughs in natural history. Richard Conniff’s latest book, The Species Seekers: Heroes, Fools and the Mad Pursuit of Life on Earth is available at Amazon US & UK.
- Extreme Survival 101: How to survive a falling elevator, surf a lava wave, and more.
- Exploring the universe from the comforts of Antarctica.
- Some of the universe’s most massive galaxies may have formed billions of years earlier than current scientific models predict.
- Cosmic GPS would employ pulsars, not satellites, as celestial beacons.
- Hooper, Colorado: Pit stop for U.F.O.’s, and humans who love them.
- The world through a bionic eye: Ever wanted to see like the X-Men’s Cyclops? These new video simulations show how a microchip eye implant views the world.
- Scientists re-sequence six elite inbred varieties of corn, and are stunned to find more than 100 genes that are present in some corn lines but missing in others.
- Scientists reverse ageing in mice.
- Synaesthesia: crossovers in the senses.
- Siblings share genes, but when it comes to personality, they’re practically like strangers.
- Spendthrifts, Tightwads, Equally Unhappy: Not only do people at the extremes of shopping both feel unhappy, they also frequently end up marrying each other.
- The neuroscience of time: How do you really know what time it is?
- Are stoners really dumb, or do they just think they are?
- Into the deep web: Search engines see only one in 500 of the accessible pages out there – but a new approach could open up vast new data mines.
- Ships and buoys made global warming look slower.
- Climate change scientists warn of 4C global temperature rise.
- A billion people will lose their homes due to climate change, says report.
- Antarctic ice reveals trapped secrets of climate change.
- Oil companies and banks will profit from UN forest protection scheme.
- There’s oxygen on Rhea, but aliens? Don’t hold your breath.
- Einstein’s ‘biggest blunder’ turns out to be right.
- Glaring imperfections of homo sapiens: The top ten daily consequences of having evolved.
- Siprnet: America’s secret information network.
- Video of Nigel Farage, MEP: ‘Just who the hell do you think you people are? You are very, very dangerous people indeed.’
- What’s it like to fly like Superman? Video of Jeb Corliss living the dream.
Quote of the Day:
There’s a lot of chatter, for obvious reasons, about the Wikileaks document dump and whether or not it’s a dangerous and despicable act. My personal feeling is that any allegedly democratic government that is so hubristic that it will lie blatantly to the entire world in order to invade a country it has long wanted to invade probably needs a self-correcting mechanism. There are times when it’s necessary that the powerful be shown that there are checks on its behavior, particularly when the systems normally designed to do that are breaking down. Now is one of those times.
