Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day, Mateys! People everywhere will be banging on about pieces of eight and mainlining rum. But it was Robert Newton’s performance as Long John Silver that defined pirates in the eyes of the world.
- You’re onboard the Enterprise, standing at the windows in Ten Forward, watching the night side of your home world as it speeds by below.
- Around the world in 60 seconds: Incredible time-lapse video created from 600 ISS images.
- New asteroid Vesta close-ups show giant cliffs, mountains and craters.
- Scientists’ predictions about dark matter shaken by research into dwarf galaxies surrounding the Milky Way.
- The hunt is on for last week’s rocks from space: How do they know where to start?
- 35-foot-long NASA satellite expected to crash to Earth on Friday. Or maybe Thursday. Or Saturday. Where, you ask? Polar bears and Antarctic scientists are safe.
- Dinosaur skeleton preserved with its own footprint in world first.
- Scientists study fish behaviour, body shape and reproduction in the hope of understanding the effects of overfishing the world’s oceans.
- Artificial blood vessels made on a 3D printer may soon be used for transplants of lab-created organs.
- Diet affects neurogenesis in the hippocampus: How to eat yourself happy.
- Evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker argues we are much less violent than our ancestors.
- The Truth about Pirates: What makes the scurvy dogs who plague our seas robbing ships aplenty seem so damned exciting to film directors, kids and newsreaders?
- Over-confidence, or self-delusion, beats accurate self-assessment in sports, business or war. But it can also backfire.
- U.S. can’t track or fully account for 5,900 pounds of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium that it once shipped overseas.
- Welp, looks like it’s time for humanity to stop fretting about diseases of old age – and global over-population – and get back to worrying about dying from infectious diseases instead.
- Pakistan hit by dengue fever epidemic.
- Plan drawn up to try to tackle drug-resistant tuberculosis in 53 European countries.
- If the flu virus doesn’t kill you, your own immune system might.
- Online gamers decipher structure of an AIDS-like retrovirus enzyme that has thwarted scientists for a decade.
- Scientists say ‘Contagion’ could happen, but the odds are pretty long that a new virus could be both so deadly and contagious at the same time.
- Study shows infectious diseases are primary cause of variations in human intelligence.
- Epigenetic code evolves more quickly than the genetic code, and can strongly influence biological traits.
- In the next two decades, the world’s cities will spread over more than 590,000 square miles of land — more than twice the area of Texas.
- theSkyNet has been inadvertently leaking the personal info of users that have been contributing to the project.
- The last of the pinball wizards.
- $10 million movie deal for former cinema popcorn seller who spent 10 years writing alien-abduction sci-fi thriller in his spare time.
- Lightsaber lights up the night sky, storm trooper herds
ET’s cousinsjawas across NYC street, and sadly-diminished Darth Vader takes a taxi — all to hype the release of remastered Star Wars 6-movie boxed set on Blu-Ray. (Fingers crossed that it will contain no Jedi Kittens Striking Back.) - Biologist Niall McCann catches 18-foot-long anaconda in jungles of Guyana.
- Yeti hunter: Giant boxer joins hunt to find abominable snowman.
- Pigeon-guided missiles: Inventions that didn’t quite fly.
- Sir David Attenborough and Richard Dawkins are among 30 scientists demanding tougher government guidelines on the teaching of creationism in schools.
- Can we learn more from religion than science?
- To remind us that one person can make a difference: A real Good Samaritan — and ten more Good Samaritan stories.
Thanks, Rick.
Quote of the Day:
Too many atheists miss the point of religion, it’s about how we live and not what we believe.
John Gray
