By Jonathan Amos A cave on the northwestern coast of Sumatra holds a remarkable record of big tsunamis in the Indian Ocean. The limestone opening, close to Banda Aceh, retains the sandy deposits washed ashore by huge, earthquake-induced waves over thousands of years. Scientists are using the site to help determine the frequency of catastrophes like the event of 26 December 2004. This is being done by dating the cave’s tsunami-borne sediments
Author: mediahitman
Google has put supercomputers in the pockets of millions of Americans and plans to have self-driving cars soon navigating the nation’s roads. Naturally, the tech giant says they’ll next have cloud-connected microphones inside ceilings everywhere. That’s according to chief Google engineer Scott Huffman, who made his rounds among tech reporters this week to reveal what he has already envisioned for the Silicon Valley company’s future.
By Elizabeth Landau If you have ambitions of being one of the first people on Mars, listen up: A Dutch company says it is moving along with its plan to send four lucky Earthlings to colonize the Red Planet. The catch: They won’t ever come back. The Mars One foundation announced Tuesday that it has secured lead suppliers for an unmanned mission launching in 2018
By Lee Speigel A story is circulating around the Internet that suggests Russia has known about alien civilizations for many decades. Part of this fantastic tale involves a UFO that allegedly crashed in 1969, was recovered by Russian military (see image below) and a dead alien that was reportedly autopsied, according to TheVoiceofRussia.com.
Lloyd Diagnosed with Cancer Lloyd Pye is diagnosed with aggressive B-cell lymphoma cancer. Must fight for his life at an alternative center with an outstanding record of turning lymphoma cancer into a chronic illness rather than a fatal disease. Consequently, he is turning over the Starchild Project to others who will carry it forward with a new, fully modernized, and highly upgraded website.
The NSA and the UK’s GCHQ spying agencies have collected players’ charts and deployed real-life agents into online World of Warcraft and Second Life games, a new leak by whistleblower Edward Snowden has revealed. An NSA document from 2008, titled “Exploiting Terrorist Use of Games & Virtual Environments,” was published Monday by The Guardian in partnership with The New York Times and ProPublica.
by Joe Wolverton, II A key plank of the Obama administration platform seems to be the conversion of the local police into a fifth branch of the U.S. armed forces. The means of accomplishing this goal is the doling out of millions of dollars from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to police departments and sheriffs’ offices around the country.
By Andrea Elliott She wakes to the sound of breathing. The smaller children lie tangled beside her, their chests rising and falling under winter coats and wool blankets. A few feet away, their mother and father sleep near the mop bucket they use as a toilet. Two other children share a mattress by the rotting wall where the mice live, opposite the baby, whose crib is warmed by a hair dryer perched on a milk crate.
Seven officials of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department have been indicted on charges of conspiracy, obstruction and giving false statements in connection with the FBI’s investigation of alleged misconduct in the county’s jails. The indictment, obtained by the Los Angeles Times, shows the FBI alleges the Sheriff’s officials hindered a longstanding investigation after the Department realized an inmate was acting as a federal informant.
Daisy Luther Activist Post If you had a business selling something that made you well over a hundred billion dollars per year, would you take steps to eradicate the need for your business? Or would you make every effort for that money continue rolling in? Take cancer, for example. Don’t let all the media hype about “The Cure” fool you. No one who is in a position to do so wants to end cancer because they are all making a killing on the big business of treatment, while ordinary people go broke, suffer horribly, and die.
The world’s leading technology companies have addressed Washington in an open letter to demand a radical overhaul of surveillance laws, an international ban of bulk data collection and for the US to lead the way in restoring trust in the internet. Apple, AOL, Facebook, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn, Yahoo and Microsoft whose combined value is estimated at $1.4 trillion published an open letter Monday advocating radical reforms.
Air pollution in the European Union is causing premature deaths even when levels meet quality guidelines, a report has shown. Even in areas where pollution was much lower than the limit, scientists found there is a higher-than-normal risk of death. The study, published the British Medical Association’s journal The Lancet, found that Europeans who have had prolonged exposure to pollution from industrial activities or road traffic have a higher chance of premature death.
The members of the Pussy Riot punk band, Greenpeace activists and protesters jailed after the May 2012 Bolotnaya demonstration will be freed in an amnesty dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the Russian Constitution, Russian media report. A total of 25,000 people will be freed under the amnesty initiated by President Putin, Interfax cited Vladimir Vasilyev, deputy speaker of parliament, as saying.
Singapore’s prime minister urged citizens not to react negatively toward migrant workers on Monday following the first rioting in 40 years in the wealthy state, which prides itself on being an island of calm in an often chaotic region. The disorder involved mostly Indian guest workers and broke out in the Little India district on Sunday night after an Indian worker was hit and killed by a bus driven by a Singaporean.
United States government officials with intimate knowledge of a little-known Central Intelligence Agency spy program now say the CIA’s post-9/11 efforts to send undercover agents around the globe was “a colossal flop.” That’s according at least to one of the former senior CIA officials who spoke with Los Angeles Times journalist Ken Dilanian for an article published on Sunday about the agency’s “non-official cover,” or “NOC” roles.
400BC – “People sometimes rationalize their greed by saying that it is all for the good of their children but this is nothing but an excuse they use to make their despicable actions appear respectable and praiseworthy.” — Democritus (460-370 BC) Greek philosopher
Outdoor radiation levels have reached their highest at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant,warns the operator company.Radiation found in an area near a steel pipe that connects reactor buildings could kill an exposed person in 20 minutes,local media reported. The plant’s operator and the utility responsible for the clean-up Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) detected record radiation levels on a duct which connects reactor buildings and the 120 meter tall ventilation pipe located outside on Friday.