If you think drone warfare has created some tricky moral dilemmas, said Robert H. Latiff and Patrick J. McCloskey, just wait until we start sending robotic soldiers into battle. Early prototypes of robots that can hunt down and destroy enemies with ferocious firepower are in development, and “what now seems like the stuff of Hollywood fantasy is moving toward realization.” […]
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Astronomers have spotted the most enormous black holes ever detected, inspiring new theories about how such pockets of extreme gravity form. Together, the two objects, which are roughly 300 million light-years away, have more mass than 30 billion suns, University of California at Berkeley astrophysicist Chung-Pei Ma tells the Associated Press. “They are monstrous,” she says. The smaller of the […]
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The “stoner” stereotype isn’t just a myth. Heavy use of marijuana in the teenage years dulls intelligence—and the loss of IQ points may last for life, according to a new study. Researchers tested the IQs of more than 1,000 New Zealand schoolchildren at age 13, before most had tried marijuana, and again at age 38. In between, they regularly surveyed […]
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The emirate isn’t just the world’s richest country, it’s also one of the fattest. Half of adults and a third of children are obese, and almost 17 percent of the native population suffers from diabetes. By comparison, about a third of Americans are obese, and 8 percent diabetic. The problem is that Qataris are so rich that they don’t need […]
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When we see a magical light show from the sun it is called “stretched loops” that are visible when the sun is rotated showing its profile to the earth. These lights move along a magnetic line that shows us these yellow lights that are charged particles of ultraviolet light. In about 5 billion years the sun will shine its last […]
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It’s official: Abortion for gender selection is widespread in Britain, said Dominic Lawson. An analysis by The Independent shows that women from Indian and Pakistani communities in Britain are aborting their female fetuses at much higher rates than male fetuses, “resulting in the ‘disappearance’ of up to 4,700 girls.” Of course, this is what we should have expected, given that […]
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When you have a pet, they can give you undying love, companionship, and if you have a dog that needs to go out for a walk every day you will get exercise. Pets are your family and they might actually be able to help extend your life. Studies at the University of California, Riverside show that the verdict is a […]
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Since the late 1990s, when they began decoding the human genome, scientists have believed that 98 percent of DNA is “junk,” with no function. But new research shows that most of this genetic material serves as switches that turn genes on or off, which could explain why some people predisposed to certain diseases get them, while others don’t. Our genome […]
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Bright Lights in a World of Darkness More than 30 years ago the Supreme Court in the United States ruled that if individuals are mentally ill but not criminally insane they cannot be confined to asylums. They must be allowed to live in the general population. The results of that decision over the years have met with mixed success in different areas of the […]
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■ When Claire Johnson, 50, took her seeing-eye dog, Venice, to training classes in Stoke-on-Trent, England, the canine helper quickly became friends with fellow student Rodd, owned by 52-year-old Mark Gaffey. As the two dogs became inseparable pals, their sight-impaired owners struck up a friendship that soon turned into romance. Now, after an 11-month courtship, Johnson and Gaffey are to […]
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