The Ebola Virus and the related Marburgvirus have been diverging for over 16 million years, according to a recent study by the University of Buffalo. Although filoviruses were once thought to date back only 10,000 years, new research using more reliable dating methods has shown that the origins of the virus go much deeper than … Read more
China has cut forecasts for offshore wind power installations by 60 percent–the nation had projected 5,000 megawatts of capacity by 2015 and 30,000 megawatts by 2020, but has reassessed its ambitions. China now aims to install approximately 2,000 megawatts of capacity by 2015 and 10,000 by 2020. “The pace and scale of offshore wind are … Read more
Russia will open Europe’s largest prison in 2016. The detention center, known as Kresty-2, will replace one of Russia’s most notorious jails–the 120-year-old Kresty prison, in which Soviet-era dissidents such as Leon Trotsky were held. The first five facilities of the new facility were commissioned Friday. “It will be the most modern prison in Russia … Read more
WHO officials provided an update Friday on the progress of the Ebola epidemic gripping West Africa and outpacing all efforts to control it. The WHO warned that without immediate, concerted action Ebola could become a global pandemic on the scale of HIV, and added that the current response was only half of what it needed … Read more
The world has not yet begun to deleverage its crisis-linked borrowing, a recent report by the International Centre for Monetary and Banking Studies (ICMBS) found. Despite currently prevailing popular opinion that the global economy is deleveraging, the world is in fact not reducing the burden of its debts, according to the organization’s research; in fact, … Read more
The new chip developed by IBM has 4096 cores, 1 million programmable neurons, and 5.4 billion transistors, heralding what some are calling a new era in computing. The chip, called TrueNorth, is the most advanced neuromorphic (brain-like) chip created, and is incredibly efficient. The chip consumes only 72 milliwatts at maximum load–equivalent to 400 billion synaptic … Read more
Hours after hacktivist group Anonymous threatened to release the name of the officer involved in the Ferguson, Missouri police shooting, the group released the St. Louis Police dispatch recordings from the shooting. The group claimed to have the name of the shooter already, but had not been yet able to verify the identity. Anonymous said … Read more
The DC Appeals Court sided with Facebook and founder Mark Zuckerberg Friday in a case over several pages on Facebook, such as “Third Palestinian Intifada,” which called for Muslims to rise up and kill Jews. The ruling was based on the protections given to all Americans using the internet under a section of a 1996 … Read more
A team of scientists at Essex University with a goal of providing an artificial blood substitute to hospitals and disaster areas around the world–and overcome the barriers that have stumped 25 years and $3 billion of global scientific and business investment–have made progress with a recent $2.5 million funding boon. Overcoming several of blood storage’s perpetual problems, the … Read more
By smashing massless photons together, light can be converted into matter, according to physicists at London’s Imperial College, and the race to conduct the experiment is on–and should be carried out within the year. Until now, the idea of converting E into mc2 had been considered practically impossible. “The race to carry out and complete … Read more