It is now possible to watch world-wide lighting strikes play live on your computer screen in real-time, and for free. Blitzortung is a free, live, lighting strike map developed by Heinrich-Heine-University of Dusseldorf professor Egon Wanke and LUCOM lead developer Tobias Volgnandt, who created the service “just to provide free and live lightning maps” for the world. … Read more
The US military will be scaled down in the next seven years, according to the plans of the US government, which is aiming to create an “affordable military” by 2021. A report published Wednesday by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), focused on coping with an across-the-board drawdown while still maintaining US security, has provided recommendations that would overturn the … Read more
A Pew Research study has found that 42 percent of Muslims in 15 locations think that suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilian targets is at least occasionally justified in order to defend Islam from its enemies. The study was concluded in Spring 2014 and the results were published Tuesday by Pew Research as part … Read more
The speed, the scale and the scope of what has unfolded in South Sudan during the last six months could not have been predicted, said Hilde Johnson, the UN head in the world’s youngest nation, who spoke at a press conference in New York Monday about her upcoming withdrawal from the leadership of the UN Mission … Read more
Neuroscientists and engineers at North Carolina’s Duke University have pioneered a method with which the effects of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) on the brain can be measured. The Duke team has made it possible to measure the response of a single neuron to an electromagnetic charge–something that has not before been possible. The work offers the … Read more
Local communities have the power to use local zoning laws to ban heavy industry, such as oil and gas production and fracking, according to New York’s Court of Appeals Monday. The state’s highest court ruled in a 5-2 decision that the towns of Dryden and Middlefield could ban such industry within municipal borders. “Today the … Read more
The EU General Affairs Council granted the Balkan nation of Albania EU candidate status June 24. The Council granted Albania candidate status “in light of its… continued progress… subject to endorsement by the European Council,” although the Council also urged Albania to increase its efforts to combat corruption and organized crime, reform its public administration and … Read more
Between 1998 and 2012, immigration prisoners incarcerated in federal prisons increased 145 percent, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Thirteen US Criminal Alien Requirement (CAR) prisons managed by three private prison corporations house all of America’s 25,000 prisoners convicted of living in the US without proper documentation. The three corporations, Corrections Corporation of America … Read more
Two days after news headlines told the world that Australia had the highest number per capita of nationals fighting Jihad overseas, a hard-line government statement threatening asylum seekers, recorded months ago but never shown to the public, has found its way to the news. Last Thursday, it was reported that Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop had … Read more
Two years after being terminated at Faygo, a soda pop company known for making old-fashioned soda, the grandson of founder Hugh Rosenthal is suing his grandfather’s company, claiming he was fired merely because of his age. Rosenthal was fired 2012 when he was marketing director and was 66. He was the third generation of Rosenthals to work at … Read more
Physicists at Delft University, Netherlands have teleported information. The teleportation took place over a distance of three meters (10 feet), and used a procedure called quantum entanglement. The team achieved this teleportation with 100 percent reliability and without altering the pieces of matter. Teleportation of this nature has never been accomplished before outside of fiction. … Read more
A new study conducted by William Paterson University has ranked the healthiest fruit and vegetable superfoods. The 41-item list was compiled based on nutrient density, and is considered to be an important step toward defining and quantifying green foods based on their nutritional value in order to help consumers in choosing the healthiest foods. The study, … Read more