A seed bank carved out of Arctic permafrost 620 miles from the North Pole was inaugurated today in Norway. Some 1300 banks worldwide will eventually contribute to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which has a capacity of 4.5 million batches. The seed bank is intended to safeguard biodiversity from global warming, wars, and other disasters. [...]
Monday, February 18, 2008
A robotic arm called Luke, the same size, shape, and weight as a human arm, has been developed by the inventor of the Segway, the self-balancing personal transportation device. Using a two-year federal grant, Dean Kamen created a prosthesis with 18 degrees of freedom, only four less than the human arm. FDA approval of the [...]
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Paleontologists at the University of Utah today unveiled the skull of a new species of hadrosaur, or duck-billed dinosaur. Velafrons coahuilensis was discovered in Mexico in 1995. Like many duckbills, Velafrons had a crest, but one with a difference: it could produce a trumpet-like blare. Researchers speculate that the sound was meant to attract the [...]
Monday, February 4, 2008
A survey of 3,000 Britons found that a quarter of the respondents believe that Sir Winston Churchill was a mythical figure, while over half thought Sherlock Holmes was real. Many believed that Gandhi and Cleopatra were fictitious characters, and that Robin Hood and Robinson Crusoe actually existed. The poll, conducted by a TV network, suggests [...]
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
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