Gold Grows On Trees? Sweet!While you may never find money growing on trees, there is a chance that you could strike gold - literally! The best part is that the precious metal bearing trees are not in some far out planet, but right here on earth, in the Australian Outback....
Read news articleDriver's Education Just Became A Lot More Fun . . . In Sierra Leone!Obtaining a driver's license is every teenager's dream. What is not however is the countless hours of sitting in a classroom or on a computer, learning all the rules necessary to become a safe driver. That is the reason, officials in the West African country of Sierra Leone have conjured up an innovative board game....
Read news articleExperts Scramble To Try Save The Ancient City Of Mohenjo DaroWith its intricate layout, incredible architecture and advanced water and sewage systems, the 5000-year-old city of Mohenjo Daro in the province of Sindh in Pakistan, was once hailed as oldest and best preserved ancient cities ever found. Now, this amazing monument of our past, is in danger of disappearing completely, unless something is done soon....
Read news articleRay Villafane Transforms World's Largest Pumpkins Into Spooky MasterpiecesWith Halloween just around the corner, the frenzy to carve out the spookiest pumpkin has begun in earnest, all over the country. But very few people have the talent to transform the gnarly fruits into 3-D zombie masterpieces like pumpkin carver extraordinaire Ray Villafane, who showcased his superior skills last week, at New York Botanical Garden's Giant Pumpkin Carving Weekend....
Read news articleHow The Humble Oyster May Help Save Coastal Cities And Clean Polluted WatersMention oysters and the two things that come to mind are slurping them down or wrenching them open for pearls. But now these mollusks may have a bigger role - that of protecting our waterfront cities from rising sea levels and giant storm surges like the one experienced by New York during Hurricane Sandy and helping clean our increasingly polluted waters....
Read news articleVideo Of The Week - Experience Felix Baumgartner's Epic Leap From The Edge Of SpaceOn October 14th 2012, over eight million people worldwide tuned in to YouTube to watch Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner leap from the edge of space - 128,000 feet (24 miles) above sea level - and break the sound barrier as he came zooming down to earth....
Read news articleEven Pirates Have 'Movie Star' Aspirations!A notorious Somali pirate that terrorized the seas for years is now finally behind bars in Belgium. While that is certainly newsworthy, what is even more so is that Mohamed Abdi Hassan literally handed himself to the lawmakers not because he was sorry, but because he believed they were filmmakers and he, the star of their next blockbuster!...
Read news articleIconic Titanic Violin Sells For A Record $1.45 Million USDOne of the most poignant memory recalled by some of the 900 survivors from 885-feet long luxury liner Titanic that sank on April 15th 1912, was that of the orchestra playing the hymn "Nearer, My God, to Thee", to try calm the panicked passengers as they made their way to the lifeboats....
Read news articleTwo Rare Oarfish Discovered Off Southern California's Coast Within A WeekThey say that when it rains, it pours. That certainly seemed to be case in Southern California last week, except that it was not water falling from the skies, but ginormous rare oarfishes that appeared from deep inside the oceans....
Read news articleMeet Rex, The World's First Bionic ManWhile scientists have built many artificial organs individually, they have never before been put together to create an entire human body. Rex or as he has recently been renamed Frank (after Frankenstein), the world's first fully functional bionic man has just changed that. Now on display at the National Air And Space Museum in Washington D.C., the human clone was assembled in three short months using state-of-the-art organs that were donated by 17 manufacturers - A good thing given that the total cost came to about $1 million USD!...
Read news articleDoes It Really Rain Diamonds On Saturn and Jupiter? These Scientists Certainly Seem To Think SoWe have heard of the occasional fish, tadpole and even spider raining down from the skies, but diamonds? That is definitely a first! Unfortunately, this miracle is not happening anywhere on earth but over 830 million miles (1.2 billion km) away, on Saturn and Jupiter....
Read news articleDo You Read Or Skim? Find Out By Entering The James Patterson Book Club ContestAlmost everyone old enough to read, does. Some people like to get deep into the book's every facet from knowing each character to following the plot line really closely and even, voicing their opinions about how they would have written the story. Others like to skim, that is, know just enough about the book so that they can talk intelligently, if questioned. The ironic part is both believe they have read the book thoroughly and the only the way to test which group you belong to is . . . by entering the James Patterson Kids Book Club Contest....
Read news articlePhew! US Leaders Finally Reach A Deal To Reopen The Government And Raise The Debt Ceiling - For A Few MonthsWhen the government partially shut down on October 1st, after lawmakers were unable to reach an agreement on what is usually a routine matter - Passing the Continuing Resolution (CR) to fund normal government programs - most political pundits predicted that it would last just a few days. They were obviously wrong....
Read news articleAfrican Lava Lake Naturally 'Mummifies' Birds and AnimalsWith thousands of beautiful flamingos crowding around, at first glance Lake Natron, a salt lake in Northern Tanzania looks like your typical picturesque African landscape. But look closer and you will find something eerily unusual - Perfectly preserved dead animals strewn all along its shores. And while many have likened the lake to Medusa, the monster from Greek mythology who turned anyone that looked her in the eye to stone, most experts assert that the lake itself is not deadly....
Read news articleVideo Of The Week - 3D Printing Takes Center Stage At London's Science MuseumWhen Massachusetts Institute of Technology students Jim Bredt and Tim Anderson created the first 3-D printer in 1995 by modifying an inkjet printer so that it would extrude a binding solution on to a bed of powder, instead of ink on paper, they probably had no idea of its tremendous potential....
Read news articleIs The Namib Desert 'Fairy Circles' Mystery Finally Solved?Similar to the giant crop circles that sporadically appear in different parts of the world, strange grass circles that mysteriously emerge in South Africa's Namib Desert have dumbfounded both locals and scientists for many years. Measuring between 6 - 40 feet across, each 'fairy circle' is outlined by a ring of vegetation taller, than the surrounding grassland....
Read news articleThe $100 USD Bill Gets A Much Needed MakeoverIt has taken over a decade and faced numerous design hurdles, but the new $100 USD bill that Americans fondly call 'Benjamin' finally made its debut on October 8th, 2013. The largest U.S. denomination in circulation, it is not surprisingly, the most recognized form of U.S. Currency worldwide....
Read news articleWhy Is This Professor Moving Into A Dumpster?Meet Jeff Wilson AKA Professor Dumpster - an environmental scientist and the Dean of Huston Tillotson University in Austin, Texas. The reason for his unusual nickname? He has decided to live in a dumpster for the next year - Yes, the kind that you might find filled with trash behind a restaurant or in an alley....
Read news articleNew Book Claims It Was Admiral Zheng He Not Christopher Columbus That Discovered AmericaAs we get ready to celebrate Columbus Day on October 14th, here is some food for thought. What if it was not Christopher Columbus, but Chinese Admiral Zheng He that discovered the new world almost seven decades before the Spanish explorer set foot on the island in the Bahamas that we now call San Salvador? That, is something that amateur British historian Gavin Menzies has been asserting for years and he now has new evidence to prove it....
Read news article'Power Flour' Aspires To Feed The World's Hungry With Insect ProteinMost people are grossed out by insects and believe them to be just a nuisance. However, a group of students from Montreal-based McGill University think of them as protein that can be used to feed millions of malnourished people worldwide, an idea so powerful that it won them the prestigious 2013 Hult Prize on September 23rd....
Read news articleWhy A Sixth-Grader's Experiment To Brew Beer In Space Is Receiving So Much AttentionTo say that 11-year old Michal Bodzianowski knows very little about beer would be an understatement. He has of course never tasted the drink and till his dad explained, had no clue what a microbrewery was. But that didn't deter the sixth-grader from suggesting that astronauts brew the drink in Space as his entry for the Spring 2013 Student Spaceflight Experiments Challenge organized by the National Science Earth And Space Education whose main goal is to inspire the next generation of America's scientists and engineers....
Read news articleTwenty Months After The Tragedy, The Costa Concordia Saga Is Finally OverWhen luxury cruise liner Costa Concordia struck a rock in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the shore of Italy's Tuscan Archipelago and collapsed on its side on January 13th, 2012, salvage engineers knew that they had a nightmare on their hands because a rescue operation of a ship this size, had never been done before. To make matters worse, the liner lay right in the midst of the Pelagos Sanctuary, an environmentally protected area of the Mediterranean, which meant that even a small misstep could turn into a disaster....
Read news articleVideo Of The Week - 'Power Up 3.0' Gives Paper Airplanes A Much Needed Lift And DirectionWith the introduction of remote-controlled airplanes, the paper versions have pretty much become relics of the past. Now, Miami-based Taylor Toys hopes to make them current again by giving them the much needed lift and control....
Read news articleRare 400 Cent American Coin Sells For $2.5 Million USDWhen the Los Angeles branch of Bonhams Auctioneers placed a rare $4USD gold coin up for bidding they knew they had something special. However even the experts were stunned when on September 23rd, 2013, instead of the expected $1.5 million USD, the coin fetched $2.75 million USD, placing it amongst the 10 most valuable US coins sold at an auction....
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