The Father Of Civilisation: Alexander The Great

Alexander the Great: The Greek leader made Alexandria a place of knowledge, discovery and sexual intrigues

From The Daily Mail:

There is not, and has never been, another city to match it. It was a glittering metropolis, home to the most sexually charismatic queen of all time, founded by a man whose megalomaniac ambitions knew no bounds.

It was a buzzing hub that boasted one of the seven wonders of the world, where intellectual geniuses from both East and West met to tussle and debate in a library containing all the knowledge on the planet.

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Physicists Detect Rare Geo-Neutrino Particles, Peek Into Earth's Core

Inside the scintillator at Borexino. (Credit: Borexino Collaboration)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Mar. 29, 2010) — Using a delicate instrument located under a mountain in central Italy, two University of Massachusetts Amherst physicists are measuring some of the faintest and rarest particles ever detected, geo-neutrinos, with the greatest precision yet achieved. The data reveal, for the first time, a well defined signal, above background noise, of the extremely rare geo-neutrino particle from deep within Earth.

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Toyota Recall Might Be Caused by Cosmic Rays

From Live Science:

It may not lessen Toyota's woes to hear that the problems the company has been having with faulty gas pedals could be blamed on cosmic rays from space. Sound unbelievable? The concept is actually a lot more plausible than you might think.

Toyota's sticky gas pedals caused sudden and unintended acceleration in several of the automaker's top-selling Toyota and Lexus-brand cars, which led to a massive recall of more than 9 million vehicles worldwide, beginning in November.

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'Infections Found': Inside The Great Scareware Scam

Fake virus scans often look just like the real thing.

From New Scientist:

ONE day in March 2008, Kent Woerner got a disturbing phone call from a teacher at an elementary school in Beloit, Kansas. An 11-year-old student had triggered a security scan on a computer she was using, revealing that the machine contained pornographic images. Worse still, the images had appeared on-screen as the scan took place.

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Earth's Biggest Tree Rings Tell Fiery Tales

The tree rings of 52 fallen giant sequoias, Earth's biggest trees, have revealed a 3,000-year-old history of droughts and fires. Hemera/ThinkStock

From Discovery News:

Fifty-two giant fallen giant sequoias reveal a 3,000-year-old history of fire and drought after giant chainsaws expose their rings.

Using huge chainsaws and strong backs, the largest trees in the world are finally giving up their 3,000-year record of fires and droughts. No trees, however, were harmed in the making of this fire history.

"We only used dead trees," emphasized tree ring researcher Thomas Swetnam of the University of Arizona. Swetnam led the study that was reported in a recent issue of the journal Fire Ecology. "We spent multiple years collecting the wood and hauling it back to Tucson."

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A Conversation With Microsoft's Marketing Strategist

Photo: David Webster isn't the typical 'Softie. Not only is he far from Redmond (he lives in Connecticut), but he's got more experience picking brand names than writing code. (Credit: Microsoft)

From CNET:

SAN FRANCISCO--David Webster had a pretty busy year in 2009, trying to convince the world that Windows 7 was their idea and adding the word Bing to their collective vocabulary.

That said, Microsoft's chief marketing strategist doesn't foresee much time to rest. This year, all Webster has to do is persuade consumers that Office is cool, that Mom and Dad need their own Xbox, and that a Windows Phone can be a credible alternative to the iPhone. Luckily, Microsoft is willing to spend a few bucks to do all that.

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Line2 Adds a Second Line to Your iPhone

The Line2 mobile application from Toktumi adds a second phone line to your iPhone.
(http://www.line2.com/)

From ABC News:

iPhone App Lets You Place Calls Without Using AT&T Minutes.

Line2 is a mobile app from Toktumi that's a refreshing option for iPhone users who need to maintain a separate personal and a business phone number.

It's also useful — and potentially revolutionary — for iPhone owners who want to cut down on their monthly voice minutes by allowing them to place calls over Wi-Fi as well as over 3G Voice Over IP (VOIP).

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UK Beaches Swamped By Plastic Litter, Say Campaigners

From The BBC:

UK beaches are being ruined by an ever-accumulating tide of plastic litter, the Marine Conservation Society says.

Volunteers at 400 beaches collected 1,849 items of litter per kilometre in the weekend of the MCS's 2009 survey and 63% of it was plastic, it said.

It said the amount of rubbish was 77% higher than in 1994 - its first annual survey - and the proportion of plastic volunteers found had never been higher.

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Secret Copyright Talks Document Leaks

Acta, the anti-counterfeiting trade agreement, is designed to cover theft of copyright, from designer handbags to music online Photo: Romina Shama

From The Telegraph:

Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is being negotiated in secret, but the full text has now been leaked.

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, the controversial global treaty that covers intellectual property from digital media to designer handbags, has been leaked in full for the first time. Secret negotiations are still going on regarding the document that, some groups hope, will make those who share copyrighted material online subject to far harsher penalties.

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Biblical Plagues Really Happened Say Scientists

From The Telegraph:

The Biblical plagues that devastated Ancient Egypt in the Old Testament were the result of global warming and a volcanic eruption, scientists have claimed.

Researchers believe they have found evidence of real natural disasters on which the ten plagues of Egypt, which led to Moses freeing the Israelites from slavery in the Book of Exodus in the Bible, were based.

But rather than explaining them as the wrathful act of a vengeful God, the scientists claim the plagues can be attributed to a chain of natural phenomena triggered by changes in the climate and environmental disasters that happened hundreds of miles away.

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Scientists Discover Moral Compass In The Brain Which Can Be Controlled By Magnets

Image: The moral compass, technically named the right temporo-parietal junction, lies just behind the right ear in the brain

From The Daily Mail:

Scientists have discovered a real-life 'moral compass' in the brain that controls how we judge other people's behaviour.

The region, which lies just behind the right ear, becomes more active when we think about other people's misdemeanours or good works.

In an extraordinary experiment, researchers were able to use powerful magnets to disrupt this area of the brain and make people temporarily less moral.

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1 In 10 Chinese Adults Is Diabetic, Study Finds

From StlToday.com/AP:

After working overtime to catch up to life in the West, China now faces a whole new problem: the world's biggest diabetes epidemic.

One in 10 Chinese adults already have the disease and another 16 percent are on the verge of developing it, according to a new study. The finding nearly equals the U.S. rate of 11 percent and surpasses other Western nations, including Germany and Canada.

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Prolonged Climatic Stress Main Reason for Mass Extinction 65 Million Years Ago, Paleontologist Says

According to new research from a German paleontologist, long-term climate fluctuations -- not a giant meteorite impact -- were likely the main reason for the extinction of the dinosaurs and other creatures 65 million years ago. (Credit: iStockphoto/Adrian Chesterman)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Mar. 27, 2010) — Long-term climate fluctuations were probably the main reason for the extinction of the dinosaurs and other creatures 65 million years ago. This conclusion was reached by PD Dr. Michael Prauss, paleontologist at Freie Universitaet Berlin, based on his latest research results.

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Mysterious Whale Die-Off Is Largest On Record

From Live Science:

Mass death among baby right whales has experts scrambling to figure out the puzzle behind the largest great whale die-off on record.

Observers have found 308 dead whales in the waters around Peninsula Valdes along Argentina's Patagonian Coast since 2005. Almost 90 percent of those deaths represent whale calves less than 3 months old, and the calf deaths make up almost a third of all right whale calf sightings in the last five years.

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Overeating Junk Food Similar To Drug Addiction

Over indulging your sweet tooth could decrease the reward response in your brain.
Credit: Wikimedia

From Cosmos:

PARIS: Whether their addictions are a drug such as cocaine or junk food such as cupcakes, all junkies are overstimulating the same receptor in the brain, scientists said.

The research, based on lab animals, bolsters long-standing suspicions that addiction to pleasure stems from overstimulus of a key reward mechanism in the brain, its authors say.

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Nuclear Disarmament Hinges On Missile Defence Dispute

Image from vrroom.naa.gov.au.

From New Scientist:

After almost a year of negotiation, the US and Russia have finally settled on a plan to further reduce their vast nuclear arsenals. If the new agreement is approved, the number of deployed warheads by will be cut by 30 per cent over previous targets. But an ongoing dispute over a European missile defence shield has the potential to scupper the plans.

The US and Russia hold some 95 per cent of the world's nuclear arms, including an estimated 4700 deployed nuclear warheads. The new agreement – a follow-up to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) – would cut the number to 1550 warheads per country over the course of seven years.

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Pyramid Of Mystery Pharaoh Possibly Located

A photograph taken from the area immediately south of the Unas pyramid,
visible in the foreground. Giulio Magli

From Discovery News:

The long-lost tomb of the 4,300-year-old Egyptian pharaoh Userkare may have been located.

The missing pyramid of an obscure pharaoh that ruled Egypt some 4,300 years ago could lie at the intersection of a series of invisible lines in South Saqqara, according to new astronomical and topographical research.

Connecting the funerary complexes raised by the kings of the 6th Dynasty between 2,322 B.C. and 2,151 B.C., these lines would have governed the sacred space of the Saqqara area, in accordance with a number of criteria such as dynastic lineage, religion and astronomical alignment.

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Rumor: 'iAd' Mobile Ad Platform Is Apple's Next Big Thing

(Credit: Gizmodo)

From CNET:

MediaPost reports that Apple's next next big thing, after iPads invade the world next weekend, will be iAd, a mobile advertising platform to be debuted April 7. Coffee dates and patent suits aside, this could be the true Apple-Google battleground.

Of course, if you've been reading the tea leaves, Apple's move into mobile advertising is anything but surprising. In January, they bought mobile advertising company Quattro for a reported $275 million, after Google snatched AdMob out from under them months before.

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Door to Afterlife From Ancient Egyptian Tomb Found

Photo from Supreme Council of Antiquities

From ABC News:

Archaeologists unearth door to the afterlife from ancient Egyptian minister's tomb.

Archaeologists have unearthed a 3,500-year-old door to the afterlife from the tomb of a high-ranking Egyptian official near Karnak temple in Luxor, the Egyptian antiquities authority said Monday.

These recessed niches found in nearly all ancient Egyptian tombs were meant to take the spirits of the dead to and from the afterworld. The nearly six-foot- tall (1.75 meters) slab of pink granite was covered with religious texts.

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Gulf Stream 'Is Not Slowing Down'

From The BBC:

The Gulf Stream does not appear to be slowing down, say US scientists who have used satellites to monitor tell-tale changes in the height of the sea.

Confirming work by other scientists using different methodologies, they found dramatic short-term variability but no longer-term trend.

A slow-down - dramatised in the movie The Day After Tomorrow - is projected by some models of climate change.

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