Dec
31

2012 review: The year in health science

Read more: "2013 Smart Guide: 10 ideas that will shape the year" The first half of 2012 will be remembered for the saga over whether or not to publish controversial research involving versions of the H5N1 bird flu virus engineered to spread...
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Clinton has blood clot close to her brain, say doctors

NEW YORK: Top US diplomat Hillary Clinton is suffering from a blood clot in a vein in her head but should make a full recovery, doctors said on Monday as she spent New Year's Eve in hospital.A routine scan on Sunday had revealed "that a right transverse sinus venous thrombosis had formed," doctors Lisa Bardack, of Mount Kisco Medical Group, and Gigi El-Bayoumi, of George Washington University,...
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Amazon apologizes for Netflix's Christmas Eve streaming outage

Amazon has posted an apology for a disruption in its cloud services that hobbled Netflix's streaming services on Christmas Eve and said it is taking steps to prevent future disruptions.Although Amazon's explanation of the outage didn't identify Netflix by name, the streaming service blamed Amazon Web Services last week for an outage that affected "many but not all devices" across the Americas. "We...
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Space Pictures This Week: Ice “Broccoli,” Solar Storm

Happy TrailsPhotograph by Alex Cherney, TWANAmateur astronomer Alex Cherney captured these star trails as they blazed above Lake Tyrrell, a salt lake in Victoria, Australia in...
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Hillary Clinton's Blood Clot Located in Her Head

Michal Sula/MAFRA/isifa/Getty ImagesThe blood clot that put Secretary of  State Hillary Clinton in the hospital was found in her head between her brain and skull behind the right ear, her doctors said today.“It did not result in a stroke, or neurological damage,” her doctors,  Drs. Lisa Bardack and Gigi El-Bayoumi, said in a joint statement. “To help dissolve this clot, her medical...
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Dec
30

E. Timor bids farewell to peacekeepers after 13 years

DILI: The UN ends its peacekeeping mission in East Timor Monday after 13 years of boots on the ground in Asia's youngest nation following a bloody transition to independence.The mission, which saw the presence of some 1,500 UN troops and police, will take down its flag and send home the last of its peacekeepers, including five Portuguese officers, while a "liquidation team" of 79 will...
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TwitPic snared by Google's malware detector

Google tags TwitPic as malware host.(Credit:Screenshot by Steven Musil/CNET)Google's Web site malware checker identified TwitPic as a security threat today, a classification that has the popular photo site baffled.Instead of the usual archiving and sharing tools they are used to, users attempting to visit TwitPic today are being greeted by a message informing them that the site has been blocked because...
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How to Banish That New Year's Eve Hangover

For those of us who enjoy the occasional cocktail, the holiday season would be incomplete without certain treats of the liquid variety. Some look forward to the creamy charms of rum-laced eggnog; others anticipate cupfuls of high-octane punch or mugs of warm, spiced wine.No matter what's in your glass, raising one as the year winds down is tradition. What could be more festive? The problem...
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Cliffhanger: 'Major Setback' For Budget Talks

With less than two days remaining for Congress to reach a budget agreement that would avoid the so-called "fiscal cliff," a senior White House official tells ABC News that President Obama is still "modestly optimistic" that a deal can be struck to prevent middle class taxes from increasing on New Year's Day.Vice President Biden has now re-emerged as a key player, back in Washington...
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Dec
28

Today on New Scientist: 28 December 2012

Best videos of 2012: Rare view of Challenger tragedy Watch a rare amateur video of the Challenger explosion, our most-viewed video of the year Strong jet stream super-charged US Christmas storms Record snowfall and dozens of tornadoes snarled holiday travel as a powerful winter storm plowed across much of the US, while rainstorms battered the UK 2012 review: The year in life science The year's...
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'Cliff' pessimism delivers US stocks another loss

NEW YORK: US stocks sank for a fifth straight day Friday, showing more doubts that politicians will be able to agree a deal to fix the fiscal cliff with only days before the year-end deadline.Shares were cautiously lower for most of the day after President Barack Obama returned from his vacation early to try to broker a deal with Democrat and Republican congressional leaders in the White...
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Q&A: MacFixIt Answers

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which I answerMac-related questions e-mailed in by our readers.This week, readers wrote in with questions about managing custom services in OS X, RAM prices for MacBook systems falling dramatically over the past year, and resetting a forgotten administrator password without admin access and without an OS X installer or recovery disc. I welcome views from readers, so...
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Body Under British Parking Lot May Be King Richard III

For centuries, William Shakespeare seemed to have the last word. His Richard III glowered and leered from the stage, a monster in human form and a character so repugnant "that dogs bark at me as I halt by them." In Shakespeare's famous play, the hunchbacked king claws his way to the throne and methodically murders most of his immediate family—his wife, older brother, and two young nephews—until...
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Woman Tied to Gun in NY Firefighter Ambush

Authorities have charged a woman for allegedly providing a convicted killer with the Bushmaster AR-15 assault rifle he used when he ambushed four volunteer firefighters and an off-duty cop at a fire scene in upstate New York on Christmas Eve, federal prosecutors said.Dawn Nguyen, 24, was arrested today after allegedly making an illegal purchase of the weapon used by William...
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Dec
27

Today on New Scientist: 27 December 2012

Best videos of 2012: Spiderman skin stops a bullet Watch reinforced skin stop a speeding bullet, at number 4 in our countdown of the top videos of the yearGastrophysics: Some said 'more', others said 'meh' Network theorists model everything from internet traffic to disease spread. But can they tease out titillating new taste combos? New Scientist gets cookingBest videos of 2012: Sea lice reduce...
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US stocks down as "fiscal cliff" deadline nears

NEW YORK: US stocks dipped Thursday in the absence of a deal to avert a "fiscal cliff" crisis as an end-of-year deadline crept closer.The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished the session down 18.28 points (0.14 percent) at 13,096.31.The broad-market S&P 500 slipped 1.73 points (0.12 percent) at 1,418.10 while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite shed 4.25 points (0.14 percent) at 2,985.91.Washington...
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BlueStacks for Mac quietly moves to beta

(Credit:BlueStacks)Related storiesBlueStacks ports Android apps to MacBlueStacks goes Metro with Windows 8 Latest BlueStacks ARMs your PCAfter launching to public alpha back in June of this year, BlueStacks for Mac today advances to beta. This means thatMac users are one step closer to accessing a chunk of Google Play'sAndroid-apps catalog on their Apple-made desktops and laptops.Earlier this year,...
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How to Live to a Ripe Old Age

Cento di questi giorni. May you have a hundred birthdays, the Italians say, and some of them do. So do other people in various spots around the world—in Blue Zones, so named by National Geographic Fellow Dan Buettner for the blue ink that outlines these special areas on maps developed over more than a decade. (National Geographic News is part of the National Geographic Society.)In his...
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Utah Teachers Flock to Gun Training

The perception of schools as sanctuaries from violence has been "blown up" by recent events and some believe it's time for educators to literally take the situation into their own hands and carry guns."We've had this unwritten code, even among criminals, that schools are off limits. Those are our kids. You don't mess with that," Utah Shooting Sports Council (USSC) Chairman Clark...
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Dec
26

Three gods: The hardest logic puzzle ever

* Required fields * First name * Last name * Country * Email address * Password Password must contain only letters and numbers, and be at least 8 characters * Confirm password...
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US stocks dip in absence of 'fiscal cliff' deal

NEW YORK: US stocks fell Wednesday amid uncertainty about whether a deal to avert the "fiscal cliff" could be reached by an end-of-year deadline.The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 24.49 points (0.19 percent) to finish the session at 13,114.59.The broad-market S&P 500 lost 6.83 points (0.48 percent) at 1,419.83, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite shed 22.44 points (0.74 percent)...
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Convenient iTunes 11 Keyboard Shortcuts

Beyond the basic arrow key navigation and space bar to start and stop song playback, there are a few other keyboard shortcuts iniTunes 11 that can be used to help you navigate its features.Since the release of iTunes 11, a few convenient keyboard shortcuts have been revealed that offer quick ways to manage playback, navigate the windows, or otherwise deal with some of iTunes' common functions. As...
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Space Pictures This Week: Green Lantern, Supersonic Star

Green LanternImage courtesy Caltech/SSI/NASAAnother glorious, backlit view of the planet Saturn and its rings has been captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, as seen in a picture...
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