Weaver ants help flowers get the best pollinator

MOST flowers don't want pesky ants hanging around scaring away would-be pollinators. Not so the Singapore rhododendron - the first flower found to recruit ants to chase poor pollinators away. Francisco Gonzálvez at EEZA, the arid...

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Football: Defoe double fires Spurs into fourth

LONDON: Jermain Defoe bagged a brace as Tottenham cruised to a 3-0 win against Fulham that lifted the north London club into fourth place in the Premier League on Saturday.Spurs boss Andre Villas-Boas this week claimed Defoe is as good as Colombia star Radamel Falcao, the Atletico Madrid striker regarded as one of the world's best forwards, and the England international repaid that compliment...

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The real joy of the Powerball Facebook fake

Trick or treat?(Credit:Screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)It's the weekend. You'll be thinking about going to a movie, or the theater, or a museum perhaps.I have an alternative suggestion. Sit down and go to the Facebook page of Nolan Daniels.Within 24 hours, Daniels (if that is his real name) has become one of the world's more famous people. He put up a photo of himself with what was supposedly...

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Photos: Kilauea Lava Reaches the Sea

Into the Sea Photograph by Hugh Gentry, ReutersA spectacular natural phenomenon was on display early this week as lava from a vent in Hawaii's Kilauea volcano flowed into...

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KC Chiefs Player Dead in Apparent Murder-Suicide

A Kansas City Chiefs football player committed suicide today in front of his coaches and police outside of the team's stadium, just as officers investigating the shooting of the player's girlfriend arrived on the scene, police said.The name of the 25-year-old player has not yet been released.Kansas City Police were first alerted something was wrong by the girlfriend's mother."The...

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Today on New Scientist: 30 November 2012

Dinosaurs might have once gazed into the Grand Canyon It had been thought that the canyon formed 6 million years ago, but now two geologists say it is actually closer to 70 million years oldSaturn's rings may double up as a moon factory A new model suggests Saturn's famous rings spawned the planet's moons. Could the mechanism explain the moons of Uranus, Neptune and even Earth?Gaming the future:...

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Football: Del Bosque says Brazil the team to beat

SAO PAULO: The coach of Spain's world champions on Friday insisted hosts Brazil are the team to beat at next year's Confederations Cup, the testbed for a World Cup also on Brazilian soil in 2014."They are the team to beat," said Vicente del Bosque, who masterminded Spain's World Cup success in 2010 in South Africa and then led the Furia Roja to glory at Euro 2012, making his star-studded...

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What to look for when buying a new TV

Confused about what TV to buy? Please allow me to de-confusify you. From technology (LED, LCD, Plasma?) to size, to features, there are a lot of choices to make when deciding on the right TV. Narrowing down the options isn't as hard as it seems, though, and that's what this article is all about. First, we'll start with what to look for in the TV itself. Later, we'll talk about the shopping process....

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Pictures: Mysterious Maya Tomb Explored for First Time

Photograph courtesy Héctor Montaño, INAHSporting an elaborate headdress and shield, the Palenque king named Kan Bahlam, or Snake Jaguar, is depicted on one of the tomb walls.Eight other figures are depicted as well, "each probably a different royal ancestor of the tomb occupant," said Stuart."The imagery of nine ancestors seems to have been a theme repeated in other Palenque royal tombs, such as Pakal's...

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Mo. Couple Wins Half of Powerball Jackpot

The lucky winners of half of the record $587.5 million Powerball jackpot have been identified as Mark and Cindy Hill of Dearborn, Mo., their working-class lives suddenly taking a turn to the financial stratosphere.Cindy Hill, who with her husband has three adult sons and a 6-year-old daughter adopted from China, purchased the ticket at a Trex Mart gas station in Dearborn."I...

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Today on New Scientist: 29 November 2012

Leaping shark scores big air, but no dinner A rubber seal decoy tempted this great white shark enough to throw itself bodily out of the waters of False Bay, South AfricaAlarming evidence points at Iran nuclear bomb effort The International Atomic Energy Agency is meeting in Vienna to consider emerging clues that Iran is working on a nuclear weaponRisk of childhood obesity can be predicted at...

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British inquiry urges new laws for "outrageous" press

LONDON: A British inquiry called Thursday for a tougher watchdog underpinned by new laws to curb the country's press in a damning verdict that sets up Prime Minister David Cameron for a political battle.Senior judge Brian Leveson, who led an eight-month inquiry sparked by the phone-hacking scandal at Rupert Murdoch's News of the World tabloid, said there should be an independent self-regulatory...

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LED desk lamp wirelessly charges smartphones

Illuminates, charges, but costs too much -- for now.(Credit:Konica Minolta)One of the fascinating things about living in this era is observing how everyday products can become far more useful with a little infusion of technology. Konica Minolta today debuted a desk lamp with an ace up its sleeve: it features a built-in induction charging pad for devices that support the Qi wireless charging standard...

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Caterpillar Fungus Has Anti-Inflammatory Properties

In the Tibetan mountains, a fungus attaches itself to a moth larva burrowed in the soil. It infects and slowly consumes its host from within, taking over its brain and making the young caterpillar move to a position from which the fungus can grow and spore again. (Learn about other fungi that invade brains.)Sounds like something out of science fiction, right? But for ailing Chinese consumers...

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Petraeus Tells Friend He 'Screwed Up Royally'

One of David Petraeus' closest friends says the former CIA director admitted that he "screwed up royally" by having an affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell.Retired Brigadier Gen. James Shelton has been friends with Petraeus for more than three decades and reached to out to him after he resigned from the CIA. Shelton told ABC News that the former four-star general wrote...

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Today on New Scientist: 28 November 2012

Out-of-proportion black hole is a rare cosmic fossil A fairly small galaxy is host to a strangely enormous black hole, which could be a remnant of a quasar from the dawn of timeFlowing lithium atoms form accidental transistor A transistor that controls the flow of atoms, rather than electrons, could be used as a model to probe the mysterious electrical property of superconductivityEurope in...

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Indian minister in strong attack on microfinance

NEW DELHI: Microfinance is a "discredited model" and to believe that poverty alleviation in India is possible through such methods is "c**p", Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh said Wednesday."Nothing can stop an idea whose time has gone," Ramesh told a microfinance conference in New Delhi, according to the Press Trust of India."It is a discredited model," he said, referring to the...

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Google scoops up maker of data-rich coupon programs

Google said today that it has acquired Incentive Targeting, a maker of coupon programs tailored to shoppers based on their individual purchase histories. Terms of the sale were not disclosed. Google said the company would become part of its mobile commerce efforts."We look forward to working with Incentive Targeting in our ongoing efforts to help consumers save time and money and enable retailers...

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Black Hole Blast Biggest Ever Recorded

Astronomers have witnessed a record-breaking blast of gas and dust flowing out of a monster black hole more than 11.5 billion light years away.The supermassive gravity well, with a mass of one to three billion suns, lurks at the core of a quasar—a class of extremely bright and energetic galaxies—dubbed SDSS J1106 1939. (See "Black Hole Blasts Superheated Early Universe.")"We discovered...

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Obama Taps Twitter for Tax-Cut Push

President Obama today sought to inject a dose of public pressure into the "fiscal cliff" debate, urging Americans who face an across-the-board tax hike in 34 days to lobby lawmakers by phone, email and Twitter."If there's one thing I've learned; when the American people speak loudly enough, lo and behold, Congress listens," Obama said from a White House auditorium.He was flanked...

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France to back Palestinian bid for enhanced UN status

PARIS: France on Tuesday said it will back a Palestinian bid for enhanced UN status at a General Assembly vote this week, a move hailed by the Palestinians as a "historic" step in their quest for greater global recognition.Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Paris had a "consistent position" in support of recognising a Palestinian state and told the National Assembly that France, one...

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Apple tells maps manager to get lost, report says

Apple has fired the manager in charge of its controversial mapping software, according to a new report.Citing sources, Bloomberg says Apple senior vice president Eddy Cue -- who took over the maps product last month -- recently fired Richard Williamson, who was in charge of the company's maps software for iOS.Williamson had been with Apple since 2001 and at Steve Jobs' NeXT Computer before that. His...

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Space Pictures This Week: Space "Horse," Mars Rover, More

High Horse Photograph by Greg Parker, Your Shot The Horsehead Nebula rears its pretty head in a November 17 photograph submitted to National Geographic's Your Shot photo community.Taken...

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GOP Senators More Troubled After Rice Meeting

United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice's attempts to make nice with a trio of Republican senators who have criticized her response to the Sept. 11 terror attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, seem to have backfired.The senators said they left their face-to-face meeting with Rice this morning "more concerned" and "significantly troubled."The three Republicans, Sens....

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