Inauguration to Cost Millions But Total Price Unclear

How much will all the inaugural events cost? It's hard to say.While most events that occur in the capital have a hard-and-fast budget, the inauguration's many moving parts, safety concerns and large geographic reach make it hard to quantify – especially before the main event.In 2009, ABC reported the total cost of Obama's first inauguration was $170 million. While incumbent...

Read More..

Today on New Scientist: 18 January 2013

Megaballoon launches big bang telescope in Antarctica The 2.7-tonne EBEX telescope will detect the weak light that remains from the big bang, helping to reveal the origin and evolutionary history of the universeMoth navigation probed to improve micro-drone flight Flying through a virtual forest, hawkmoths tailor their navigation according to visibility conditionsMussels with backpacks monitor...

Read More..

Toyota settles 'bellwether' US wrongful death suit

WASHINGTON: Japanese automaker Toyota has settled a wrongful death lawsuit in the United States over sudden, unintended acceleration that allegedly killed two people in Utah in 2010."We are satisfied that both parties reached a mutually acceptable agreement to settle this case," Toyota Motor Corp said in a statement late Thursday.A Toyota spokeswoman, Celeste Migliore, told AFP it was...

Read More..

Sign up for SimCity beta -- if you can

Trying to get into the SimCity beta is an exercise in patience, but at least the game looks beautiful.(Credit:Maxis/EA)Did you miss the last SimCity beta sign-up event? You're in luck, because EA and Maxis want to give you another chance to get in on the beta for the highly anticipated building game. There's a catch, though: beta builders only get to play a snapshot of game for up to one hour at any...

Read More..

First Human Contact With Large Emperor Penguin Colony

One of the largest emperor penguin colonies in Antarctica was discovered last month by a team from the International Polar Foundation's Princess Elisabeth station.The penguin colony had previously been identified through satellite imagery by researchers from the British Antarctic Survey. The penguins themselves didn't show up very clearly, but their excrement stains on the ice did.Expedition...

Read More..

Algeria Terrorists Want to Trade US Hostages for Blind Sheikh

The al Qaeda-linked terrorists holding Americans and other Westerners hostage at a gas plant in Algeria have now demanded the release of two convicted terrorists held in U.S. prisons, including the "blind sheikh" who helped plan the first attack on New York's World Trade Center, in exchange for the freedom of two American hostages, according to an African news service.The terror...

Read More..

Matching names to genes: the end of genetic privacy?

Continue reading page |1 |2 Are we being too free with our genetic information? What if you started receiving targeted ads for Prozac for the depression risk revealed by your publicly accessible genome? As increasing amounts of genetic information is placed online, many researchers believe that guaranteeing...

Read More..

22 killed in third day of deadly Iraq violence

BAGHDAD: A spate of bombings targeting Shiite Muslims across Iraq killed 22 people on Thursday, the latest in a spike in unrest amid weeks of anti-government protests and a political crisis engulfing the country.The attacks marked the third consecutive day of violence which has claimed 81 lives overall, including that of a Sunni Iraqi MP killed by a suicide bomber and 33 others who died...

Read More..

Troubleshooting a freezing or hanging OS X menu bar

The OS X menu bar is a central location for accessing system resources in the Apple menu, application-specific menus, and also a number of system settings through menu extras that can be appended to the right side of the menu bar. Some extras that are on by default include the time and date, battery level, and volume control, but others can be added to the bar, including VPN status, keychain, the...

Read More..

6 Ways Climate Change Will Affect You

Photograph by AP Photo/Marcio Jose SanchezThe planet keeps getting hotter, new data showed this week. Especially in America, where 2012 was the warmest year ever recorded, by far. Every few years, the U.S. federal government engages hundreds of experts to assess the impacts of climate change, now and in the future. From agriculture (pictured) to infrastructure to how humans consume energy, the National...

Read More..