First, computers took all the fun out of Sudoku —could Jeopardy be next? Watson, a computer designed by IBM specifically to compete on the game show, beat two legendary champs yesterday in its first public test: Ken Jennings, who won a record number of games, and Brad Rutter, who won…
Continue reading …A secretive group of top scientists is pushing the Pentagon to map the genomes of all military personnel, the Huffington Post reports. Such mapping could reveal information about troops’ “responses to battlefield stress”—for example, how well they can tolerate “sleep deprivation, dehydration, or prolonged exposure to heat,” the scientists’…
Continue reading …Changes in climate have played a huge role in European history, influencing or even causing events like the decline of Rome and the Black Death, according to researchers studying ancient tree growth. Tree-ring samples from the thousands of pieces of wood study reveal that a stable climate coincided with periods…
Continue reading …Ew. When someone brags about improved quality of life in New York, pull out this video. One of the denizens of rats who share space with the city’s thousands of daily commuters frantically scurries about a subway car as one commuter films him. Passengers watch, sometimes lifting their feet to…
Continue reading …The governor of a French prison is likely to wind up behind bars himself for having sex with a female inmate who was used as “bait” in the horrific kidnap-murder of a Jewish man . Florent Goncalves has been suspended as governor of a women’s prison west of Paris for his…
Continue reading …Martha Stewart’s lip was slip by her French bulldog Francesca when she bent down to “whisper goodbye”—and she ended up in a hospital where she criticized the “dated” wallpaper. “I must have startled her, because she bolted upright with such force that she hit me in the face like…
Continue reading …Japanese people just aren’t having enough sex, laments the head of the country’s family planning association. A full 36% of Japanese men aged 16 to 19 say they’re uninterested in or averse to sex, according to a recent survey. That’s 19% more than just two years ago, and some 59%…
Continue reading …Incumbent Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has won a landslide victory in his party’s primary, but his defeated opponent warns that instability looms in Africa’s most populous country. Jonathan—who came to power when the elected president died last year —is a Christian from Nigeria’s south. His candidacy violates an internal…
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