Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has told a crowd of his supporters massed in a central Tripoli Square to fight back against protesters and “defend the nation.” (Feb. 25)
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Here’s a name that should be among the GOP frontrunners for 2012: Mitch Daniels. The Indiana governor says there’s an “excellent chance” he won’t run—but he “would be the party’s strongest candidate,” writes David Brooks in the New York Times . He “can restrain debt while still helping government efficiently…
Continue reading …World’s first robot marathon gets off to a slow start, will likely stay that way
February 25, 2011 No Comment
It might take them a good 92 hours longer than the fastest human runners, but a group of five pint-sized humanoids have officially embarked on the world’s first full-length robot marathon. The Robo Mara Full, put on by Japanese robotics company Vstone , kicked off today in Osaka, Japan, and will see the mechanized competitors through a 42 kilometer (26 mile) race, estimated to last at least four days. During the marathon, entrants will circle a 100-meter indoor track a total of 422 times with little help from their human coaches — contact is only permitted during battery and servo replacement. Vstone’s Robovie-PC led the pack at the outset, but with three days left to go, it’s still any robot’s game. You can check out a live feed of all the, uh, slow and furious action at the coverage link below, and get a full overview of the race, complete with embarrassing translation, by following the source link. World’s first robot marathon gets off to a slow start, will likely stay that way originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 25 Feb 2011 13:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Air pollution causes more heart attacks than cocaine, and is as threatening a trigger as coffee, alcohol, and physical exertion, researchers find. They combined data from 36 individual studies in order to calculate each cause’s population-attributable fraction, or PAF—basically, the proportion of all heart attacks attributed to each trigger….
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As the crisis in Libya unfolds, it has become clear that the government’s perspective on the unrest is very different to that of the people on the ground. In this report from Malta, Al Jazeera’s Cal Perry compares the two views through the eyes of a former Libyan embassy worker, and his employer.
Continue reading …With protesters closing in on the capital and the international community uniting against him, Moammar Gadhafi is apparently hoping a little bribery will help his cause. He’s promising to give families $400 apiece, reports Global Post , a sum that might speak more of the nation’s living standards than anything else….
Continue reading …Kite-Powered Electric Car Crosses Australia Using Only $15 Worth of Electricity
February 25, 2011 No Comment
Photo via Wind Explorer The Wind Explorer –a kite-assisted lightweight electric car–drove 3,107 miles across Australia in 18 days using only $15 worth of electricity. As if that was… Read the full story on TreeHugger
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An inventive marathon runner has created a mobile social media studio to give his followers on the Web a real-time experience of the Tokyo marathon. (Feb 25)
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If you’ve been paying attention to the state of search as of late, you’ll know that Google’s between a proverbial rock and hard place right now. Some individuals and companies claim Mountain View’s beloved search engine is losing to the spammers, squatters, scrapers and content farms by failing to weed them from the system — though you can now do that on your own — while others say it’s squashing the little guy by unfairly downranking competitors in search results. We’re not sure if either is truly the case, the company’s made a mildly controversial move this week: it’s tweaked the search algorithms to “reduce rankings for low-quality sites,” and “provide better rankings for high-quality” ones. As ever, Mountain View’s not talking about what that change mathematically entails, though it says about 11.8 percent of queries will be affected as a result. In short: some will be happy, some sad, some angry, and many won’t notice at all. Google makes rich richer, poor poorer in search results originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 25 Feb 2011 13:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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