Next month, the United States will introduce a national program aimed at giving every American access to a fast Internet connection, raising the standard from a dial-up connection to broadband. Unlike other nations, however, the U.S. will stop short of declaring broadband access a basic human right. For some, the right to access the Internet might pale in comparison to other basic human rights, such as the right to life, freedom of expression and equality before the law, but the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights also includes the right to education and the right to work, which may hinge on Internet access. The United States is currently the only industrialized nation without a national policy for Internet access. Estonia, Greece, France and Finland have recognized Internet access as a basic human right in accordance with the United Nations recommendation. In 2009, Finland became the first nation to mandate universal broadband along with a minimum speed. All Finns must have access to a 1-megabit per second broadband (Mbps) connection within 2 kilometers of their homes. Finland plans to increase the speed of connection for its populace from 1Mbps to 100Mbps by the end of 2015. What […]
Following a series of delays, some physicists have begun to ask if the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN is being sabotaged by the future. Aoife Crowley investigates this strange hypothesis to see if God really does hate Higgs Bosen particles. Picture the scene. In an unspecified but not too distant future, we are doomed. A giant blackhole has opened up in the centre of the universe, and it’s only a matter of time before the entire cosmos is swallowed. The remnants of mankind have turned feral, eking out an existence in caves, or perhaps on islands made out of rubbish, like that film Waterworld. Who knew that a simple flick of a switch way back in 2010 could set in motion the chain of events that led to such disaster? Luckily, due to that very same machine that caused our downfall, wormholes and wrinkles in time are now abundant. Our only hope is to send something back to change the past. And so, the human race entrusts the future of the universe to a bird, carrying a chunk of baguette. As the noble bird soars through the wormhole, a species holds its breath. But we’ll return […]
Pigments have been found in fossil dinosaurs for the first time, a new study says. The discovery may prove once and for all that dinosaurs’ hairlike filaments-sometimes called dino fuzz-are related to bird feathers, paleontologists announced today. (Pictures: Dinosaur True Colors Revealed by Feather Find.) The finding may also open up a new world of prehistoric color, illuminating the role of color in dinosaur behavior and allowing the first accurately colored dinosaur re-creations, according to the study team, led by Fucheng Zhang of China’s Institute for Vertebrate Paleontology. The team identified fossilized melanosomes-pigment-bearing organelles-in the feathers and filament-like structures of fossil birds and dinosaurs from northeastern China. Found in the feathers of living birds, the nano-size packets of pigment-a hundred melanosomes can fit across a human hair-were first reported in fossil bird feathers in 2008. That year, Yale graduate student Jakob Vinther and colleagues, using a scanning electron microscope, discovered melanosomes in the dark bands of a hundred-million-year-old feather. In 2009 Vinther’s group went on to show that another fossilized feather would have been iridescent in a living bird, due to microscopic light-refracting surfaces created by stacked melanosomes. These earlier findings proved it was […]
DENVER — Colorado lawmakers have an unlikely ally in their first attempt to curb the state’s booming medical marijuana industry: owners of the some of the shops that sell pot. Many dispensary owners say they’re on board with regulations if they give them uniform guidelines and avert a more severe crackdown like one approved this week in Los Angeles. Hundreds of Los Angeles pot shops face closure after the City Council voted Tuesday to cap the number of dispensaries in the city at 70. The Colorado proposal – which a legislative committee approved 6-1 Wednesday – would make it more difficult for recreational pot users to become legal medical marijuana patients. It would bar doctors from working out of dispensaries, make it illegal for them to offer discounts to patients who agree to use a designated dispensary, and require follow-up doctor visits. Most of the 150 people at the hearing opposed the bill. Many of them worry it will cost them hundreds of dollars on top of the $90 annual fee they pay to register as a medical marijuana user. William Chengelis said he can’t get his regular Veterans Administration doctors to sign off on medical […]
A growing number of science students on British campuses and in sixth form colleges are challenging the theory of evolution and arguing that Darwin was wrong. Some are being failed in university exams because they quote sayings from the Bible or Qur’an as scientific fact and at one sixth form college in London most biology students are now thought to be creationists. Earlier this month Muslim medical students in London distributed leaflets that dismissed Darwin’s theories as false. Evangelical Christian students are also increasingly vocal in challenging the notion of evolution. In the United States there is growing pressure to teach creationism or ‘intelligent design’ in science classes, despite legal rulings against it. Now similar trends in this country have prompted the Royal Society, Britain’s leading scientific academy, to confront the issue head on with a talk entitled Why Creationism is Wrong. The award-winning geneticist and author Steve Jones will deliver the lecture and challenge creationists, Christian and Islamic, to argue their case rationally at the society’s event in April. ‘There is an insidious and growing problem,’ said Professor Jones, of University College London. ‘It’s a step back from rationality. They (the creationists) don’t have a problem […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
