Life

Taiwanese inventor makes laser engraving available for the masses

TAIPEI, Taiwan (Reuters) — A Taiwanese company is aiming to make laser engraving available to anyone by creating a device that comes at a fraction of the costs of conventional laser engraving tools. Cubiio, the name of a device which resembles a small Bluetooth speaker rather than a tool for shooting lasers, is currently able to load images from a memory card and engrave them onto various objects. According to its inventor, a future update […]

Largest asteroid in a century to whiz by Sept 1

MIAMI, United States (AFP) — The largest asteroid in more than a century will whiz safely past Earth on September 1 at a safe but unusually close distance of about 4.4 million miles (7 million kilometers), NASA said. The asteroid was discovered in 1981, and is named Florence after the famed 19th century founder of modern nursing, Florence Nightingale. “Florence is the largest asteroid to pass this close to our planet since the first near-Earth […]

Warming the Antarctic 1 C vastly changes seabed life

MIAMI, United States (AFP) — Human-driven climate change may substantially alter the seabed ecosystem in the already fragile Antarctic, slashing the diversity of some species and allowing other populations to explode, researchers warned Thursday. The findings of a field study designed to mimic real-world conditions in a warming ocean were published in the journal Current Biology. The experiments, undertaken in marine shallows around the British Antarctic Survey’s Rothera Research Station, showed some species actually doubled when […]

Tsunami-sunk’ Roman ruins discovered in Tunisia

NABEUL, Tunisia (AFP) — Vast underwater Roman ruins have been discovered off northeast Tunisia, apparently confirming a theory that the city of Neapolis was partly submerged by a tsunami in the 4th century AD. “It’s a major discovery,” Mounir Fantar, the head of a Tunisian-Italian archaeological mission which made the find off the coast of Nabeul, told AFP. He said an underwater expedition had found streets, monuments and around 100 tanks used to produce garum, […]

Infinity Room Exhibition coming to Los Angeles this October

By Jaina Pallasigui (EBC Las Vegas Bureau) Eagle News Service LAS VEGAS, USA  (Eagle News) — Yayoi Kusama is known for her artistic vision of perspective.  Even people who have never heard of Kusama have been drawn to her immersive artwork that seems to defy the boundaries of light and space.   Kusama’s Infinity Mirrors exhibition has been touring the country, leaving a huge impression at each stop.  Commencing at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture […]

Egyptian students produce diesel from used car tires

CAIRO, EGYPT (Reuters) — A group of engineering students in Cairo have built a machine that produces alternative fuel from vehicle tires. The university students came across the idea when they were looking for a graduation project and learnt about the technology from a professor. One of the students, Mohamed Saeed Ali, said the technology is inexpensive and easy to operate. “The project consists of the container in which we put the shredded tires. We […]

Ancient whales were predators not gentle giants – scientists

SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Ancient whales had extremely sharp predator teeth similar to lions, Australian scientists said Wednesday in a discovery they believe debunks theories the mammals used their teeth to filter feed like today’s gentle giants. There are two major groups of whales — toothed creatures such as killer whales, and baleen, which filter plankton and small fish from the ocean for food with special bristle-like structures in their mouths. Using 3D scanners, Museums […]

Giant alpine spider endangered by climate change, scientist warns

MONT BEGO, France (Reuters) — The survival of the giant alpine spider, scientifically known as Vesubia Jugorum, is threatened by global warming, archeologist and species specialist Marco Isaia warned. The spider lives in grassland with rocky outcrops at heights between 2,600 and 2,700 meters (8,500-8,900 feet) in the French and Italian Alps. The species, also referred to as the wolf spider, is endemic to the French national parc of Mercantour, home to the Mont Bego peak, […]

New digital piggy bank helps Swiss kids save

ZURICH, Switzerland (AFP) — In Switzerland, one of the world’s wealthiest countries, financial planning starts young. The country’s number two bank Credit Suisse on Tuesday unveiled a piggy bank with built-in apps allowing children under 12 to set savings goals, check their balance and make payments. “The financial education of children is a concern to people in Switzerland,” Credit Suisse said in a statement, citing a recent study showing that 90 percent of parents in […]

Facebook to reject ads from pages touting ‘fake news’

SAN FRANCISCO, United States (AFP) — Facebook on Monday said that pages that make a habit of linking to bogus news stories will no longer be able to advertise at the world’s leading online social network. The move is the latest shot fired by Facebook in its war against ‘fake news’ used to deceive instead of enlighten. “If Pages repeatedly share stories marked as false, these repeat offenders will no longer be allowed to advertise […]

San Diego battles deadly Hepatitis A outbreak

LOS ANGELES, United States (AFP) — A record outbreak of Hepatitis A has killed 14 people and put scores in hospital in San Diego, hitting mostly homeless and patients using intravenous drugs. The latest data from San Diego County in California show that more than 350 cases have been diagnosed since the beginning of the year. Most of those have taken been identified since July, and 264 people have needed care in hospital. “As hepatitis […]

German team wins SpaceX Hyperloop competition with 200 mph pod

CALIFORNIA, United States (Reuters) — A team from the Technical University of Munich in Germany, known as WARR Hyperloop, won a competition hosted by Elon Musk’s SpaceX on Sunday (August 27) to design the fastest pod for a proposed future transportation system of giant vacuum tubes known as the “Hyperloop.” The WARR (pronounced: VAR) team’s pod traveled down the mile-long Spacex Hyperloop test track at 324 kilometers per hour (201 miles per hour). “That was […]