Life

World’s oldest panda in captivity celebrates 37th birthday in China

FUJIAN, China (Reuters) — Basi, the world’s oldest panda in captivity celebrated her 37th birthday on Wednesday (January 18) in southern China’s Fujian province, state media reported. Basi is the inspiration for Pan Pan, the mascot for the 1990 Beijing Asian Games. Panda fans from all over the world including the UK, Switzerland and Japan came to Fuzhou Panda World to attend the birthday celebration, said the CCTV report. Basi, whose age is the equivalent […]

AR smart helmet for worksites of the future

(Reuters) — U.S. company Daqri wants to kick-start a new industrial revolution with its augmented reality smart helmet, saying it will help increase productivity and enable a wide range of functions, even in the most challenging environments. Aside from being a safety hard hat, the Daqri Smart Helmet uses computer vision to recognise and decipher the wearer’s surroundings. It then overlays relevant information in real-time as floating, interactive holograms. These relay data and work instructions […]

Climate science bedeviled by ‘tipping points’

by Marlowe HOOD Agence Presse France PARIS, France (AFP) — Of the many things that keep climate scientists awake at night, tipping points may be the scariest. To start with, these thresholds for deep, sometimes catastrophic change in the complex web of Earth’s natural forces, caused by man-made global warming, are largely invisible. You can’t see them on the horizon, and could easily cross one without noticing. Also, there is no turning back — at […]

World’s oldest panda in captivity celebrates 37th birthday in China

FUZHOU CITY, FUJIAN PROVINCE, China (Reuters) — Basi, the world’s oldest panda in captivity celebrated her 37th birthday on Wednesday (January 18) in southern China’s Fujian province, state media reported. Basi is the inspiration for Pan Pan, the mascot for the 1990 Beijing Asian Games. Panda fans from all over the world including the UK, Switzerland and Japan came to Fuzhou Panda World to attend the birthday celebration, said the CCTV report. Basi, whose age […]

Antarctic ice floe crack forces UK scientists to leave

BRUNT ICE SHELF, ANTARCTICA (Reuters) — The British Antarctic Society is recalling scientists from its Halley VI polar research base in March after a fissure developed in the ice sheet. The decision was taken after a huge crack appeared in the Brunt Ice Shelf, just 10 miles away from the Halley VI research station. Recently released dramatic footage taken from a drone shows the length and depth of the cleavage. “We want to do the […]

Oldest gorilla in captivity dies in Ohio at 60-years-old

OHIO, United States (Reuters) — The first gorilla born in captivity, who went on to become the oldest known member of her species, has died at the age of 60, officials at the Columbus, Ohio, zoo that served as her home said on Tuesday (January 17, 2017). Colo, a Western lowland gorilla, was found dead on Tuesday morning in her enclosure, the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium said in a statement. She had been born at […]

Climate change shows in shrinking Antarctic snows

by Alexandre PEYRILLE Agence France-Presse Vast icy rock peaks tower above Argentina’s Carlini research base in Antarctica. But scientists who have worked here for decades say the glaciers are less icy than they once were. For international experts stationed at the base, the frozen southern continent is a good gauge of climate change. “When I used to come to Antarctica in the 1990s, it never used to rain,” said Rodolfo Sanchez, director of the Argentine […]

Sundance to ‘engage and provoke’ with focus on climate

by Frankie TAGGART Agence France-Presse The Sundance Film Festival opens in Utah Thursday, promising to set the agenda for independent cinema and starting the 2018 Oscars buzz a month before this year’s statuettes are awarded. The annual gathering, founded in 1985 by iconic screen outlaw Robert Redford, turns the lens on 118 independent features, as Hollywood descends on the ski resort of Park City for the 33rd edition. “From the passion and chaos of creativity, […]

Eye massager, smart brush, sleep lamp: Health, wellness tech galore at 2017 CES

https://youtu.be/ZVVssVSAq5w   By Anna Cui Las Vegas EBC Correspondent   Las Vegas, USA (Eagle News) — An eye massager, a “smart” brush that tells you if you’re brushing your hair the right way, a scanner that checks nutritional content of food, and “sleep lamps” that can lure you to sleep or wakefulness depending on the time of day. These are just some of the health and wellness products that the Eagle Broadcasting Corporation’s Las Vegas […]

Lady Liberty shown as black woman on U.S. coin for first time

(Reuters) — The United States Mint has unveiled a $100 gold coin featuring an African-American woman as the face of Lady Liberty for the first time in the history of U.S. currency. The 24-karat gold coin, which marks the Mint’s 225th anniversary, was debuted on Thursday (January 12) in the Department of the Treasury’s Cash Room in Washington, D.C. It is the first in a series of gold coins featuring Lady Liberty, which has been […]

New species of seadragon captured on film

Reuters — The ruby seadragon, a new species of animal, has been captured alive on film for the first time by researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego. The footage, which was captured off the coast of Western Australia in April 2016, was released as part of a study published on Friday (January 13). “I discovered a third species of seadragon and a new species that we had no idea existed […]

‘Peace’ signs risk fingerprint theft, says Japanese study

  (Reuters) — Two-fingered ‘peace’ signs – or V-signs – taken by high-resolution digital cameras from as far away as three metres (9 feet) may lead to fingerprint theft, Japanese researchers warn. Millions of photographs are uploaded onto social networking sites daily, many of which involve people making the ubiquitous sign. Isao Echizen, a professor at Japan’s National Institute of Informatics (NIII), says advanced technology is not necessary for fraudsters to copy fingerprints. “If a […]