By Jonathan Amos
Science reporter, BBC News
A space mission that will be critical to our understanding of climate change has launched from California.
The Jason-2 satellite will become the primary means of measuring the shape of the world’s oceans, taking readings with an accuracy of better than 4cm.
Its data will track not only sea level rise but [...]
Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who discovered the hallucinogenic drug LSD, has died of a heart attack at his home in Basel at the age of 102.
Mr Hofmann first produced LSD in 1938 while researching the medicinal uses of a crop fungus.
He accidentally ingested some of the drug and said later: “Everything I saw was [...]
Sir Arthur Charles Clarke was born on the 16th of December 1917 in Minehead, England. Perhaps best known for his contributions to science fiction, and his inventions, his achievements will certainly not be forgotten anytime soon.
Clarke served in the Royal Air Force as a radar instructor from 1941-1946. It was there where he invented & [...]
Continue reading about To the Passing of a Hero: Arthur C. Clarke, 1917-2008
I recently came across news of a device that geeked me out. Its a neckband that can detect and analyze neural firings when we think about saying something, and translate them into audible words via speech synthesizer. Beyond the obvious use of bettering the lives of people who’ve lost their ability to speak, it could [...]
Continue reading about Neckband Detects User Thoughts And Translates to Speech [Neural Interface]
By Michael Voss
BBC News, Havana
The first legalised home computers have gone on sale in Cuba, but the ban on home internet access remains.
This is the latest in a series of restrictions on daily life which President Raul Castro has lifted in recent weeks.
Crowds formed at the Carlos III shopping centre in Havana, though most had [...]
Two projects in Wales which aim to support people at risk of suicide and prevent it have each been given lottery grants of almost £1m.
They are among 19 projects across Wales to receive funding worth £14m from the lottery’s Mental Health Matters scheme.
Also benefiting are people affected by bipolar disorder and those with drug and [...]
By Innes Bowen
BBC Radio 4, More or Less
It’s widely thought that employees on lower grades suffer if they have little control over their jobs. Is this true
A group of middle managers gathers in central London for a half-day workshop on stress. Merren Barber, an occupational health physiotherapist, delivers a stark warning: managers who put too [...]
A teenager is recovering in hospital after a 200,000-volt electric shock which threw him 25ft (7.6m) onto a live railway line in Wigan.
Sam Cunningham, 16, was wearing steel toecaps when he tried to retrieve a rugby ball from a bridge and a charge leapt from overhead power lines.
He fell onto the track below and was [...]
By Rob Liddle
BBC News
Family skeletons have been toppling out of closets since the searchable details of more than 200 years of Old Bailey trails went online last month. So how does it feel to idly type a name into a search box and be presented with more than you bargained for
Tracy Lowe knew the Mendays [...]
The hanging of Saddam Hussein – directors cut
This should be the infamous cameraphone video showing all the action of Saddam’s hanging… actually I think they could spare showing this but…
As seen on the CNN
