Albert Einstein- How I See the World
Is our history still our history?!
The lost pyramids of Egypt: Scientist discovers vast hidden burial chambers. . . after spending 10 years studying Google Earth in her office in America
- Discovery made by American researcher Angela Micol, who studied satellite images 5,000 away in North Carolina
- One site spotted on satellite is three times the size of Great Pyramid at Giza
An American scientist has discovered two new possible pyramid sites in Egypt, after spending 10 years studying Google Earth.
Archeology researcher Angela Micol has pinpointed two areas along the Nile basin, 90 miles apart, both containing unusual shaped mounds.
One site includes a 620ft-wide triangular plateau that’s almost three times the size of the Great Pyramid at Giza.
The first area sits alongside the Nile in Upper Egypt, 12 miles from the city of Abu Sidhum.
If the plateau found there represents the remains of a genuine pyramid, it would be the largest ever discovered.
Ms Micol said: ‘Upon closer examination of the formation, this mound appears to have a very flat top and a curiously symmetrical triangular shape that has been heavily eroded with time.’
The second site, 90 miles north, contains a four-sided shape that’s 140ft wide.
‘It has a distinct square centre, which is very unusual for a mound of this size and it almost seems pyramidal when seen from above,’ Ms Micol said.
The smart glove that is fooling the brain into feeling everything from texture to temperature.
The smart glove that could give surgeons ‘supersense’ in their fingertips
- Smart glove could fool brain into feeling virtual temperatures and textures
- Can incorporate medical instruments and sensors
- Fingertip could also allow robots to carry out surgery more effectively
It could dramatically change the way surgery is carried out, and even change the way we play computer games.
Researchers today revealed the first ‘smart fingertips’.
The electronic fingers are molded to the user’s hand and have the ability to transmit electric signals to the skin.
The team hopes to one day incorporate the devices into a smart glove that creates virtual sensations, fooling the brain into feeling everything from texture to temperature.
Such gloves could be used in medical procedures such as local ablations and ultrasound scans.
Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Northwestern University and Dalian University of Technology have published their study in IOP Publishing’s journal Nanotechnology.
Offering guidelines to the creation of these electrotactile stimulation devices for use on surgeons’ fingertips, their paper is said to describe the materials, fabrication strategies and device designs using ultra-thin, stretchable, silicon-based electronics and soft sensors that can be mounted onto an artificial ‘skin’ and fitted to fingertips.
Pope’s butler says he leaked Vatican documents to media to combat ‘evil and corruption’ as he is charged with theft
- The Pope’s butler Paolo Gabriele denied taking payment for leaking private letters and documents to the Italian media
- Another Vatican employee will face complicity charges
- The trial is set for October at the earliest
- The Pope is said to be ‘shocked and saddened’
- He set up a special commission to investigate the leaks which emerged on TV, in newspapers and a bestselling book
The Pope’s butler Paolo Gabriele, left, will stand trial in October for the ‘Vatileak’ scandal in which he leaked private letters and documents to the Italian media
The Pope’s butler has claimed he passed on private documents and letters to journalists in a bid to stop ‘evil and corruption’ within the Church following his arrest for theft.
Paolo Gabriele, personal assistant to Pope Benedict XVI, has been charged with aggravated theft after police found confidential documents at his Vatican flat and arrested him in May.
He was arrested as part of an investigation over the leak of documents alleging corruption in the Vatican’s business dealings.
Father-of-three Gabriele admitted to police that for some time he had been meeting with a journalist and slipping him sensitive papers, including letters to the Pope.
He told the inquiry he never received payment for the documents, but felt he was acting for the good of the Church and as an agent of the Holy Spirit.
‘I saw evil and corruption everywhere in the Church,’ Gabriele said in his testimony, explaining how he felt the pope was not sufficiently informed of such matters.
‘I was sure that a shock, perhaps by using the media, could be a healthy thing to bring the Church back on the right track.’
Natural energy … is it really safe?! The bacteria-eating virus that could one day power your mobile phone
Countless scientists have mastered how to extract power from bacteria in the search for eco-friendly energy.
But they’ve now gone one step further and figured out how to harness energy from a virus that eats bacteria.
A team at the University of California, Berkeley has discovered how to generate electricity from a virus known as M13 bacteriophage.
The virus possesses a property known as piezoelectricity, which means it can translate mechanical energy into electrical energy.
The researchers believe the discovery could one day pave the way for mobile phones that can be charged while you walk and replace the toxic piezoelectric elements already used in mobile phones.
Egypt’s top generals axed as President Morsi loosens military’s grip on power
- Move stamps his authority on Egypt and its army
- It follows embarrassing debacle for the military
- Secular activists welcomed it as a ‘first step’
Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi has said he sacked two of the country’s top generals ‘for the benefit of the nation’.
As tensions rose in the power struggle between the elected Muslim Brotherhood government and the army, Mr Morsi also issued a decree giving him broad legislative and executive powers, which had been seized by the military a few months ago.
There were suggestions yesterday that he had acted to head off a coup.
Mr Morsi had taken the country by surprise on Sunday when he pushed Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, 76, into retirement.
There had been much debate over the marshall’s fate, who until Morsi’s election in June had ruled Egypt as head of a military council since Hosni Mubarak was toppled last year.
The timing of yesterday’s announcement to replace him as armed forces head was nevertheless a surprise.
However, an embarrassing debacle for the army on the border with Israel, where 16 Egyptian troops were killed by Islamist militants a week ago, may have given Morsi the opening he needed to step up the pace in rolling back the military’s influence, pushing aside Tantawi and military chief of staff Sami Enan.
Morsi’s spokesman called it a ‘sovereign’ decision by the head of state, and aimed at ‘pumping new blood’ into an army that has shown signs of hoping to control the novice president. A fellow Islamist said Egypt could not go on having ‘two heads’.
Secular activists, wary of political Islam, nonetheless welcomed a ‘first step toward establishing a civilian state’.
Egyptian Defence Minister Mohammed Hussein Tantawi has been dismissed
Morsi himself later said: ‘The decisions I took today were not meant ever to target certain persons, nor did I intend to embarrass institutions, nor was my aim to narrow freedoms.
Australia plans to deport asylum seekers to overseas detention camps
- Expert panel recommends building new camps in poorer nations of Papua New Guinea and Nauru
- Proposal is U-turn for government, which previously said camps were a waste of money
- Prime Minister concerned ‘too many lives are lost’ as asylum seekers travel on rickety boats to country
- More than 7,000 people have so far reached the Australian Indian Ocean territory of Christmas Island this year
- Amnesty International said proposal was a major setback for refugee policy
Australia plans to deport asylum seekers to detention camps in the poorer nations of Papua New Guinea and Nauru.
The proposal is a U-turn for the ruling Labour party, which previously argued that Australian-funded detention camps were a waste of money that would fail to deter new arrivals.
But in the face of ‘too many lives being lost’ in rickety boats, prime minister Julia Gillard said her government has accepted recommendations to reopen camps established ten years ago by a conservative administration.
Laws to enable the deportation of asylum seekers will also be introduced to parliament.
‘When our nation looks at what is happening at sea as people attempt dangerous journeys to Australia, too many lives have been lost and I’m not going to play politics or look at political scoreboards when too many lives have been lost,’ said Ms Gillard after the cabinet backed all the recommendations in the expert panel’s report.
The Facebook camera that can recognise you every time you walk into a shop
- Could be used by shops to offer discounts to customers
- System already being trialled in Nashville shops and bars
- Users must sign up to take part and ‘teach’ system what they look like
Shoppers could soon be automatically recognised when they walk into a shop using a controversial new camera.
Called Facedeals, the camera uses photos uploaded to Facebook to recognise people as they walk in.
Shoppers who agree to use the system, which has not been developed with Facebook, will be offered special deals.
A promotional video created to promote the concept shows drinkers entering a bar, and then being offerend cheap drinks as they are recognised.
‘Facebook check-ins are a powerful mechanism for businesses to deliver discounts to loyal customers, yet few businesses—and fewer customers—have realized it,‘ said Nashville-based advertising agency Redpepper.
They are already trialling the scheme in firms close to their office.
‘A search for businesses with active deals in our area turned up a measly six offers.
‘The odds we’ll ever be at one of those six spots are low (a strip club and photography studio among them), and the incentives for a check-in are not nearly enticing enough for us to take the time.
‘So we set out to evolve the check-in and sweeten the deal, making both irresistible.
‘We call it Facedeals.’
Let me know ASAP if you see any Martians, Obama tells Nasa’s Curiosity team as rover undergoes ‘brain transplant’
- Engineers updating the Curiosity’s software to allow it to drive on Mars
- President Obama calls the project team to congratulate them
- Reveals blast marks on surface caused by Curiosity’s landing rockets
- Rover has also sent back first high resolution panorama as scientists test its instruments
With the election season in full swing, President Obama has a lot on his plate, but on Monday, he took some time off from his busy schedule to call NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover team and let them know that if they come across any Martians, he should be the first to know.
Speaking aboard Air Force One en route to Iowa, the commander-in-chief congratulated the scientists assembled at mission control in Pasadena, California, on successfully landing the rover on the surface of the Red Planet on August 5.
After praising the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) team on their hard work and ingenuity, which Obama said are the embodiment of American innovation, he finished his call with a special request:
‘If in fact you do make contact with Martians, please tell me know right away.
‘I got a lot other things on my plate, but I can say that… that would go to the top of the list… even if they are just microbes, it will be pretty exciting,’ the president said, drawing laughter from the assembled Curiosity operators.
During the phone call, Obama also mentioned JPL’s newest in-house celebrity Bobak Ferdowski, a mission controller who has become known worldwide as the Mohawk Guy for his signature hairdo, the Washington Post reported.
Hummm, it looks like a military report during the Vietnam War.
