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Kyrgyz opposition says running government, wants election

Reuters - Wed, 2010-04-07 14:58
BISHKEK (Reuters) - Kyrgyz opposition leader Roza Otunbayeva said on Thursday she had taken over the government after violent protests forced the president of the Central Asian country to flee the capital.


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Solar-powered plane soars above Switzerland

Scientific American Online - Wed, 2010-04-07 14:38

PAYERNE, Switzerland (Reuters) - A solar-powered airplane designed to fly day and night without fuel or emissions successfully made its first test flight above the Swiss countryside on Wednesday.

[More]
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U.S.-Israeli dispute still unresolved: Netanyahu

Reuters - Wed, 2010-04-07 14:31
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel and the United States remain divided on Jewish settlement construction although the gap has narrowed in some areas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday after consulting senior cabinet members.


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The Third Gender (preview)

Scientific American Online - Wed, 2010-04-07 14:00

The reigning queen of Belfast, Northern Ireland, is the “Baroness” Titti Von Tramp, a deeply bronzed, thoroughly waxed and statuesque figure approaching seven feet tall in stiletto heels, wearing tinted couture glasses and crowned with a perfect platinum mane. On any given night, you can find the bosomy Von Tramp at one of the local nightclubs, pursing her strawberry-colored lips in a photo-op for one of her many fans or perhaps making an Ulster businessman turn bright red by deviously running one long, manly finger down the man’s cheek and judging, “That’s a good year.”

For many people, the term “transvestite” is synonymous with such larger-than-life characters, an entertaining coterie of mostly gay men and their oversexed female alter egos. But as with any human demographic, transvestites are a very diverse bunch, and it is only a select few who can turn their minority status into such a lucrative career in drag theatrics. For more modest individuals, the limelight is hardly a desirable place to be. Furthermore, the psychological motivation to dress or act as the opposite sex varies widely--transvestism is but one of the many manifestations of cross-gender behavior in the human species.

[More]
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U.S. forecaster sees increased 2010 hurricane threat

Reuters - Wed, 2010-04-07 13:57
MIAMI (Reuters) - The 2010 Atlantic hurricane season will produce an above-average eight hurricanes, four of them major, posing a heightened threat to the U.S. coastline, the Colorado State University hurricane forecasting team predicted on Wednesday.


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Medical Systems That First Do No Harm

Scientific American Online - Wed, 2010-04-07 13:40

Everyone makes mistakes, especially when it comes to entering numbers into a calculator or spreadsheet. It’s not such a big deal if you’re tracking how much you spend on pizza. But if you’re administering drugs in a hospital, such a slip can be deadly. Now a report in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface [see Harold Thimbleby and Paul Cairns,  http://bit.ly/cqcD83 ] shows how devices can be programmed to catch at least some mistakes on the spot. [More]

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UK's Brown pledges reform, clashes on economy

Reuters - Wed, 2010-04-07 13:19
LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Wednesday he would overhaul a scandal-hit parliament and take more steps to secure an economic recovery if his Labour Party defies the polls and wins a May 6 election.


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Chemical Controls

Scientific American Online - Wed, 2010-04-07 13:00

This January the Food and Drug Administration warned parents not to pour hot liquids into plastic baby bottles and also to discard bottles that get scratched. Otherwise, a potentially harmful chemical might leach out of the plastic. This warning was the agency’s first, tentative acknowledgment of an emerging scientific consensus: many widely used chemicals once deemed safe may not be.

But a warning was all the FDA could offer worried consumers. The agency does not have the power to force baby-bottle makers to stop using the chemical in question--bisphenol A, better known as BPA. Nor is the FDA alone. The Environmental Protection Agency’s administrator Lisa Jackson testified to Congress last September that her agency lacks the muscle to restrict the manufacture of BPA and other chemicals. The relevant law, the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976, is simply too weak. It must be strengthened.

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Iran's president attacks Obama on nuclear "threat"

Reuters - Wed, 2010-04-07 12:55
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's president made a scathing and personal attack on President Barack Obama on Wednesday as an "inexperienced amateur" who was too quick to threaten to use nuclear weapons against enemies of the United States.


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Afghanistan plays down Karzai's anti-West remarks

Reuters - Wed, 2010-04-07 12:43
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan played down on Wednesday recent anti-Western remarks by President Hamid Karzai, saying they were not aimed at specific countries and would not affect relations between Kabul and the international community.


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Poison gas hampers rescue effort at West Virginia mine

Reuters - Wed, 2010-04-07 12:33
MONTCOAL, West Virginia (Reuters) - High levels of poisonous gases stopped rescuers on Wednesday from venturing inside a West Virginia coal mine to reach four miners missing since an explosion killed 25 others in the largest U.S. mine disaster in a quarter century.


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Rio tries to restore order amid more rain, 96 dead

Reuters - Wed, 2010-04-07 12:09
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Rains kept pummeling Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday as officials in Brazil's second largest city scrambled to restore transit after 96 people were killed by landslides and floods.


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Obama seeks momentum from Russia arms pact signing

Reuters - Wed, 2010-04-07 05:12
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama leaves on Wednesday for Prague where he will sign a landmark nuclear treaty with Russia, marking a much-needed diplomatic achievement and a step toward better ties with Moscow.


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Obama may face election-year Supreme Court battle

Reuters - Wed, 2010-04-07 05:07
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama, fresh off a bruising battle over healthcare, could face another tough fight in Congress to fill a U.S. Supreme Court vacancy if 89-year-old Justice John Paul Stevens retires as expected.


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Obama limits U.S. use of nuclear arms

Reuters - Wed, 2010-04-07 03:31
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama unveiled a new policy on Tuesday restricting U.S. use of nuclear weapons but sent a stern message to nuclear-defiant Iran and North Korea that they remain potential targets.


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Black hole effect created with nanotube

Science A GoGo - Wed, 2010-04-07 03:10
Harvard physicists have found that a high-voltage nanotube can cause cold atoms to spiral inward under dramatic acceleration before disintegrating violently - an atomic scale destructive force that is eerily similar to the inexorable attraction black holes exert on matter at cosmic scales...
Categories: Science News

West Virginia hoping for a miracle in mine disaster

Reuters - Wed, 2010-04-07 01:55
MONTCOAL, West Virginia (Reuters) - Drills boring into a West Virginia coal mine on Wednesday carried hope for a "miracle" rescue of four miners missing after a blast killed 25 people in the worst U.S. mine disaster in a quarter century.


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No new nukes: Obama's nuclear posture points to caution

Scientific American Online - Wed, 2010-04-07 01:31

The U.S. will cut its nuclear weapons stockpile, use such weapons only as a deterrent, and pump more money into the infrastructure to create and sustain such weapons, according to the new nuclear weapons policy released today by the Obama administration. [More]

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No deaths in Indonesia quake; tsunami alert lifted

Reuters - Wed, 2010-04-07 00:33
SINABANG, Indonesia (Reuters) - A major earthquake of 7.7 magnitude struck off the coast of Aceh in north-western Indonesia on Wednesday, triggering panic and power blackouts, but no deaths were reported and a tsunami alert was later lifted.


Categories: Science News

"First fiction reading off an iPad" kicks off enthusiastic discussion of e-books

Scientific American Online - Tue, 2010-04-06 23:20

If a discussion Monday at a Manhattan bookstore is any indication, book publishers and sellers find e-books threatening, but writers, feeling generally abused for decades by publishers, are gleeful over their newfound digital access to readers--be that via the Web, iPads, e-book readers, podcasts or cell phones. [More]

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