ApNano has tested armour said to be five times stronger than steel and twice as strong as any impact-resistant material used in protective gear. Last year, a sample of the ApNano material was subjected to tests in which a steel projectile traveling at a speed of up to 1.5 kilometers per second slammed into the material. Executives said the impact was the equivalent to dropping four diesel locomotives onto an area the size of a human fingernail. They said the nano-based armour, which stemmed from a new carbon form called Inorganic Fullerenes, withstood the impact — via Warren Ellis
Unhappy when his Canadian bank, Vancouver-based Citizens Bank, began out-sourcing some of its credit card processing to the United States, Don Rogers lodged his protest via the bank’s online payment system, jamming its computers by making dozens of tiny payments a day — via Feòrag
Luciano Mares, 81, of Fort Sumner, New Mexico, discovered the meaning of karma when he threw a mouse he had found in his home onto a pile of burning leaves — only to see it run away and burn his house down — via Feòrag
A secret Pentagon study has found that as many as 80% of the marines who have been killed in Iraq from wounds to their upper body could have survived if they had had extra body armour. Such armour has been available since 2003, but until recently the Pentagon has largely declined to supply it to troops despite calls from the field for additional protection
Google announced the release of Google Pack, a free collection of essential software
. Along with Google’s own programmes, such as Google Toolbar and Google Earth, Google Pack contains Firefox, Adobe Reader, Ad-Aware and a six month subscription to Norton Antivirus. I would expect most geeks already have most of this installed already. I’m baffled by the inclusion of a resource hog like Norton, but at least you can choose to exclude it from the pack
A cow that escaped a slaughterhouse dodged vehicles, ran in front of a train, braved the icy Missouri River and took three tranquiliser darts before being recaptured six hours later. News of the heifer’s adventures prompted a number of people to offer to buy the animal — via Boing Boing
From the beginning to the end of his career, Ariel Sharon was a man of ruthless and often gratuitous violence. The waypoints of his career are all drenched in blood, from the massacre he directed at the village of Qibya in 1953
Microsoft has admitted to removing the blog of a Chinese journalist from MSN Spaces. The censored site has been re-hosted elsewhere after a short down-time, but is no longer accessible to the folks in China
Lego is now allowing you to design a model online, and then order a kit that contains the parts necesary to build it — via digg
US mobile records are for sale online to the general public. The Chicago Police Department is warning officers their mobile phone records are available to anyone — for a price. Dozens of online services are selling lists of mobile phone calls, raising security concerns among law enforcement and privacy experts. No court order needed, no credentials required. If they want your records and have the money, they get them
An ISP who successfully sued spammers in the past has now been awarded an $11.2 billion judgment against James McCalla of Florida for sending millions of unsolicited e-mails advertising mortgage and debt consolidation services — via digg
A boy in Canton, Ohio puts up a web page telling his friends to go to their school web site and hit refresh. Now the local prosecutor wants to charge him with a felony and threatens him with jail time, although prosecutors say community service is more likely and disciplinary action from the school — via Boing Boing
Last month Grant Goodman, an 81-year-old retired University of Kansas history professor, received a letter from his friend in the Philippines that had been opened and resealed with a strip of dark green tape bearing the words by Border Protection
and carrying the official seal of the Department of Homeland Security — via digg
Futurama May Get New Lease on Life
Talks have begun at 20th Century Fox TV to revive Futurama, which takes place in the next millennium, much in the same way Family Guy
found new life after cancellation. The final original episode of Futurama
aired on Fox in August 2003. But since then, the show has found new life via DVD releases and repeatedly high-rated airings on the Cartoon Network — via digg
The Viktoria Institute in Gothenburg, Sweden, is working on a concept they call Push Music, which is software that enables peer-to-peer connections between music players, enabling people to browse
the music collections of others and take a copy of whatever they like — via The Raw Feed
Greenpeace has laughed off claims by a Japanese whaling organisation that the US Navy is spying on its protest ships in the Southern Ocean. The Japanese Institute of Cetacean Research, the group conducting the whaling and the real pirates, claims the information is being gathered for the US Civil Marine Analysis Department’s worldwide report on piracy
More than 500 General Electric employees have sued Monsanto along with two related companies, claiming they were exposed to toxic chemicals manufactured for decades by Monsanto
The UK government has been accused of compiling a national DNA database by stealth as police reported a rapid increase in genetic profiling
Australia had its hottest year on record in 2005, with meteorologists saying the rising temperatures were due to global warming. Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology said temperatures were on average 1.09°C higher than normal in 2005, making it the hottest year since records were first kept in 1910. Meteorologist Mike Coughlan said previous record hot years in 1988, 1998 and 2002 were caused by El Nino events, where warmer waters in the South West Pacific lead to lower rainfall and hotter weather in Australia. But there was no El Nino in 2005
Every year The Edge asks over 100 top scientists and thinkers a question, and the responses are fascinating and widely quoted. This year, psychologist Steven Pinker suggested they ask What is your most dangerous idea? The 117 respondents include Richard Dawkins, Freeman Dyson, Daniel Dennett, Jared Diamond — and that’s just the D’s! As you might expect, the submissions are brilliant and very controversial
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