Articles - War

Reporting from Lahore, Pakistan — They are considered risque dens of iniquity and have been bombed simply for providing a place where men and women can (gasp) talk to each other.

Fruit juice bars may seem an unusual front line in Pakistan's war on Islamic militancy, but many of their owners feel deserving of combat pay these days for serving up cold smoothies. Although there haven't been any attacks for several months, fears linger and many people say they're aware that violence could come at any time.

Articles - Science

Aug. 10, 2009 -- A new procedure to turn blocks of wood into artificial bones has been developed by Italian scientists, who plan to implant them into large animals, and eventually humans.

Wood-derived bone substitute should allow live bones to heal faster and more securely after a break than currently available metal and ceramic implants.

The researchers chose wood because it closely resemble the physical structure of natural bone, "which is impossible to reproduce with conventional processing technology."

Read more: New Artificial Bone Made of Wood

Articles - Science

Imagine the following scenario:

Matthew is playing with his new kitten late one night. He is wearing only his boxer shorts, and the kitten sometimes walks over his genitals. Eventually, this arouses him, and he begins to rub his bare genitals along the kitten's body. The kitten purrs, and seems to enjoy the contact. How wrong is it for Matthew to be rubbing himself against the kitten?

Or how about this one:

You find a wallet with several hundred dollars in cash, along with credit cards including an American Express Gold Card and ID locating the owner's home in the richest neighborhood in town. You're barely making ends meet. How wrong is it for you to keep the cash and anonymously mail the wallet back to the owner?

Read more: How wrong is it to use a kitten for personal sexual pleasure? Depends on whether you've washed your hands

Articles - Science

August 6, 2009--A low-hanging sun brightens the fields around the dome of the Gran Telescopio Canarias, or GTC, the latest addition to the handful of Earth-based optical telescopes designed to study the heavens.

Crowds gathered last week on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands--a Spanish territory--to watch Spanish King Juan Carlos inaugurate the U.S. $180-million GTC, which is co-owned by Spain, Mexico, and the University of Florida in the U.S.

Boasting a segmented mirror 34 feet (10.4 meters) wide, the GTC is the largest telescope of its kind in the world--for now. Three larger telescopes are slated for completion in 2018: The Thirty Meter Telescope, with its 90-foot (30-meter) mirror, is planned for the top of Hawaii's Mauna Kea volcano, while the 80-foot (24.5-meter) Giant Magellan Telescope will be built in the mountains of Las Campanas, Chile.

The European Extremely Large Telescope, which currently doesn't have a site selected, will boast an unprecedented 137.7-foot (42-meter) primary mirror.