Today I Found Out about Violet Jessop, "Miss Unsinkable," the woman who survived the sinking of the sister ships the Titanic and the Britannic, and was also aboard the third of the trio of Olympic class vessels, the Olympic, when it had a major accident.
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Just in case Florida didn’t have enough going against it already (looking at you Florida Man), the state that everybody loves to hate is currently being invaded. No, not by Cuba—by a variety of non-native plants and animals that are wreaking environmental havoc and causing billions of dollars in damage. These are six of the most destructive.
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Super-typhoon Haiya, the single most powerful storm ever recorded, is an unsettling harbinger of troubles to come. Weather systems across the globe have gained terrifying intensity and destructive force over the past few years thanks to our rapidly warming planet. New defenses are needed to protect our metropolitan centers, most of which are located within a stone’s throw of the ocean. The solution: fight nature with nature.
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Police forces around the country have developed the nasty habit of confiscating the phones of citizens who choose to film them
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Today, just over 100 years after the advent of trans fats, the FDA has announced that it’s taking the first steps toward banning them outright, removing them from the "Generally Recognized As Safe" list and out of the American food supply. It’s about time.
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Virtually all of the 32 American states that allow the death penalty rely on a deadly chemical cocktail to slowly and quietly kill the condemned. But America has found itself running dangerously low on sodium pentothal, the injection’s primary ingredient, after the only US supplier stopped making it. So how are we supposed to kill the 3,000-plus inmates currently on Death Row? Guillotine? Actually, the doctor who developed lethal injections in the first place thinks it might be more humane.
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Today’s moviegoers are a jaded bunch—it seems to require 3D visuals and advanced audio systems just to get a rise out of them. But it wasn’t always this tough in Tinseltown; there was once a time when something as basic as color film was sufficient to blow an audience’s collective mind.
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While Russia’s submarine fleet remains a formidable force in the 21st Century, the country still relies on craft built before the Iron Curtain lifted. Today, a lot of the subs are getting long in the tooth. However, the new SSBN Yury Dolgoruky will provide Mother Russia with a fresh set of nuclear fangs. More »
High speed rail may be a quixotic public works project here in California but for China, it’s a cornerstone of the country’s transportation infrastructure. Yesterday, Chinese officials expanded that infrastructure by inaugurating the longest such rail line on Earth and announced plans for seven more. More »
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