Weird Links

Sunspot-driven changes to the sun's power are simply too small to account for the climatic changes observed in historical data from the 17th century to the present..

A Leading US climate scientist is considering legal action after he says he was duped into appearing in a Channel 4 documentary that claimed man-made global warming is a myth.

Simultaneous warming on Earth and Mars suggests that our planet's recent climate changes have a natural and not a human-induced cause, according to one scientist's controversial theory.

Two teams of British researchers have applied for permission to create "cybrid" embryos that would be around 99.9 per cent human and 0.1 per cent rabbit, cow, pig, sheep or goat to produce embryonic stem cells.

A draft bill to replace the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 is currently being drawn up. It is expected to be ready in May and is due to be included in the Queen's speech in November.

On Monday, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's cabinet in Baghdad approved the draft of the new Iraqi oil law. The government regards it as "a major national project". The key point of the law is that Iraq's immense oil wealth (115 billion barrels of proven reserves, third in the world after Saudi Arabia and Iran) will be under the iron rule of a fuzzy "Federal Oil and Gas Council" boasting "a panel of oil experts from inside and outside Iraq". That is, nothing less than predominantly US Big Oil executives.

Researchers have used micro electrodes to command the bird to fly right or left, and up or down by implants stimulated different areas of the pigeon's brain.

Scientists from Université Laval's Faculty of Medicine have succeeded in producing neurons in vitro using stem cells extracted from adult human skin. This is the first time such an advanced state of nerve cell differentiation has been achieved from human skin.

A team of Korean scientists has come close to creating interspecies stem cells by combining monkey cells with cow ova for the first time in history.

A population of savannah chimps (Pan troglodytes verus) living in the Fongoli area of south-east Senegal have been seen making spears from strong sticks that they sharpen with their teeth. The average spear length is 63 centimetres (25 inches).

Chimps were observed thrusting their spears into hollow trunks and branches with enough force to injure anything inside the holes...The chimps used a “power grip” and made multiple downward stabs – much the same way as a human might wield a dagger.

A New Zealand fishing crew has caught an adult colossal squid, a sea creature with eyes as big as dinner plates and razor-sharp hooks on its tentacles.

...If calamari rings were made from the squid they would be the size of tractor tyres. [kekeke]

U.S. scientists say they have discovered some retroviruses induce cells to form long bridges along which virus particles can move.