Science Jan 07 Photo essay: The bizarre, brilliant and useful inventions of Cuban DIY engineers Long walled off from world trade and modern technology, Cuba has developed a robust culture of DIY engineers who turn household items into useful inventions. Water pump motors propel bicycles, clothes dryers are repurposed into coconut shredders. Cuban artist Ernesto…
Nation Dec 25 NSA releases 12 years of damaging oversight reports on Christmas Eve Compelled by an ACLU FOIA request, the agency published twelve years of quarterly reports that were created for the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board between 2001 and mid 2013. The reports are heavily redacted, but include details of intentional and unintentional…
Politics Dec 09 CIA leaked false information to the press in an attempt to outshine the FBI, report finds CIA officials, concerned that the FBI was getting too much credit for making progress in the war on terror, released false information to boost their own profile and to support their claims that "tougher tactics" were necessary to get information…
Nation Dec 08 12 days of NewsHour: The first* 4K fireplace video on YouTube Despite its realism, our 4K video doesn't actually generate heat, so it won't dry your mittens.
Science Dec 03 Photos: NASA prepares Orion to send humans to Mars It will take a big rocket to get to Mars, and a big space capsule to protect humans during the months-long journey. It also takes decades of testing and development to plan a mission that will take humans…
Nation Nov 25 What do the newly released witness statements tell us about the Michael Brown shooting? We read more than 500 hundred pages of this witness testimony and compared each statement to the statement given by officer Wilson. Below is a chart comparing several key details of the officer’s report to the statements of the 24…
Nation Oct 14 How a Reno casino con man duped the CIA and pulled one of the ‘most dangerous hoaxes’ in American history In the winter of 2003, the CIA came into possession of a specific and disturbing bit of information. Al Qaeda, the intelligence said, was planning to strike the U.S. by hijacking a specific list of incoming international flights from France…
Nation Oct 02 Big scary spiders hiding in banana cargo ships are usually harmless, researcher finds Is the giant, hairy spider on your bunch of bananas cause for alarm? Most likely not.
Health Sep 22 Has the focus on physical activity ruined playtime for kids? The researchers found that physical activity is only one part of what kids like about playing, and that regimented physical play built around fitness doesn’t satisfy all needs for many kids, or meet their own definition of "play." "By focusing…
Science Aug 08 Scientists launch technology that can change the weather … in your photos After analyzing thousands of webcam snapshots of landscapes in various weather conditions, computer scientists at Brown University have developed a system that can automatically change the appearance of weather in nearly any outdoor photo.