Hurricane Isaac may have disappointed the news networks and the federal government - it was declared a state-of-emergency before the first rain drop fell and Sean Penn was not roaming the streets of New Orleans with a shotgun to prevent Republican-created zombies - but it was a good test run for some new technology; “terrestrial lidar” or “T-lidar”.

Soil bacteria and bacteria that cause human diseases have recently swapped at least seven antibiotic-resistance genes, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Most of the antibiotics used to fight illness today originated from the soil. Bacteria use the antibiotics, in part, as weapons to compete with each other for resources and survival. Scientists have long acknowledged that gives environmental bacteria an evolutionary incentive to find ways to beat antibiotics.

It used to be that a species name was only official if it was printed in a journal - and the print was quite literal, it had to be a print journal.

During a recent American political convention, two networks carried real-time Twitter 'data', what they called a meter, based on the commentary on the social media service.  While election polls have not been accurate for the last few decades, some technologists believe Twitter can be.

As evidence, they say the have devised a means to predict the outcome of other election-based processes - TV talent shows - through their big data analysis of tweets. Analysis of Twitter is not new, it is built into their API, but Fabio Ciulla from Northeastern University in Boston, USA and colleagues say their method shows that the elimination of contestants in TV talent shows based on public voting, such as "American Idol", can be anticipated. 

An 8.6 magnitude earthquake occurred 62 miles off the coast of Sumatra on April 11th, 2012. 

Along with being severe by any measure, in one way it was the largest earthquake in observed human history; it originated within the plate rather than at a plate boundary.

The quake originated under the Wharton Basin in the Indian Ocean, where hundreds of miles of rock were under crushing tension, causing the plate to deform at its base. This 'deforming zone' was also absorbing tension as two plates, the Indian and Australian plates, rotated toward each other.