Preliminary data from DNA sequencing performed in cooperation with the University Hospital Muenster, Germany, on the Ion Personal Genome Machine (PGM) strongly suggests that the bacterium at the root of the deadly outbreak in Germany is a new hybrid type of pathogenic E. coli strains. 

Last time I invited you to consider the following "game": Three "players" (Andy, Bob, and Charles) compete agains three "inter­roga­tors".

Two things can happen: either all players are asked for the value of X, or one player is asked for the value of X while the two other players are asked for the value of Y. The pos­sible values of X and Y are +1 and −1.

You know the James Randi Challenge right? James offers $1000000 to anyone that can demonstrate paranormal abilities under laboratory conditions. Well, today we have something big to announce: A very similar challenge (now officially on the archive here), but much easier to accomplish.

The rewards are immediate fame (in a few weeks from now if you like) and the reception of the Nobel prize in physics later on – no doubt about it.

Last week, the Cubs made a rare visit to Fenway Park to face the Red Sox in a Major League Baseball inter-league series. Things got a little nasty when Sox pitcher Alfredo Aceves put a fastball into the face of the Cubs’ Marlon Byrd, causing multiple fractures. As is “tradition” in baseball, the Red Sox batters knew the score would be settled in the following game. After just missing Jed Lowrie with an inside pitch in the eighth inning, Cub pitcher Kerry Wood made sure he connected with his target and plunked Lowrie in the behind on the very next pitch.

When it comes to environmental safeguarding, governments and public authorities spend most of their time in developing large programs. However by doing so, they often do not take into consideration minor concrete solutions that, if systematically taken, would reduce pollution emissions.

Probably not. Unless you're a squid, octopus, or cuttlefish, in which case the answer is a definite maybe.

The MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope has captured an image of NGC 6744, a spiral galaxy about 30 million light-years away in the southern constellation of Pavo (The Peacock).

And in the image, NGC 6744 looks a lot like our Milky Way.

We see NGC 6744 almost face on, meaning we get a bird’s eye view of the galaxy’s structure. If we had the technology to escape the Milky Way and could look down on it from intergalactic space, this view is close to the one we would see, striking spiral arms wrapping around a dense, elongated nucleus and a dusty disc. There is even a distorted companion galaxy — NGC 6744A, seen here as a smudge to the lower right of NGC 6744, which is reminiscent of one of the Milky Way’s neighboring Magellanic Clouds.

Bigpoint Inc. today released a teaser trailer and game site for its upcoming action-adventure title, The Mummy Online.  Developed in collaboration with Universal Partnerships&Licensing, The Mummy Online brings the blockbuster film franchise to the free-to-play MMOG space. 

The 3D action-adventure game will include original storylines, battles and opportunities to explore mysterious and exotic locales.  The game will be free-to-play directly via your web browser.

Game Setting - Amarna

In The Selfish Gene (1976), Richard Dawkins introduced the word ‘meme’ (derived from the Greek word mimema, roughly translates as ‘something imitated’) to denote “a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation.”

It turned out to be a good meme itself. Since its introduction, it has spread quickly, and, by now, most people have been exposed to the term somewhere, from newspapers to conversations with friends and relatives to academic publications. In the past few decades, memes have become a field of study.

Well-known jeweler Tiffany&Co. has introduced a new website and iPhone(R) App for people who fall in love and simply must see other stories about people in love.    How well known is Tiffany's?    There's the rather famous "Breakfast at Tiffany's",  from a novella by Truman Capote that was made into a Blake Edwards film starring Audrey Hepburn, but they likely aren't showing it in the store today because Mickey Rooney's buck-toothed Mr. Yunioshi comes across as racist to a modern crowd.