If religiously-motivated terrorists attack, they may claim it is an Act of God. You had better hope your insurance company does not. To insurance companies, an act of God is any event not influenced by man and minimum coverage often does not include it.

Because of the fuzzy nature of those definitions, there is specific terrorism insurance. But after Muslim fundamentalists hijacked and crashed planes on Sept. 11, 2001, terrorism risk insurance quickly became very expensive or unavailable. Congress reacted by passing the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, which provides an assurance of government support after a catastrophic attack. This kept terrorism risk insurance cheaper for businesses without crippling insurers.

The universe is big, as you can imagine. Even our galaxy is almost beyond comprehension. But measure it we do, at least as best we can. The most reliable method for making astronomical distance measurements is to use geometry - the 186-million-mile diameter of Earth's orbit is used to construct a baseline of a triangle, much as a land surveyor would use.

It's been a decades-long experiment to throw darts at a dartboard and see if it outperforms the picks of experts. Darts win and lose at the same rate as the average of experts.

Some people clearly make money in financial markets but the old saying among brokers = 'we make money selling stocks, not buying them' - still applies.

Yet someone must know what they are doing. And backtesting is a good way to seem empirical. Example: Your financial advisor calls you up to suggest a new
investment scheme. Drawing on 20 years of data, he has set his
computer to work on this question: If you had invested according to
this scheme in the past, which portfolio would have been the best?
His model assembles thousands of such simulated portfolios and

Fruit flies are secretly harboring the biochemistry needed to glow in the dark —otherwise known as bioluminescence - according to a paper in 
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

Ruminant cows and sheep account for a major proportion of the methane produced around the world - an estimated 20 percent of global methane emissions stem from ruminants.

In the atmosphere, methane is a shorter-term problem than CO2 but has 23X the warming effect  – that's why researchers are looking for ways of reducing methane production. Comparatively little is known about the methane production of other animal species, but one thing seems to be clear: Ruminants produce more of the gas per amount of converted feed than other herbivores.

The La Brea Tar Pits in California are known for saber-toothed cats and mastodons but they also have insects. Recent examination of fossil leafcutter bee nest cells, led by Anna Holden of Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and colleagues, reveal insights into the habitat and climate at the La Brea Tar Pits toward the last Ice Age. 

Holden conducted the study with bee specialists Jon B. Koch and Dr. Terry Griswold from Utah State University, paleobotanist Dr. Diane M. Erwin, from the University of California Berkeley, and Justin Hall from NHM, who used micro CT scans to reconstruct images of the nest cells and bees.