The Raw Story

A non-profit news blog, focused on providing independent journalism.

Sunday, 10 May 2015

Patents for technology to read people's minds hugely increasing

© The Independent, UK Patents include technology to artificially alter people’s mood and control video games, as well as more conventional healthcare applications.      Companies are taking out a huge amount of patents related to reading brainwaves, according to analysis, with a range of different applications. Fewer than 400 neuro-technology related patents were filed between 2000-2009. But in 2010 alone that reached 800, and...

Mysterious supernova still astounds astronomers

© NASA/ESA/Hubble Supernova SN 1987A.      This is Supernova SN 1987A, one of the brightest stellar explosions since the invention of the telescope more than 400 years ago. Supernova 1987A exploded in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a nearby galaxy about 168,000 light-years away. The light from the supernova arrived here in 1987. Dominating the image are three glowing loops of stellar material, formed when the fast expanding supernova...

An outrage to history: U.S. & Europe boycott Russia's celebration of its May 9th 1945 victory over Hitler

© Unknown Putin and Obama at last year's D-Day victory celebration and commemoration in Normandy, France - which Putin had the character strength and good will to show up for - despite the turmoil the West had already created for the Ukraine and for Russia.      At first, a few progressive heads-of-state in Europe were appalled at U.S. President Barack Obama's pressure for them to reject Russia's invitation to an upcoming 9...

Pentagon report on Chinese military capabilities

Lijian UAV      China's military plans to produce nearly 42,000 land-based and sea-based unmanned weapons and sensor platforms as part of its continuing, large-scale military buildup, the Pentagon's annual report on the People's Liberation Army (PLA) disclosed Friday. China currently operates several armed and unarmed drone aircraft and is developing long-range range unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for both intelligence gathering...

Mother's Day blizzard underway in South Dakota

© South Dakota DOT/Handout/Reuters Snow covers the ground off Interstate 90 east of Sturgis, South Dakota, in this view from a highway camera taken Sunday.      Blizzard Warnings are in place for parts of South Dakota through 6:00 p.m. Sunday evening. Elsewhere Winter Storms Warnings are in effect that include the panhandle of Nebraska. Area's in the panhandle, such as Chadron, could see more than a foot of the white stuff by...

Putin urges Western countries to build global security system on non-aligned basis

© Mikhail Klimentyev/TASS      Russian President Vladimir Putin has urged Western countries to build a system of global security on a non-aligned basis, to abandon the phobias of the past and look forward to the future. "As for getting rid of fear, this is an internal state of those who is scared. One needs to overcome it, make a step forward, to abandon the phobias of the past and to look forward to the future," he told a news...

The iceman cometh? A chilly era for humanity

© 20th Century Fox      President Obama, Al Gore and other alarmists continue to prophesy manmade global warming crises, brought on by our "unsustainable" reliance on fossil fuels. Modelers like Mike Mann and Gavin Schmidt conjure up illusory crisis "scenarios" based on the assumption that carbon dioxide emissions now drive climate change. A trillion-dollar Climate Crisis industry self-servingly echoes their claims. But what...

Azov militants claim gunning down apartment buildings is sheer fun

© Twitter      Who would be surprised to see people shooting at a building while laughing, especially if these very same people have posed with Hitler portraits? A man dressed in the infamous Ukrainian Azov regiment uniform had a blast delivering heavy machine gun fire at a residential building in Eastern Ukraine. The purported Azov fighter yelled that he would "hit separatists" and opened fire on a block of flats with a DShK...

Revolutionary machine extends lung transplant window to 24 hours

© Reuters/Carlos Barria      A new technique is enabling a patient's lung to keep breathing for up to a day outside their body. Doctors are hailing it as a success that could see the number of transplants in a year double and allow them to save hundreds more lives. Until now, donor organs have had to be placed in a refrigerated box and stored in ice to keep them working as new as they were being ferried to and from hospitals....

'Banderastan' and Russia - a study in hatred and love

© Mstyslav Chernov      I am sitting in front of my computer and watch the movie , by Arkadii Mamontov, about the May 2nd Odessa massacre. The movie is very well made and I hope that somebody will subtitle it in English. It shows a lot of video footage of various events, which all took place last year. Scenes include the intercepted telephone calls of local Ukronazi leaders, the smiling faces of the young Ukrainian girls preparing...

From 1938 to now, how definition of happiness has changed - UK study

© Getty Images      How beliefs about what makes us happy have changed in the last 80 years. Eighty years ago the top three things people thought were most important for happiness were security, knowledge and religion. By 2014 only security was still in the top three, and the other two spots had changed to good humour and leisure. Meanwhile religion had dropped to tenth, and last place. The results come from two surveys carried...

Venezuelan President: US is going after Russia, Venezuela as it loses its ability to bully other nations

© RT Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro      Washington is losing its weight in the international arena and this makes it target Russia and Venezuela, as well as attempt to curtail China's growth, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro told RT's Spanish-language channel in an exclusive interview. In March, the US declared Venezuela a threat to its national security which is usually the first step in starting a US sanctions program....

Experts warn Japan may have entered an era of great earthquakes and volcanic eruptions

     Mt. Fuji is located only about 25 kilometers from Mt. Hakone. While Mt. Fuji is also an active volcano, will the increased volcanic activity of Mt. Hakone have any effects on Mt. Fuji? "The magma chambers located beneath Mt. Hakone and Mt. Fuji are not connected, so there is no effect on Mt. Fuji," said Toshitsugu Fujii, who chairs the Japan Meteorological Agency's Coordinating Committee for Prediction of Volcanic Eruptions....

SOTT Exclusive: More strange noises in the sky: The best of 2015 (so far...)

© idoubtit.wordpress.com      More video recordings of eerie, groaning, howling, trumpet-like noises that seem to come from the sky are still appearing on Youtube. Many more of these 'strange noise' videos have been recorded and uploaded by people from many different parts of the globe. They have been reported in the UK, Germany, Canada, U.S., Iceland, Netherlands, Brazil, Japan, Hong Kong, France and Russia, to name a few. The...

Criminologist Likens Bill and Hillary To “Ordinary Criminals”

As a criminologist I see one common thread among the numerous items in the Clintons’ baggage—the unfair exploitation of opportunity for relatively quick pleasures.  I also see that they have very little regard for the long-term negative consequences of those decisions.  They have low self-control, in other words, just like all “ordinary criminals.”  Ordinary criminals are the vast majority of arrestees almost everywhere.  You...

Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant: A disaster in the making

Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant      All nuclear power plants are inherently unsafe - aging, poorly maintained ones most of all. Entergy Corporation's Indian Point nuclear plant is located 38 miles north of New York City. It was commissioned in 1974. It experienced numerous incidents warranting concern - the latest on May 9. A transformer exploded. Fire and black smoke were visible. The plant's Unit 3 was shut down after the...

Violence in media creates symptoms of PTSD despite no real-life exposure to trauma - study

© Medpagetodaycom      Study author Dr. Pam Ramsden, of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Bradford in the UK, and colleagues recently presented their findings at the Annual Conference of the British Psychology Society. Past studies have found health care workers who help victims of traumatic events or situations may experience "vicarious traumatisation," in which they become psychologically and emotionally...

Excessive technology use causes decreased emotional sensitivity in children

© unknown      Researchers suggest children's social skills are declining as they have less time for face-to-face interaction due to their increased use of digital media, according to a UCLA psychology study. Scientists found that sixth-graders who went five days without even glancing at a smartphone, television or other digital screen did substantially better at reading human emotions than sixth-graders from the same school...
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