The Raw Story

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Wednesday, 13 May 2015

Plane records flight through mysterious antimatter thundercloud

© NASA Screenshot NASA YouTube video thunderclouds.      In what sounds like a tale from the Bermuda Triangle, an atmospheric physicist, called Joseph Dwyer, was flying through a massive thunderstorm, when he suddenly found himself in the middle of a huge cloud of antimatter. The physicist was piloting a modified Gulfstream V plane on a scientific mission and came across the strange phenomenon by accident. Dwyer and his co-pilot...

Asia dominates global school rankings while the US drops to 28th place

© Reuters      , in the first truly global survey of education standards. Singapore is in the lead again followed by Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan. Finland, well known for its high quality education, was the top European country coming in sixth, while Sweden fell to 35th place, following warnings from the OECD that it had serious problems in its education system. The US was well down in 28th place. African countries...

Giant squid washes up on New Zealand beach

© Facebook, Kaikoura Marine Centre and Aquarium The giant squid washed up at South Bay in Kaikoura yesterday.      A monster from the deep has washed up on a beach in Kaikoura. The giant squid, spotted at South Bay, is around 7 metres in length from top to tentacle. Posted by Kaikoura Marine Centre and Aquarium on Tuesday, 12 May 2015 Photos of the creature were posted to Facebook by Kaikoura Marine Centre and Aquarium, who...

Beekeepers report losing 42.1 percent of the total number of colonies managed over the last year

© Associated Press/Haraz Ghanbari A colony of honeybees      Today the Bee Informed Partnership, in collaboration with the Apiary Inspectors of America and the United States Department of Agriculture, released its annual report on honey bee losses in the United States based on a national survey of beekeepers. Most significantly, beekeepers reported losing 42.1 percent of the total number of colonies managed over the last year...

Factory in Manila consumed by chemical explosion fire

© STR/AFP/Getty Images "We were all confused because almost everybody was panicking," said worker Jun Panalo.      At least 65 people have been reported missing or dead after a fire consumed a rubber slipper factory in a suburb of the Philippine capital of Manila on Wednesday. Rex Gatchalian, mayor of the suburb of Valenzuela where the disaster took place, reportedly said that it took fire fighters four hours to quell the blaze...

Sperm grown in lab for first time ever

© Thinkstock Good ol' lab-grown sperm.      In what is being hailed as a potential breakthrough in the treatment of male infertility, a team of researchers from a private French research center has grown human sperm cells in a laboratory for the first time ever. While the findings have yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, scientists at the Kallistem laboratory in Lyon have allegedly turned spermatogonia into mature...

Psychiatric drugs kill 500k+ Western adults annually, few positive benefits - leading scientist

© Reuters      Psychiatric drugs lead to the deaths of over 500,000 people aged 65 and over annually in the West, a Danish scientist says. He warns the benefits of these drugs are "minimal," and have been vastly overstated. Research director at Denmark's Nordic Cochrane Centre, Professor Peter Gøtzsche, says the use of most antidepressants and dementia drugs could be halted without inflicting harm on patients. The Danish scientist's...

French media: Hollande needs to learn from Putin's leadership

© Sputnik/ Alexei Druzhinin      One could criticize Vladimir Putin and his politics, but one thing is clear - he is a real leader and certainly knows how to be president, something that Francois Hollande must learn from him, said. Russian President Vladimir Putin has established himself as a capable head of state by defending his country's national interests and winning the hearts and minds of his fellow citizens. French President...

Adding insult to injury: New drilling project approved in same reservoir near Deepwater Horizon site

© AP Photo/Charlie Riedel Oil from the spill pools against the Louisiana coast along Barataria Bay Tuesday, June 8, 2010.      A new offshore drilling project in the Gulf of Mexico has gotten federal approval and is set to begin near the site of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster that killed 11 workers and sent millions of gallons of oil pouring into the Atlantic Ocean in 2010. According to , which first reported the news late...

Ignorant attempts to rewrite the history of WWII make me sick

© RIA Novosti      It was not the traffic jams in Moscow, nor the police reinforcements, and not even the nightly roar of hundreds of tanks running down my street towards Red Square to rehearse for the parade - it's the media, who made me sick. And here's why. No more war stories! Over the last couple of months an avalanche of words has been wading through my brain, trying to persuade me that what's good is good, what's bad...

The greatest water crisis in the history of the United States

     What are we going to do once all the water is gone? Thanks to the worst drought in more than 1,000 years, the western third of the country is facing the greatest water crisis that the United States has ever seen. Lake Mead is now the lowest that it has ever been since the Hoover Dam was finished in the 1930s, mandatory water restrictions have already been implemented in the state of California, and there are already widespread...

Iowa landowner says he was offered teenage prostitute by oil company

© Shutterstock      A southeast Iowa man claims an oil company offered him a "$1,200 teenage prostitute" if he would allow a crude oil pipeline to cross his property. Hughie Tweedy said he recorded a senior pipeline representative from Dakota Access LLC offer him three times the "sexual services of a woman," including a final offer of an 18-year-old prostitute. "If an old junkyard dog like me was offered the sexual services...

How to end boom and bust: make cash illegal

© Getty Images Gordon Brown promised to 'end boom and bust' but a cashless world would have given him far more chance to achieve it, academics suggest.      A proposed new law in Denmark could be the first step towards an economic revolution that sees physical currencies and normal bank accounts abolished and gives governments futuristic new tools to fight the cycle of "boom and bust". The Danish proposal sounds innocuous enough...

India plans to build 100 elites-only 'smart' cities

© unknown      Have you ever wondered what would happen if the rich kept getting richer? I'm not talking about the 1%. They mostly consist of upper-middle-class business owners and real estate agents. No, I'm talking about the 1% of the 1%. The real power behind the throne. The financial and political elite. If their wealth and power continued to grow by leaps and bounds at the expense of everyone else, how do you think they...

Vatican officially recognizes Palestine while Israel fumes

© Reuters/Riccardo De Luca      The Vatican has become the latest country to recognize the state of Palestine, after a new treaty was finalized on Wednesday. Unsurprisingly Israel has hit out at the move, saying that it damages prospects for peace in the region. The treaty, which was agreed, though has yet to be formally signed states the Vatican has switched its diplomatic allegiance from the Palestinian Liberation Organization...

US House approves Freedom Act to end NSA bulk data collection

© Reuters/Jason Reed      The House of Representatives voted to pass the USA Freedom Act on Wednesday, approving a bill that would change the way the National Security Agency gathers telephone data of American citizens. The bill now heads to the Senate. The USA Freedom Act was passed overwhelmingly with 338 votes in favor and 88 against. Despite criticism that the legislation falls short of protecting Americans' rights, the...

Divide and conquer: 6 Gunmen "loyal" to Islamic State kill 43 in Karachi, Pakistan

© REUTERS/AKHTAR SOOMRO Ambulances and people gather gather outside the hospital after an attack on a bus in Karachi, Pakistan, May 13, 2015.      Gunmen on motorcycles boarded a bus and opened fire on commuters in Pakistan's volatile southern city of Karachi on Wednesday, killing at least 43, police said, in the latest attack directed against religious minorities this year. The pink bus was pockmarked with bullet holes and...

FLASHBACK: Magnesium's importance far greater than previously imagined

© magnesiumhealthproducts.com      New research published in the journal indicates that magnesium's role in human health and disease is far more significant and complicated than previously imagined. While it is well known that all living things require magnesium, and that it is found in over 300 enzymes in the human body, including those enzymes utilizing or synthesizing ATP (the molecular unit of currency for energy transfer),...

DHS is using state police to set up a national domestic drone spying program

The Illinois State Police announced that the FAA has authorized what it calls its 'Unmanned Aircraft System Program'. It's a F***ING surveillance drone program, for god's sake! DHS/Police are trying to mask what it really is by calling it an 'Unmanned Aircraft System Program'. There's even a UAS news website where you can follow all the latest surveillance drone news. The State Police are avoiding the word 'drone'...
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