Elsevier Wants To Stop Indian Medics, Students And Academics Accessing Knowledge The Only Way Most Of Them Can Afford: Via Sci-Hub And Libgen

Last month Techdirt wrote about some ridiculous scaremongering from Elsevier against Sci-Hub, which the publisher claimed was a "security risk". Sci-Hub, with its 85 million academic papers, is an example of what are sometimes termed...
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The rare allergy that turned me into a vegetarian

I'm one of a small number of Australians with a potentially deadly allergy to red meat. And it's all thanks to a creature as small as a grain of sand, writes Menios Constantinou.
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Chernobyl fears resurface as river dredging begins in exclusion zone

Scientists warn of threat of nuclear contamination from work on giant E40 waterway linking Baltic to the Black Sea
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How author Farley Mowat smuggled a V2 rocket into Canada | CBC Radio

Retired major Harold Skaarup explains how author Farley Mowat smuggled a V2 rocket into Canada after the Second World War.
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The aroma of distant worlds: New evidence that spices, fruits from Asia had reached the Mediterranean earlier than thought

Asian spices such as turmeric and fruits like the banana had already reached the Mediterranean more than 3000 years ago, much earlier than previously thought. A team of researchers has shown that even in the Bronze Age, long-distance trade in food was already connecting distant societies.
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New coronavirus variant: What do we know?

How has a new coronavirus variant become the most common form of the virus in parts of England?
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‘We are slowly being poisoned.’ How toxic fumes seep into the air you breathe on planes

A Times investigation found that vapors from oil and other fluids seep into planes with alarming frequency across all airlines, at times creating chaos and confusion.
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Who Were America's Enslaved? A New Database Humanizes the Names Behind the Numbers

The public website draws connections between existing datasets to piece together fragmentary narratives
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How Europe's night trains came back from the dead

Sleeper trains in Europe are making a comeback after a decade of budget and route cuts. But post-Covid-19 and with travelers prioritizing the environment, the romance of the night train is back on track.
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New Research Bolsters Claim That Neanderthals Buried Their Dead

A re-analysis of the skeleton of a 2-year-old Neanderthal is providing some of the strongest evidence yet that Neanderthals deliberately buried their dead.
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Facial Recognition Is Running Amok in China. The People Are Pushing Back.

China’s first lawsuit against facial recognition was a victory for privacy advocates. But there’s a limit to how far they can push against surveillance.
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Petra lost and found

In the early 1800s, a Swiss explorer tricked his way into Petra, the ancient oasis whose location had been a closely guarded secret for centuries.
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Explained: North Korea’s New Technology Law

Pyonyang has passed a new law “banning the spread of certain foreign cultures and ‘further cementing’ strict ideological policies.” In addition, the new body passed laws “boosting sci-tech policies, forestry policies and control over telecom networks.”
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The untold story of how the Golden State Killer was found: A covert operation and private DNA

Of the many mysteries that surround the Golden State Killer, one of the most consequential is exactly how authorities caught Joseph James DeAngelo Jr. four decades after his murders began.
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The man who posted himself to Australia

In 1964 Australian athlete Reg Spiers sent himself from London to Australia in a wooden box - he was transported as freight in the cargo hold of a plane.
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The lost Japanese generation remains unemployed, unmarried and living with their parents

They are between 40 and 50 years old, live immersed in chronic hopelessness, most are still single and childless and have thrown in the towel in the workplace.
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Canada bans mass exports of prescription drugs

The new policy comes in response to a US plan to import drugs from Canada. Why can't the US just fix its own drug price problem?
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Stop Everything - It Turns Out Wombats Also Have Biofluorescent Fur

First we discovered platypus would look great at a rave, now wombats, bilbies and other marsupials can join the blacklight party - with scientists unexpectedly finding they all glow wonderfully fluorescent greens, blues and pinks beneath UV light.
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Pauline Hanson Condemns Use Of Term ‘Black Friday’, Saying ‘All Fridays Matter’

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has moved a motion in the Senate declaring that ‘All Fridays Matter’, following an emotional speech in which she claimed the term Black Friday is racist against white people. Ms Hanson later moved a second motion to wish all Australians a white Christmas.
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Money-laundering bill finally back in Australian Parliament despite fight by Law Council, property lobby

As Australia is a global pariah on climate change, it is a pariah for not cracking down on money laundering and financial crime. One of six countries in the world not complying with global rules on money laundering.
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Airlines' new 'health passport' could revive international travel

As COVID-19 vaccines are approved and distributed to the public, proof of vaccination...
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Whale skeleton discovered in Thailand thought to be 5,000 years old

Archaeologists believe the bones are as old as 5,000 years and remarkably well preserved.
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Californian cave artists may have used hallucinogens, find reveals

Native American rock art appears to depict the psychoactive flower, rather than the experience of getting high
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How old, ambient Japanese music became a smash hit on YouTube

Exploring the comment-section emotion of music as served by a mysterious algorithm.
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How German Librarians Finally Caught an Elusive Book Thief

For decades, often using a fake identity, he stole antique maps worth thousands of dollars each.
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New York Nightlife Never Stopped. It Just Moved Underground.

After hours in the contagious city.
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One of Australia's most famous beaches is disappearing, and storms aren't to blame. So what's the problem?

Over the past six months, tourists and locals have been shocked to see Byron's famous Main Beach literally disappearing. Satellite imagery and local knowledge has revealed what's going on.
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Coronavirus is 'completely out of control' among Brazilian tribe

Confirmed cases of Covid-19 on the Yanomami indigenous reservation in northern Brazil have risen some 260% between August and October, a report found.
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How Japan is scrambling to save the Tokyo Olympics

Facial recognition, particle analysis and hundreds of millions of vaccine doses are all part of the plan to make sure the Olympics goes ahead next summer
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War against natural medicine

Why is a group of prestigious doctors and scientists who have the backing of the most profitable industry in the world according to Fortune 500 – the pharmaceutical industry – targeting a few poorly-funded natural medicine courses?
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How to Cook Thanksgiving Dinner for One

A secret cut of turkey, a genius double-stuff sweet potato technique, and a personal-size dessert are all it takes.
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How China could shape the future of technology

One of the world’s fastest-growing apps, TikTok could usher in an era where Asia – not Silicon Valley – leads the tech industry. That change could be transformative.
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A pizza worker's lie forced an Australian state of 1.7 million people into lockdown

A pizza bar worker with Covid-19 who lied about their employment activities triggered a lockdown across the entire state of South Australia, authorities were forced to admit Friday.
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Just north of the oilsands, the largest remote solar farm in Canada is about to power up

The project will supply a quarter of Fort Chipewyan’s electricity needs, helping to reduce the need for almost a million litres of diesel each year
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Orwell’s nightmare? Facial recognition for animals promises a farmyard revolution.

China’s acts of bovine intervention could help improve agricultural safety and allow the industry to become more self-sufficient.
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New York's Own "Pizza Rat" On Making Performance Art Accessible

Videos of Jonothon Lyons, an accomplished performer, have gone viral for his romps around New York City in a lifelike rat costume.
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What You Can Learn from Living in Antarctica

Joe Pettit is a person of contradictions. A lover of solitude who manages teams, an engineer who writes poetry and paints, a family man who spends several months a year on remote Antarctic glaciers, installing delicate scientific instruments. It’s a rare mixture of qualities to find anywhere in the world—except, perhaps, in Antarctica.
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Opinion | White liberals, stop pushing Puerto Rican statehood just for Democrats' benefit

Telling a nation you colonized that you know what's best for them is no more progressive in this century than it was in the last two.
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A Native health center asked for COVID-19 medical supplies. It got body bags instead.

"Are we going to keep getting body bags or are we going to get what we actually need?" a Seattle Indian Health Board official asked.
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A vicious culture war is tearing through Wikipedia

Edit-warring was already common as India descended into political polarisation. Then along came Covid-19
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Why Chinese President Xi Jinping is so conspicuously silent on Trump's electoral defeat

With Xi Jinping urging a more general "struggle" against the US in the quest for "national rejuvenation" of China as a great power, there's only so much change one side of the relationship can bring, writes Bill Birtles.
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The Tech CEO, the Guide, and a Case That Could Upend Everest Travel

In the fall of 2019, Garrett Madison canceled his expedition on the world's highest peak. Then one of his clients sued him for breach of contract.
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'They taste delicious': Forget quinoa, Indigenous native grains could be all the rage

Ancient native grains could kick off a new industry in north-west NSW, after a year-long study by the University of Sydney finds them to be commercially viable.
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Alan Watts on the illusion of time, money, and ego

After Skool illustrated this talk by Alan Watts on how easy it is to live in your own head and build a reality that is disconnected from the present moment.
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North Korea: Going back in time with Pyongyang's austere hotels

A new book documenting their 1970s design gives a rare glimpse into North Korea's hospitality industry.
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Miniature Masterpieces

Ancient artists all over the world created images featuring negative silhouettes by spraying paint against an object or stencil held against a rock face. But miniature stenciled figures, those measuring less than five inches, are exceptionally rare in ancient artwork.
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World first: Dutch brewery burns iron as a clean, recyclable fuel

Many industries use heat-intensive processes that generally require the burning of fossil fuels, but a surprising green fuel alternative is emerging in the form of metal powders.
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Christina went into hospital for hip rehab and came out with coronavirus

Christina Heywood is struggling with her health after catching COVID-19 in a rehabilitation centre while recovering from a new hip. She says it's ridiculous that health officials haven't released the figures for how many patients caught the virus in hospital.
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A Huge Fusion Experiment in The UK Just Achieved The Much Anticipated 'First Plasma'

After a long, seven-year development, an experimental fusion reactor in the UK has been successfully powered on for the time, achieving 'first plasma': confirmation that all its components can work together to heat hydrogen gas into the plasma phase. Fusion is still years away though.
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Neanderthals And Humans Were at War For Over 100,000 Years, Evidence Shows

Around 600,000 years ago, humanity split in two. One group stayed in Africa, evolving into us. The other struck out overland, into Asia, then Europe, becoming Homo neanderthalensis – the Neanderthals. They weren't our ancestors, but a sister species
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