Life

Massa close to Williams return – media reports

(REUTERS) – Formula One’s post-season shake-up took another spin on Tuesday (December 20) as Valtteri Bottas moved closer to Mercedes and Felipe Massa’s retirement looked to be coming to an end. Canadian Lance Stroll, still just 18, will be making his race debut but his team mate remains uncertain following the surprise retirement of Mercedes’ newly-crowned world champion Nico Rosberg. Bottas, who has been at Williams since 2013, is the favourite to replace Rosberg as […]

Climate report says 2016 on pace to be hottest year yet

MIAMI, United States (AFP) — A monthly global climate report by US government scientists Monday offered more evidence that 2016 is likely to be the warmest year in modern times, as sea ice at both poles hit record lows. Climate scientists say the continued burning of fossil fuels is spewing greenhouse gasses that trap heat in the atmosphere, making the planet warm up. In addition, a strong El Nino trend in the first half of the […]

Researchers find neuron protein triggers release of insulin

BALTIMORE, Maryland (Reuters) — A team at Johns Hopkins’ Department of Biology has discovered that a protein which helps neurons grow, known as ‘nerve growth factor’ (NGF), also triggers the release of insulin in the pancreas. Associate professor of biology Rejji Kuruvilla says the study may one day lead to early intervention in cases of Type 2 Diabetes. Kuruvilla began studying NGF as a post-doctoral fellow. When setting up her laboratory at Johns Hopkins in […]

Two bad ideas equals a great literary series – my review of Codex Alera

QUEZON City, Philippines (December 21) – Jim Butcher is one of the well-known American fantasy writers. During an online writers’ workshop, Butcher was challenged that he cannot write a good book based on a lame idea. Butcher’s epic response was that he can write a good book based not just on one bad idea but two, and the bad ideas would be chosen by the challenger. The challenger chose Pokemon and the Lost Roman Legion. […]

Japan launches satellite to study geomagnetic storms

KAGOSHIMA, Japan (Reuters) — Japan launched an Epsilon-2 rocket on Tuesday (December 20) carrying the Exploration of Energization and Radiation in Geospace (ERG) mission satellite. The satellite will study the creation and disappearance of highly charged electrons in the region of outer space near the Earth along with space storms and the effects of solar winds. The rocket was successfully launched from the Uchinoura Space Center in Kagoshima prefecture, south-western Japan, at 8 p.m. local […]

Poyang Lake sees peak arrival of migratory birds

(Reuters) — Poyang Lake located in Duchang County in east China’s Jiangxi Province, has seen its peak arrival of about 600,000 migratory birds. Poyang Lake, China’s largest freshwater lake, welcomes nearly 600,000 migratory birds every year. Li Yue, director of the Administration Department of Duchang County Migratory Birds Natural Reserve Area, said among all the birds, cygnets are the main species which contributes to 50,000 of the total number in the past five years. “Duchang […]

American kids and Filipino food = adorable!

QUEZON City, Philippines (December 20) – Adorable! Without a doubt, everyone can agree that this is the perfect word to describe the cute little kids in a viral video made by Cut.com and posted in their Youtube channel. The video shows American kids try out Filipino food. Viewers really enjoyed the no-holds-barred reactions of these kids trying out food from different parts of the world. Their innocence and their honesty makes one roll on the floor, […]

More Africans at risk of chronic illness: WHO

NAIROBI, Kenya (AFP) — City life and its modern trappings have brought bad habits to developing African nations that will see more die of chronic illness than infectious diseases by 2030, a study showed Tuesday. A World Health Organization (WHO) survey of 33 countries has shown that most adults in Africa have at least one risk factor increasing their chance of developing deadly lifestyle diseases such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes. These include smoking, […]

And the fandom of the year is…

QUEZON City, Philippines (December 20) – Fandom. From the word itself we get the meaning. It is a collective of fans sharing the same interests, gathering together to enthusiastically celebrate the same through cosplaying, writing fan fictions, maintaining fandom wikis and others. Due to the power of the internet, no interest – be it books, movies, TV shows, memes, what-have-you – no matter how obscure – can go unnoticed. And fans from around the world […]

Zuckerberg builds software butler for his home

by Glenn CHAPMAN Agence France-Presse SAN FRANCISCO, United States (AFP) -Mark Zuckerberg’s artificial intelligence-imbued software “butler” — named Jarvis — is now in service, and even plays with his family, the Facebook chief said Monday. Zuckerberg took on the personal project this year, devoting about 100 hours to making a system inspired by the “Iron Man” film character Jarvis as a virtual assistant to help manage his household. “In some ways, this challenge was easier than […]