Poisoned Lottery Winner's Kin Were Suspicious

Urooj Khan had just brought home his $425,000 lottery check when he unexpectedly died the following day. Now, certain members of Khan's family are speaking publicly about the mystery -- and his nephew told ABC News they knew something was not right."He was a healthy guy, you know?" said the nephew, Minhaj Khan. "He worked so hard. He was always going about his business and,...

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Today on New Scientist: 11 January 2013

Largest structure challenges Einstein's smooth cosmos One-twentieth the diameter of the observable universe, a group of galaxies dents the cherished idea that the cosmos is uniform at large scalesStraitjacket drug halts herpes virus's escape stunt Herpes infections recur as the virus is adept at evading our defences, but a new drug that suppresses enzymes exploited by the virus seems effectiveZoologger:...

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Czechs elect president in break with eurosceptic past

PRAGUE: Czechs head to the ballot box for a second day of voting Saturday, with a field of Europe-friendly candidates including an artist tattooed head-to-toe, vying to take over after a decade under eurosceptic Vaclav Klaus.While former prime ministers Milos Zeman and Jan Fischer, both ex-communists, are tipped as favourites, media pundits said Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg might...

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Wrapping up computers, tablets, and hardware at CES 2013

LAS VEGAS--Computers and related hardware are rarely the top category at the annual CES, with last year being a possible exception, thanks to ultrabook hype. In 2013, we found laptops, desktops, and tablets in shorter supply than usual, with the main culprit being the October 2012 release of Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system, and the flood of new systems that went along with it. The following...

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Pictures: Civil War Shipwreck Revealed by Sonar

Photograph by Jesse CancelmoA fishing net, likely only decades old, drapes over machinery that once connected the Hatteras' pistons to its paddle wheels, said Delgado.From archived documents, the NOAA archaeologist learned that Blake, the ship's commander, surrendered as his ship was sinking. "It was listing to port, [or the left]," Delgado said. The Alabama took the wounded and the rest of the crew...

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CDC: Flu Outbreak Could Be Waning

The flu season appears to be waning in some parts of the country, but that doesn't mean it won't make a comeback in the next few weeks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Five fewer states reported high flu activity levels in the first week of January than the 29 that reported high activity levels in the last week of December, according to the CDC's...

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Muscle mimic pulls electricity from wet surface

Electricity has been squeezed from a damp surface for the first time, thanks to a polymer film that curls up and moves – a bit like an artificial muscle – when exposed to moisture. The film could be used to run small, wearable devices on nothing but sweat, or in remote locations where conventional electricity...

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Google's Kurzweil on teaching human language to computers

Google's Ray Kurzweil.Famed inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil joined Google last month to work on "some of the hardest problems in computer science," specifically machine learning and language processing."The project we plan to do is focused on natural language understanding," Kurzweil told Singularity Hub in an interview (see video below). "We want to give computers the ability to understand the...

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Google and Twitter Help Track Influenza Outbreaks

This flu season could be the longest and worst in years. So far 18 children have died from flu-related symptoms, and 2,257 people have been hospitalized. Yesterday Boston Mayor Thomas Menino declared a citywide public health emergency, with roughly 700 confirmed flu cases—ten times the number the city saw last year."It arrived five weeks early, and it's shaping up to be a pretty bad...

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Judge: Holmes Can Face Trial for Aurora Shooting

Jan 10, 2013 8:45pm (Arapahoe County Sheriff/AP Photo)In a ruling that comes as little surprise, the judge overseeing the Aurora, Colo., theater massacre has ordered that there is enough evidence against James Holmes to proceed to a trial.In an order posted late Thursday, Judge William Sylvester wrote that “the People have carried their burden of proof and have established...

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