In the Footsteps of Fusion

This video provides an overview of the current state of play in the energy sector including current alternative energies, the history of fusion and those currently involved in the fusion race.

Life After Death: Examining the Evidence

This is an abridged version of a talk presented to the Greer-Heard Forum at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary on Apr 14, 2012. More details and references can be found in my latest book, God and the Folly of Faith: The Incompatibility of Science and Religion.

I have not read every published report on the types of phenomena used to claim evidence that humans contain some immaterial component that makes our immortality possible. There are thousands of such reports. But I have looked at many, the ones said to be the best. None--not a single one--stands up under the same scrutiny that is applied in any science whenever an extraordinary claim is presented. Let me begin with near death experiences.

In the early 1970s, resuscitation technology had advanced to the point where more people were being brought back from the brink of death than ever before in history. A small minority of about one in five reported seeing a narrow, dark tunnel with light at the end, which the individual interpreted as a glimpse of "heaven." Some said they met with Jesus (Buddhists met Buddha) and departed loved ones. No doubt, those having these experiences were deeply moved and many said it changed their lives.

Death and Taxes: Deadly car crashes spike on tax day

This month's income tax deadline day can not only be stressful for those who have left filing their return to the last minute, but it can also be deadly.

A 30-year study of traffic accidents in the United States has found that the country's mid-April tax deadline day is associated with an elevated risk of fatal crashes.

Using data for fatal vehicle crashes for every April 15 over the last three decades, the study found that Americans have a six per cent increased risk of dying on tax day -- and a similar risk likely occurs on Canada's tax deadline day, April 30, researchers say.

"We find about the same increase in risk both during the morning hours, the afternoon hours and the evening hours," said lead researcher Dr. Donald Redelmeier, an internal medicine specialist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto.

"So it's not all confined to the 11th hour, right before the stroke of midnight. But it prevails for the full day."

That differs from Super Bowl Sunday -- another event Redelmeier has studied.

Could tardigrades be interstellar travelers?

Microscopic animals called tardigrades are among the few lifeforms thought capable of surviving the intense radiation, extreme temperatures and life-sucking vacuum of outer space.

Even their eggs can survive space-like conditions, hinting at the possibility of successful hatches on other planets.

“[I]f we are to assess the ability of tardigrades to survive transfer among planets or to thrive in extreme environments, they must be able to reproduce,” wrote astrobiologists who tested tardigrades in a study published April 10 in Astrobiology.

Philippine runners race to survive zombie horde

(Reuters) - Natural and man-made obstacles studded the course of a Philippine race, but the real danger to the thousands of runners came from the hordes of "zombies".

About five thousand people dashed along the five km (three mile) course of the survival-themed race in Laguna Province, about 38 km south of Manila, dodging an assortment of the walking undead in the contest based on a popular U.S. race.

Two hundred actors dressed as post-apocalyptic zombies hid behind trees, bushes and rocky uphill climbs along the five km (three mile) course to surprise the unsuspecting runners and symbolically feast on their brains by stealing flags attached to the runners' waists.

Once all three flags were stolen, runners were "dead." But they could gain additional flags by carrying out optional tasks that often involved zombies guarding the various prizes.

Underwater UFO? Shipwreck hunters stumble across mysterious find

(CNN) -- Deep down on the bottom of the Baltic Sea, Swedish treasure hunters think they have made the find of a lifetime.

The problem is, they're not exactly sure what it is they've uncovered.

Out searching for shipwrecks at a secret location between Sweden and Finland, the deep-sea salvage company Ocean Explorer captured an incredible image more than 80 meters below the water's surface.

At first glance, team leader and commercial diver Peter Lindberg joked that his crew had just discovered an unidentified flying object, or UFO.

"I have been doing this for nearly 20 years so I have a seen a few objects on the bottom, but nothing like this," said Lindberg.

UFO Encounters With Airplanes: Pilots, Officials Discuss Potential Safety Hazards

There's been a buzz in the air this week -- literally -- about a video allegedly showing a UFO flying near a passenger plane over Seoul, South Korea.

The video, which has been viewed several million times, has brought out a myriad of theories to explain the strange-looking oval white object viewed on Saturday. When a passenger on the airline tried to zoom in on the object with a video camera as it moved upward from the ground, pacing near the plane, it suddenly flew away.

Was this an alien visitation, a computer-generated image, a water droplet on the plane window or a white plastic bag moving in the wind?

As skeptics and true UFO believers battle it out over the origin of this latest unexplained object, they are engaging in an unresolved decades-old debate: Can unexplained UFOs become a safety issue for the commercial airline industry?

Norway killer admits massacre, claims self-defense

OSLO, Norway (AP) — With a defiant closed-fist salute, a right-wing fanatic admitted Monday to a bomb-and-shooting massacre that killed 77 people in Norway but pleaded not guilty to criminal charges, saying he was acting in self-defense.

On the first day of his long-awaited trial, Anders Behring Breivik rejected the authority of the court as it sought to assign responsibility for the July 22 attacks that shocked Norway and jolted the image of terrorism in Europe.

Dressed in a dark suit and sporting a thin beard, Breivik smiled as a guard removed his handcuffs in the crowded court room. The 33-year-old then flashed his salute before shaking hands with prosecutors and court officials.

"I don't recognize Norwegian courts because you get your mandate from the Norwegian political parties who support multiculturalism," Breivik said in his first comments to the court.

Why were 10 dead bodies found in Benjamin Franklin’s basement?

From 1757 to 1775, Ben Franklin lived in an elegant four-story Georgian house at No. 36 Craven Street in London during his time as an ambassador for the American colonies. In late 1998, a group calling itself Friends of Benjamin Franklin House began to convert the dilapidated building into a museum to honor Franklin, whose other home in Philadelphia had been razed in 1812 to make way for new construction (a “ghost house” frame now sits on the site).

One month into the renovations, a construction worker named Jim Field was working in the basement when he found something odd: a small pit was in a windowless basement room. Inside, sticking out of the dirt floor, was a human thigh bone.

The police were called and supervised excavation continued. More human bones were pulled up. And more. And more, until some 1,200 pieces of bone were recovered. Initial examinations revealed that the bones were the remains of 10 bodies, six of them children, and were a little more than 200 years old. Their age discouraged any interest from Scotland Yard, but piqued the curiosity of historians and the Institute of Archaeology. The bones’ age meant they may have been buried in the basement around the same time that Franklin was living in the house.

The Doctor Did It

Is HAARP making the skies snore above Malaysia?

It looks like a bunch of Hills Hoists in an Alaskan field, but HAARP knows you're out there. Picture: Wikipedia

TIN foil hat? Check.

You're ready to face the first big conspiracy theory of 2012.

Just last week, citizens in the Malaysian city of Kota Samarahan reported they were kept awake two nights running because the sky was ... snoring?

“It was around 2am when I was awoken by a strange sound," teacher Mohd Ferdauz Jemain told The Borneo Post.

"It was a loud hushing sound, and quite similar to someone snoring.

Julian Assange's The World Tomorrow: Official Trailer