U.K. Dash for Shale Gas a Test for Global Fracking

Thomas K. Grose in London The starting gun has sounded for the United Kingdom's "dash for gas," as the media here have dubbed it.As early as this week, a moratorium on shale gas production is expected to be lifted. And plans to streamline and speed the regulatory process through a new Office for Unconventional Gas and Oil were unveiled last week in the annual autumn budget statement by...

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Video of Columbus Circle Killer Released

The hunt for New York's Columbus Circle killer took on a new impetus today as police released surveillance video showing the killer moments before he calmly walked up to Brandon Lincoln Woodard and put one bullet from a silver colored handgun into the back of the Los Angeles man's head in full view of holiday shoppers.The video confirms the details of the hit man's calculated...

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Doha summit launches climate damage aid

The latest summit to stop climate change, held in Doha, Qatar, over the past two weeks has been roundly slammed. Little was agreed to curb greenhouse gas emissions and the latest modelling, carried out by the Climate Action Tracker consortium shows global averages temperatures are still set to rise by at least...

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Football: Police hunt for Ferdinand coin throw culprit

LONDON: Police said on Monday that they were working to track down the person responsible for throwing a coin at Manchester United's Rio Ferdinand during Sunday's Manchester derby.Ferdinand was left with blood streaming down his face from a cut above his eye after being struck by a coin as he celebrated Robin van Persie's injury-time winner in United's 3-2 victory at Manchester City.Greater...

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Hagfish-slime clothes could be new fashion statement

Hagfish? More like "hagfashion!"(Credit:University of Guelph)Welcome to the library. Would you rather read the book "50 Shades of Grey" or the article "The production of fibers and films from solubilized hagfish slime thread proteins?" Good choice! Here's your hagfish reading.For defensive purposes, hagfish produce a slime full of protein threads. Draw it out into a thread, and you have the potential...

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Plants Grow Fine Without Gravity

When researchers sent plants to the International Space Station in 2010, the flora wasn't meant to be decorative. Instead, the seeds of these small, white flowers—called Arabidopsis thaliana—were the subject of an experiment to study how plant roots developed in a weightless environment.Gravity is an important influence on root growth, but the scientists found that their space plants didn't...

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Royal Hoax: DJs 'Shattered' After Nurse's Suicide

The two Australian radio DJs who prank-called the London hospital where Kate Middleton was being treated last week said they were "shattered" and "gutted" after the nurse who answered their call apparently killed herself.Shock jocks Mel Greig, 30, and Michael Christian, 25, cried as they spoke to Australia's Channel 9 overnight in their first public interview since Jacintha...

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Female lemurs avoid the wrong love in the dark

IT IS the ultimate voice-recognition system. Without ever meeting him, a female lemur still knows the call of her father. The ability to identify family members is important to avoid inbreeding. For large-brained mammals like apes that engage in complex...

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Nobel-winners vow Europe will emerge stronger from crisis

OSLO: The three European Union leaders in Norway to collect the Nobel peace prize moved Sunday to defuse criticism of the 2012 award, vowing the crisis-hit bloc would emerge strong and remain on a course of peace."Europe is going through a difficult period," EU president Herman Van Rompuy told a packed news conference on the eve of the awards ceremony."We are working hard, jointly as a...

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John McAfee feeling better, fights to stay in Guatemala

John McAfee(Credit:Personal photo)Antivirus-software pioneer John McAfee, who is facing deportation from Guatemala to Belize in connection with a murder, is feeling better after suffering chest pains earlier this week and has filed three appeals in an effort to stay in the country.McAfee, whose request for political asylum has already been rejected by the Guatemalan government, filed an appeal of...

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