The heaviest snowfall in decades has left 12 dead and more than 1,500 injured across Japan, local media reported on Sunday. The snow has paralyzed the public transport system and left hundreds of thousands without electricity. One person died in a snow-related traffic accident in the city of Shizuoka located south of the capital Tokyo early on Saturday, police said. Another two people died in car... 

Harvard ‘brainiacs’ are at it again. Inspired by termites, they have realized their dream of cheap, expendable, self-organizing robots – a construction crew building complex structures at a quick pace, and completely independent of leadership. The possibilities are vast. The machines can be made to build any three-dimensional structure on their own and with minimal instruction. But what is... 

Anti sonar coating for submarines that will allow them to become virtually invisible during combat service is being developed in St. Petersburg. In fact, we are talking about application of stealth technology in the submarine fleet. While the development of Russian scientists is unique, in fairness it should be noted that this was conceived by the Third Reich designers. According to media reports,... 

Martial law training? 300 acre town includes sports stadium, school, underground subway. The U.S. Army has built a 300 acre ‘fake city’ complete with a sports stadium, bank, school, and an underground subway in order to train for unspecified future combat scenarios. The recently opened site is located in Virginia and was built at a cost of $96 million dollars, taking just two years to complete. While... 

Brazilian campaigners have gathered outside the Foreign Ministry building in the capital Brasilia to demand the government grant asylum to US surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden. On Thursday, the campaigners walked to the Foreign Ministry building while chanting slogans and carrying symbolic boxes of data. They handed in a one million names-strong petition, asking asylum for Snowden. Reports... 

A record high level of radioactive cesium has been found in groundwater beneath the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, it operator TEPCO revealed. On February 13, Tokyo Electric Power Co. reported 37,000 becquerels of cesium-134 and 93,000 becquerels of cesium-137 were detected per liter of groundwater sampled from a monitoring well earlier that day. Water samples were taken from the technical... 

For the first time tiny rocket-shaped synthetic motors have been placed inside live human cells. What has been a staple of science fiction is now a promising method to treat cancer, US scientists say. The researchers from Penn State University have successfully embedded synthetic nanomotors into HeLa cells, an immortal line of human cervical cancer cells typically used in research studies, according... 

Fishing boats are seen berthed at Dalijia fishing port in Dalian, northeast China’s Liaoning Province. China is set to construct the world’s longest underwater tunnel, which will connect two of its northern port cities in an earthquake-prone region, an expert involved in the project says. Under the USD36 billion project, a 123-kilometre tunnel will be built as a shortcut between Dalian... 

Facebook has bowed to pressure from LGBT activists by creating over 50 new custom gender options, meaning users can identify as things like “gender fluid,” “transmasculine” or “two spirit”. Leftist commentators are already hailing the decision, joyous that it will drive conservatives crazy. “It screams of “political correctness gone mad,” writes the Guardian’s Paris Lees, “and... 

France has said it is planning to reinforce its troops in the Central African Republic (CAR) by sending 400 more soldiers to the former French colony. French President Francois Hollande’s office said on Friday in a statement that the additional troops would join the 1,600 French soldiers already stationed in the CAR. The decision was made after a meeting of a top defense committee in the Élysée... 

The European Commission has said it is determined to “redraw the global map of internet governance” as massive US surveillance has damaged public trust in the web, and said it is ready to negotiate with Washington for control of web architecture. The commission, the EU’s top executive body, on Wednesday proposed a key reform to the way the internet is managed and run, saying that Europe will... 

A group of lawmakers in Maryland has introduced a bill that would deny state support to the National Security Agency (NSA) headquarters in Ft. Meade, Md., which might see electricity and water supplies cut to the intelligence nerve center. Eight Republicans from the 141-member Maryland House of Delegates introduced the legislation that would deny the NSA “material support, participation or assistance... 

The Belgian parliament has passed a bill that extends the right to euthanasia to children under 18, making the country the first to completely lift age restrictions on euthanasia to minors. On Thursday, the lower house of parliament adopted the controversial legislation by 86 votes in favor, 44 against and with 12 abstentions. The adoption of the ground-breaking legislation followed approval by the... 

Cops have killed well over 5,000 Americans since 9/11. Many of these killings have occurred during no-knock raids, which have risen by 4000% since the 1980s. Iraqi insurgents, by comparison, have killed around 3,500 Americans in Iraq since 9/11 in Operation Iraqi “Freedom.” It is not just Iraq. The number of Americans killed by police also now exceeds the number of Americans killed by Afghan insurgents. Afghan... 

A heavy winter storm that slammed the US southeast and made its way up to the north has left over a dozen people dead and knocked out electricity to hundreds of thousands of American homes. The giant storm, called “Snowmaggedon”, has also caused massive traffic jams on roads. Meanwhile, air travelers are also confused as hundreds of flights have been called off. Most outbound flights from Newark,...