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With a vote of 8 for and 3 against, San Francisco’s long-rumored ban on the iconic McDonald’s Happy Meal and other fast food children’s meals is looking more and more like reality rather than fantasy.  While Santa Clara’s ban got passed first, San Francisco’s ban is more meaningful since this will be the first time [...]

There’s a little difficulty with researching animals when they’re under a certain size.  For example, take the world’s smallest frog.  How do you determine whether or not the 10-milimeter (.4-inch) long Mount Iberia frog (AKA Eleutherodactylus iberia) is indeed poisonous?  Well, first you have to catch the adorable little bugger, then you have to test [...]

There’s a crisis concerning the wild owl population in India, and Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh is placing the blame on one person:  Harry Potter.  That’s right, Harry Potter and his pet owl Hedwig are to blame for India’s fascination with the owl as a pet.  It’s definitely not the fault of all those Diwali [...]

The latest in visual technology pales in comparison with what scientists from the University of Arizona are currently working on.  No-glasses 3D?  Meh.  Live-action 4D with realistic scents?  Bah.  Even Star Wars in 3D pales in comparison to what researchers are currently hard at work perfecting:  multicolor, holographic, 3D displays like the kind seen in [...]

Drug smuggling is a huge, huge business.  No matter what the authorities do, short of legalizing marijuana, will slow down the drug trade across the US/Mexico border.  Even the 105-ton drug bust in Tijuana hasn’t slowed things down, as evidenced by the recent capture of 30 tons of marijuana being transported in an underground tunnel [...]

Caffeine is a wonderful, wonderful thing, but it’s only wonderful in moderation.  Given the proliferation of caffeinated products, like caffeine marshmallows and caffeine-laced alcohol, it’s no wonder that people are becoming immune to the dangers that caffeine may pose in megadoses.  We’re not just talking dangerous to others via caffeine psychosis, we’re talking dangerous to [...]

If you’re looking to predict just when your relationship is going to end, David McCandless has a way for you to do just that, using a chart he debuted at the TED conference in Oxford, England.  McCandless and a team of researchers poured over 10,000 Facebook status updates, searching for the phrases “breakup” or “broken [...]

Natalie Bradley-Wilson was minding her own business, not knowing that a hundred feet away, a crazed attack dog was just aching to sink his teeth into her.  The 18-year-old girl was in front of Kingdom Hall when a police K-9 unit left the yard of an off-duty police officer and randomly attacked her.  So, the [...]

Remember the privacy uproar over Google Buzz?  Well, Google’s attempt at a social networking integration with Gmail was kind of a flop, but Buzz is still around and, apparently still a subject of much debate.  Google was even the subject of a class action lawsuit.  However, as all Gmail users know by now, Google’s finally [...]

It’s one of the great traditions of the working world.  The smoke break, or a free paid break from work to enjoy a cigarette while on the clock, has been part of work tradition since smoking has become discouraged in workplaces throughout the world.  Now, the Breckland Council in Norfolk, England, has eliminated the paid [...]

In the south of Spain, there’s some controversy breaking out.  Apparently, in the Andalusian city of Jerez de la Frontera, a 10-year-old girl has given birth to a baby, and now authorities are trying to decide whether or not to let the preteen and her family keep custody of the child (whose father is also [...]

It was the first big attempt at a sea change in national drug policy, and it was a failed one.  After leading the way on medical marijuana and running into all kinds of trouble with the federal government, it’s no wonder that California was a little bit wary of being the first state in the [...]

The Fame Monster herself, Lady Gaga, has gone from viral video sensation to one of the biggest pop music stars in the world.  Now, Lady Gaga finds herself crossing over again, from pop culture phenomenon to pop culture study.  At the University of South Carolina, professor Mathieu Deflem has launched the world’s only full-time course [...]

When it comes to space exploration, sending a man to the moon just doesn’t have the appeal it once did.  We’ve been there and done that, what’s the point of spending $150 billion dollars to send astronauts back to the lunar surface when we’ve got bigger goals in mind?  That’s why the Obama administration and [...]