Science News

A palm-sized fuel cell that turns water into electricity aims to make wall outlets a thing of the past for charging up your cell phone.

Developed by Stockholm-based myFC, the H3 charger relies on portable fuel cells and is set for commercial release in Scandinavia in December, before making its way to a wider market including the United States some time in 2011.

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Teens are getting high on an emerging drug called “fake weed,” a concoction also known as K2 and “spice” that is also causing hallucinations, vomiting, agitation and other dangerous effects.

“K2 use is not limited to the Midwest; reports of its use are cropping up all over the country,” Scalzo said.

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The world has become far too hot for the aptly named Exit Glacier in Alaska.

At the Kenai Fjords National Park south of Anchorage, managers have learned to follow the Exit and other glaciers, moving signs and paths to accommodate the ephemeral rivers of blue and white ice as they retreat up deeply carved valleys.

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The moon was full, the wind roared, the tide was high and people died by the dozens.

Was it due to climate change? A freak storm fueled by hurricane-force winds? The result of human greed over desirable land or bungling actions by government officials?

After a wall of ocean water engulfed picturesque towns along France’s Atlantic coast, residents, officials and experts are all asking why.

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The powerful magnitude 8.8 earthquake that rocked Chile was strong enough to shift the planets axis by 3 inches, and came soon after the catastrophic magnitude 7.0 quake that devastated Haiti and right after a magnitude 7.0 event hit off the coast of Japan.

The landmass making up Asia and Europe is confronted with the two most seismic regions in the world - to its west, it has the Pacific Ring of Fire, and to its east, it has the Alpine-Himalayan Zone.

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“No” is the scientific consensus thus far on all but octopuses - but that may just reflect an ingrained human bias against “simple” animals.

Now Elwood and Appel have gone further, showing that hermit crabs not only seem to feel pain, but can remember it, too. The teams shocked subjects usually reenter their mobile homes, but during the twenty-four hours following the bad experience they are more likely than unshocked crabs to inspect an empty shell nearby.

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President Barack Obama on Tuesday unveiled plans to give hefty reimbursements to US homeowners who make home improvements designed to conserve energy.

“If a homeowner decides to do work on his or her house — to put in new windows, to replace a heating unit, to insulate an attic, to redo a roof — the homeowner would be eligible for a rebate from the store or the contractor for 50 percent of the cost of each upgrade up to 1,500 dollars,” the president explained in remarks delivered at Savannah Technical College in Georgia.

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More wet weather was forecast for the West on Sunday, while light snow was expected to stick around in the Northeast and much of the nation’s midsection was predicted to be mild.

Showers were forecast, along with 1 to 2 inches of snow at higher elevations in the southern Rockies. The region also was expected to see strong winds, with gusts up to 20 mph, and cool conditions, as highs remain in the 40s and 50s.

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When northern elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris) migrate between their breeding and foraging grounds, they spend as long as eight months at a time at sea. Theyre almost always underwater, devoting only a few minutes to breathing at the surface between dives-hardly long enough for a nap. After a sip of air, they often sink quickly to 500 feet, then drift farther down in a shallow descent.

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The marriage of hard drives and camcorders means the days of hauling around blank tapes or discs to record your family vacations are long gone. Here are three of the best in the standard-definition category, as rated by TechNewsDailys sister site, TopTenReviews:

Its 30-gigabyte hard drive allows about seven hours of video recording at high XP quality or 27 hours at low LP resolution.

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