Solar plane finishes first leg of epic round-the-world bid

Solar Impulse 2 landed Monday in Oman, completing the initial leg of its epic bid to become the first solar-powered plane to fly around the world, testing its pilots to the limit.

The aircraft touched down in Muscat after nightfall, 13 hours and two minutes after taking off from Abu Dhabi.

Dolphin wars in the Black Sea? - In recent years, U.S. Navy dolphins have been deployed to Iraq and Bahrain to patrol for enemy divers

The United States Navy has deployed military-trained dolphins to protect one of its warships in the Black Sea amid rising tensions with Russia over Ukraine, the Russian daily Izvestia reported.

A Russian fighter jet made multiple close-range passes near the USS Donald Cook, a Navy destroyer, on April 12, two days after it entered the Black Sea, passing the Turkish straits. As the crisis in Ukraine deepened, U.S. ship commanders considered the Russian action provocative and inconsistent with international agreements, prompting the ship to issue several radio queries and warnings.

Protection of minors in the digital age

In an era of rapid technological change digital media convergence, a major question is whether the existing legislation is sufficient to deal with challenges related to the protection of minors.
The internet and all online platforms are interactive environments rather than passive media as television is. As such, they raise, in a prompt and urgent manner, issues of accessibility to content or types of content that may harm the physical, moral and spiritual development of minors, issues related to specific types of crimes through computers that can be connected with audio-visual content etc.

Revelan que EE.UU. espía a todos los mandatarios del mundo.

El exempleado de la Agencia de Seguridad Nacional (NSA) de Estados Unidos (EE.UU.), Wayne Madsen, aseguró en una entrevista ofrecida este sábado que las empresas que brindan servicios de Internet en ese país son presionados por la NSA para espiar a los mandatarios del mundo.

Ante la cadena de noticias PressTV, Madsen sostuvo que “todos los gobernantes de países del mundo que usan Internet o tecnología informática pueden estar seguros de que la Agencia Nacional de Seguridad escucha sus conversaciones”.

El exfuncionario afirmó que empresas como Google y Facebook, trabajan estrechamente con la NSA, y que cualquier otra que se negara a entregar la información solicitada, se convertía en objeto de amenaza de los funcionarios de esta agencia.

Fukushima: Verstrahltes Wasser bedroht den Pazifik

Die Reaktorblöcke 1 (rechts) und 2 des havarierten Atomkraftwerks Fukushima (Foto: Zeit.de)

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In Fukushima droht die nächste Katastrophe: Das verstrahlte Wasser könnte bald in den Pazifik fließen. Eine chemische Barriere hat sich als unwirksam erwiesen.

Das radioaktiv verstrahlte Grundwasser auf dem Gelände des havarierten Atomkraftwerks Fukushima steigt in dramatischem Maße und bedroht den nahegelegenen Pazifischen Ozean. Das Wasser könne innerhalb der nächsten drei Wochen an die Oberfläche treten, meldete die japanische Tageszeitung Asahi unter Berufung auf ein Krisentreffen.

UN Food and Agriculture Org. warns of food prices rise over next decade

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The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation has warned food prices across the globe are set to rise by as much as 40 per cent over the next decade. Rising costs in farm production, and less available land are mostly to blame. But as Ray Kuka reports, new technologies and stronger relationships in global trade should solve any potential food shortage.
Farms like this are becoming more and more precious.
As developing countries become more wealthy, demand for food is growing.
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation says the world is facing a situation where demand outgrows production.
Kenneth Ash, OECD Director of Trade and Agriculture, said, "It’s not about being optimistic or pessimistic, the key message is the markets have fundamentally changed."
Rising production costs, less available farmland, and environmental factors are mostly to blame.

NASA tests laser communications by sending Mona Lisa to space

A new experiment by NASA proving the effectiveness of laser communications has raised the prospect that beam technology could one day replace radio. That’s after NASA scientists successfully beamed an image of the Mona Lisa to the moon.
­NASA scientists usually use lasers to track the position of its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) – the robotic spacecraft that creates gravitational maps of the moon. It collects the information then transmits it back to earth at a rate of 50 Mbs.
Then NASA scientists had the bright idea of reversing the flow by beaming an image of the Mona Lisa to the LRO using lasers.