Newtown Settles In for Prayerful, Somber Christmas

Residents of Sandy Hook, Conn., gather every year under an enormous tree in the middle of town to sing carols and light the tree. The tree is lit this year, too, but the scene beneath it is starkly different.The tree looms over hundreds of teddy bears and toys, but they are for children who will never receive them. The ornaments are adorned with names and jarringly recent birth...

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'The idea we live in a simulation isn't science fiction'

If the universe is just a Matrix-like simulation, how could we ever know? Physicist Silas Beane thinks he has the answer The idea that we live in a simulation is just science fiction, isn't it?There is a famous argument that we probably...

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Report details extensive Walmart bribery in Mexico

NEW YORK: Retail giant Walmart aggressively bribed Mexican officials to get the necessary permits to open more than a dozen supermarkets across the country, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.The newspaper said its own investigation had identified 19 store sites that were the target of bribery, and detailed one case in which more than $200,000 in bribes was paid to build a supermarket...

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Nokia on the edge: Inside an icon's fight for survival

Winter snow falls on Nokia's flagship store in Helsinki, Finland.(Credit:Roger Cheng/CNET) HELSINKI, Finland -- I came here to listen for a death rattle.It was a late Monday morning in late November when I arrived, and there was no sunlight. None. The sky was gray, bleaching out the city's colorful buildings. I asked the cab driver whether it would get any brighter, but he wasn't confident. The sun...

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GRAIL Mission Goes Out With a Bang

Jane J. Lee On Friday, December 14, NASA sent their latest moon mission into a death spiral. Rocket burns nudged GRAIL probes Ebb and Flow into a new orbit designed to crash them into the side of a mountain near the moon's north pole today at around 2:28 p.m. Pacific standard time. NASA named the crash site after late astronaut Sally Ride, America's first woman in space.Although the mountain...

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Conn. Kids Laid to Rest: 'Our Hearts Are With You'

Visibly shaken attendees exiting the funeral today for 6-year-old Noah Pozner, one of 20 children killed in the Connecticut school massacre last week, said they were touched by a story that summed up the first-grader best.His mother, Veronique, would often tell him how much she loved him and he'd respond: "Not as much as I [love] you," said a New York man who attended the funeral...

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How human biology can prevent drug deaths

Thousands of people die from adverse effects of medicines that have been tested on animals. There is a better way, say geneticist Kathy Archibald and pharmacologist Robert Coleman ADVERSE drug reactions are a major cause of death, killing 197,000 people annually in the European Union and upwards of 100,000...

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Royal Thai Air Force Air Chief Marshal Prajin Juntong visits S'pore

SINGAPORE: Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Thai Air Force (RTAF) Air Chief Marshal (ACM) Prajin Juntong is in Singapore on a three-day introductory visit. He called on Senior Minister of State for Defence Mr Chan Chun Sing at the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) on Monday afternoon. ACM Prajin had earlier called on Chief of Air Force Major-General Ng Chee Meng after inspecting a Guard of Honour.ACM...

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Apple: Top 5 events from 2012

Apple spent 2012 much like it did the year before: relentlessly pushing out new products. But that's nothing new. Instead, tech historians will likely look back at 2012 as one of the company's most transformative years. A time where we saw some of the first pieces of a post-Jobs Apple begin to take shape. Five key news events marked Apple's 2012, from products to company controversy. Editor's note:...

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Space Pictures This Week: Frosty Mars, Mini Nile, More

Photograph by Mike Theiss, National GeographicThe aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, illuminates the Arctic sky in a recent picture by National Geographic photographer Mike Theiss.A storm chaser by trade, Theiss is in the Arctic Circle on an expedition to photograph auroras, which result from collisions between charged particles released from the sun's atmosphere and gaseous particles...

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