A North Carolina community is outraged by a death row inmate's public note outlining his life of "leisure" and mocking the families of his victims.

In an open letter to the The Gaston Gazette, convicted murderer Danny Robbie Hembree Jr. taunts a "cowardly" justice system and lists the luxuries he enjoys while locked up behind bars at Central Prison in Raleigh.

Hembree writes:

In 2009, Hembree was found guilty of murdering 17-year-old Heather Catterton. He is also suspected of killing two other women -- 30 year old Randi dean Saldana and 30 year old Deborah Ratchford -- according to ABC News.

Read the whole story here.

BACTERIA that can resist nearly all antibiotics have been found in Antarctic seawater.

Björn Olsen of Uppsala University in Sweden and colleagues took seawater samples between 10 and 300 metres away from Chile's Antarctic research stations, Bernardo O'Higgins, Arturo Prat and Fildes Bay. A quarter of the samples of Escherichia coli bacteria carried genes that made an enzyme called ESBL, which can destroy penicillin, cephalosporins and related antibiotics (Applied and Environmental Microbiology, DOI: 10.1128/AEM.07320-11).

Bacteria with these genes can be even more dangerous than the better known superbug MRSA. That's because the genes sit on a mobile chunk of DNA that can be acquired by many species of bacteria, increasing the incidence of drug-resistant infections such as the E. coli outbreak last year in Germany.

The type of ESBL they found, called CTX-M, is common in bacteria in people, and the Uppsala study found that concentrations of resistant bacteria were higher close to the sewage outfalls from the stations. Some Antarctic stations started shipping out human faeces for incineration after gut bacteria were found nearby. Chile's research stations have virtually no sewage treatment in place, says Olsen.

Read more here.

(CNN) -- FaceTime, the Apple video-chat application, is not a replacement for real human interaction, especially for children, according to a new study.

Tween girls who spend much of their waking hours switching frantically between YouTube, Facebook, television and text messaging are more likely to develop social problems, says a Stanford University study published in a scientific journal on Wednesday.

Young girls who spend the most time multitasking between various digital devices, communicating online or watching video are the least likely to develop normal social tendencies, according to the survey of 3,461 American girls aged 8 to 12 who volunteered responses.

The study only included girls who responded to a survey in Discovery Girls magazine, but results should apply to boys, too, Clifford Nass, a Stanford professor of communications who worked on the study, said in a phone interview. Boys' emotional development is more difficult to analyze because male social development varies widely and over a longer time period, he said.

Read more here.

For males, we are doomed. We will be deprived of female partners in our future.

A Florida teenager who called 911 last week asked police to place her in a Christian children's shelter because she heard her mother having sex.

Responding to a domestic disturbance call Thursday around 4 AM, a cop questioned the mother and daughter at their Panama City residence, according to a police report. The duo had been involved in a verbal altercation, a cop noted.

The girl, 15, told an officer that she wanted to go to a local shelter because she heard her mother having sex and felt disrespected by her 35-year-old parents actions. The teen acknowledged that there was no form of abuse or neglect in the house.

Read the news here.

File-sharing site The Pirate Bay is apparently expanding its reach into letting users pass one another physical objects to download.

Well, that’s actually not the case just yet. But the site is introducing a new category called “Physibles” in anticipation of a day in which “you will print the spare parts for your vehicles.”

Physibles are “data objects that are able (and feasible) to become physical,” the site says in its announcement blog post.

In other words, files meant for 3D printers. Such printers and scanners are not widespread but do already exist. The Pirate Bay, however, believes that 3D technology will become commonplace before long.

Do you want to know Moar?

Scientists in Zurich have created the world's smallest 3D map - of the world. IBM's perfectly formed 'nano-world', has now been accepted by the Guinness World Record organisation.

The map measures a miniscule 22 by 11 micrometers. Or, to put it in perspective, 1,000 maps would fit on just one grain of salt.

The map was 'written' on a polymer and is composed of 500,000 pixels, each measuring 20 nm2 and was created in just two minutes and 23 seconds.

A map that can only be seen through a microscope may seem as useful as a chocolate teapot, but the new technology behind it is set to open a whole new world in industry.

Read more here.

The first ozone hole above the North Pole has been aggravated by extraordinarily cold winter temperatures, say scientists.
Cooling of the ozone layer enhances the effect of ozone-destroying substances such as chlorofluorocarbons - CFC.

A repeated ozone hole above the Arctic is to be expected, say scientists from the KIT Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research. About a year ago, the scientists detected that ozone degradation above the Arctic for the first time reached an extent comparable to that of the ozone hole above the South Pole.

At a level of around 13 miles above the ground, 80 per cent of the ozone was lost, potentially exposing people on Earth's surface to harmful ultraviolet-B rays from the sun, which can cause sunburn and skin cancer.

According to the study, occurrence of the Arctic ozone hole was mainly due to the extraordinarily cold temperatures in the ozone layer that is located at about 18 km height in the stratosphere, i.e. the second layer of the earth's atmosphere.

Read more here.

A small group of people will meet in Washington later this year for what they hope will be a lunch to change the world. The meal should consist of fried chicken and nothing else, but while it may look like chicken, have the texture of chicken and even taste like chicken, it will never have lived or breathed.

Five years ago Peta, the world's largest animal welfare group, gave scientists until 30 June 2012 to prove they could make "cultured", or laboratory meat, in commercial quantities. The first scientist to show that artificial chicken can be grown in quantity and be indistinguishable from "real" chicken flesh will be awarded $1m.

"We really do not know who will apply," said Ingrid Newkirk, president and founder of Peta. "Five years ago I thought no one would. But I cannot tell any more. There is a real chance someone will claim the reward. A lot of researchers are keeping very quiet and have their cards close to their chest. Progress is being made. They are overcoming obstacles. We are very optimistic."

Leading the race to show that it is possible is Mark Post, head of the department of vascular physiology at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. Post has been given $300,000 by the Dutch government and by an anonymous donor, believed by Newkirk to be a media magnate, to develop his stem cell research. He has claimed he will produce a synthetic beefburger this year.

Read more here.

Filesonic, one of the Internet’s leading cyberlocker services, has taken some drastic measures following the Megaupload shutdown and arrests last week. In addition to discontinuing its affiliates rewards program and not yet paying accrued money to members, the site has disabled all sharing functionality, leaving users only with access to their own files.

To users of systems like BitTorrent, file-sharing means just that – the sharing of files with others. But this weekend users of Filesonic, one of the Internet’s leading cyberlocker services, sharing files is currently a thing of the past.

According to a shock announcement by the site, all file-sharing functionality has now been disabled, leaving current users only with access to files that they have personally uploaded. Many hundreds of thousands (probably millions) of links all around the web have now been rendered useless, at least temporarily.

But the bad news for the site’s users doesn’t end there. In the last few hours, before file-sharing was disabled, Filesonic also ended its rewards program, meaning that uploaders to the site no longer earn money when people download their files. A moot point perhaps, since no-one will be downloading files anyway.

Read more here.

Calling someone a rat should no longer be considered an insult. The often maligned rodents go out of their way to liberate a trapped friend, a gregarious display that’s driven by empathy, researchers conclude in the Dec. 9 Science.

“As humans, we tend sometimes to have this feeling that there’s something special about our morals,” says neuroscientist Christian Keysers at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience in Amsterdam, who was not involved in the study. “It seems that even rats have this urge to help.”

As many pet rat owners know, rats are highly social animals, says study coauthor Inbal Ben-Ami Bartal, a psychologist at the University of Chicago. Bartal and colleagues wanted to see whether rats would take action to ease the suffering of a cage mate. The team put one rat inside a clear cage that could be sprung from the outside, and left another rat to roam free outside the cage for an hour at a time.

Initially, the free rat would circle the cage, digging and biting at it. After about seven days of encountering its trapped friend, the roaming rat learned how to open the cage and liberate the trapped rat. “It’s very obvious that it is intentional,” Bartal says. “They walk right up to the door and open the door.” The liberation is followed by a frenzy of excited running.

Read more here

The owners of the Costa Concordia are offering survivors of the disaster a 30 per cent discount off future cruises as they battle to stave off law suits expected to cost hundreds of millions of pounds.

One British survivor of the disaster, which claimed 12 lives with 20 people still missing, branded the offer as "insulting".

It was disclosed that in an attempt to help survivors the ship's parent company, Carnival, has been telephoning passengers daily asking if they are suffering nightmares or sleepless nights.

But that move also appeared to backfire when a psychologist said such questioning could trigger post traumatic stress rather than relieve it.

More about it here.

Struggling camera maker Kodak said on Wednesday night that it has filed for Chapter 11 reorganization. The move, which had been expected, follows years of struggle by the film giant to transition to a digital imaging company. In recent months, the company has sought to capitalize on its patents and, in recent days, has sued Apple, HTC and Samsung. Kodak said it hopes to emerge from bankruptcy in 2013 and intends to conduct business during the restructuring using $950 million in financing from Citigroup. As part of the move, the company said it has named Dominic DiNapoli, vice chairman of FTI Consulting, as its Chief Restructuring Officer.

Read the whole article here.

Megaupload, one of the world's most popular file-sharing sites, was shut down by federal prosecutors in Virginia following charges against its founder and others for violating piracy laws. An indictment accuses the company of costing copyright holders over $500 million in revenue for pirated music, television, movies, video games and other content. The company claims it had been diligent in responding to complaints from copyright holders demanding that material be removed from the site in accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Read more here.

This was just posted an hour ago, I'm sure more will come up about it.

EDIT: READ THE THREAD FOR MORE NEWS

So i wrote this lil thing on SOPA on ccTLD called SOPA the day after.
And i posted a video with the article that i wish to share with you people.
After watching the video i decided that the USA needs new leadership, a new direction so to speak.
And since i am not into politics and judging both sides, the new candidate posted below is just the perfect fit !



Though i am not running for president, i approve this message.

The good folks at my local comic store, A Comic Shop, have gone and broken the internet once again. In the latest piece of news to come out of the small shop here in Orlando, a seemingly harmless yet noteworthy local advertisement has managed to capture the attention (and fury) of both comic book and manga fans on the web. The new advertisement features DC’s latest character in their ‘New 52′ lineup, ROBAMA….ok, well, not really (it’s Cyborg) but you get the joke…right?

The ad playfully encourages folks to stop by the shop and trade in their volume 1 manga volumes in exchange for any first issue from DC’s ‘New 52′ lineup for free. The tongue-in-cheek ad encourages folks to “Buy American” and, while knowing full well that the ad might raise some eyebrows, has seemingly set off a firestorm of controversy in the progress.

Most of the confusion stemmed from the fact that both comic book readers and manga fans mistakenly assumed that the ad was created and distributed by DC Comics themselves. This is simply not true, despite the fact that the ad was approved and generously paid for by the company courtesy of it’s co-op advertising programme. In just 24 short hours, legions of manga fans blasted the ad for shamelessly suggesting that they should throw away their manga in order to trade-up for American goods. The ad has been called out as a cheap shot, “nationalist crap” and has even been labeled as racist for depicting President Obama as Cyborg (what?).

Did they think the shop was going to hold a manga book-burning event in the parking lot?

Read more here.

Currently, it's a hot topic/controversal news for Japanese fans of American comics.