Philippe Matthews Show Guru Advice, Author Reviews, Tech Reviews, Entertainment News

CHERNOBYL, Ukraine--The disaster at Chernobyl on April 26, 1986, is currently ranked as the worst nuclear accident in history.

As the condition of the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station in Japan continues to deteriorate, nuclear safety experts, government regulators and health physicists are keeping close watch on the situation to determine the danger--both real and hypothetical--that the incident poses to people near the plant. [More]

By Fredrik Dahl VIENNA (Reuters) - Minuscule amounts of radioactive particles believed to have come from Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant have been detected on the U.S. west coast, two diplomatic sources said Friday. [More]

With one misstep and the snap of a trap, Tinka was broken. The 50-year-old chimpanzee’s hands were mangled and left severely deformed and almost useless

Four school maintenance employees have been fired and a fifth suspended for wrapping a co-worker in shrink wrap and then taking pictures and video of him as part of a prank. Maintenance mechanic Anthony Farrell, cleaners Jason Haag and Keith Purdy, and cleaner-groundskeeper Chrystian Quezada were fired by Yorktown school district, located north of New York City

Imagine snapping a panoramic picture from the top of the Empire State Building, then zooming in on a speck to reveal a quarter lying on the sidewalk. That’s the promise of single-shot gigapixel cameras--cameras that shoot images composed of at least one billion pixels, or picture elements

1. BirdsEye Developed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, BirdsEye has entries on hundreds of the most frequently seen North American bird species and includes images and bird sounds

By Declan Butler Nature revealed earlier this week than an international agency set up to detect nuclear tests, the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), is transmitting detailed data on the spectrum of radionuclides and their levels in the air in and around Japan and the Asia-Pacific region to its member states each day, but that the CTBTO could not release these data to the public because it lacked a mandate to do so. Now, at least one CTBTO member state, Austria, intends to make some of the data public in the form of summary reports and forecasts of global radiation spread.

By Ewen Callaway An experimental gene-therapy treatment for Parkinson's disease has eased the movement problems of a small number of patients and raised no major safety concerns.

[More]

Helicopters and fire trucks proved unsuccessful at replenishing damaged nuclear fuel pools at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plant on Thursday. The spent-fuel pools contain a large amount of radioactive material that is not contained as well as that in the reactor cores. And although information has been spotty, nuclear experts worry that this fuel--which should be submerged in circulating water to keep it from overheating--has been at least partly exposed in the pools belonging to reactors Nos.

The long-awaited New York Times digital subscriptions paywall has been revealed and, at first glance, it seems to be exactly how Apple would like it to be. Print purists will be pleased it's more expensive than the paper edition.

The hydrogen explosions, melting fuel rods and radiation leaks at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant are having an immediate impact on perceptions of nuclear power worldwide, at a time when many countries are earnestly searching for alternatives to fossil fuels. Safety will be a major concern, particularly as emergency workers in Japan continue to battle to keep spent fuel rods stored on site at Fukushima Daiichi from melting down. [More]

Once in Resolute Bay you feel like you are at the edge of the world, your view is of nothing but snow covered hills and sea ice.

Los Angeles is known for many things – Hollywood, of course, and glitz. A history of smog and choking traffic. Now comes another distinction