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

By Terhi Kinnunen PYHAJOKI, Finland (Reuters) - Matti Pahkala braces from the chilly winds blowing from the Gulf of Bothnia as he surveys a map of the Hanhikivi peninsula in northern Finland, an area he first visited as a child.

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - Salvage teams pumped oil on Monday from a stricken container ship off the New Zealand coast, ahead of bad weather which could split the vessel into two and spew more oil onto beaches. The Liberian-flagged Rena has been stuck for 12 days on a reef 14 miles off Tauranga on the east coast of New Zealand's North Island, having already spilled about 350 tonnes of toxic fuel and some of its hundreds of containers into the sea

By Michael Kohn ULAN BATOR (Reuters) - Inside a stove showroom deep in the suburbs of this sprawling smoke-filled city, Mam Ivermint, 80, is shopping for a new coal-fired stove -- her unlikely contribution to the cause of cleaner air. [More]

When oil started spewing from BP's Macondo well in April 2010, there weren't too many options for cleaning it up.

These plague victims were excavated from the East Smithfield burial grounds between 1986 and 1988. The plague bacteria that swept through medieval Europe had been declared extinct just over a month ago. A quick google search reveals articles with headlines such as ‘Medieval plague bacteria strain probably extinct’ and ‘Black death strain extinct’ .

Apparently yesterday was Global Handwashing Day ! This is a day designed to encourage awareness of proper handwashing procedures and in the spirit of this I thought I’d take a look at a paper that came out recently about the amount of

How did I miss this until now? This clip has apparently been making the rounds of the Interwebs for years, but I couldn’t resist posting it after I saw it on Facebook this morning. [More]

This year has had its share of cybersecurity bombshells. Cybersecurity vendor McAfee revealed widespread theft of government data over the past five years . Now the hacker group Anonymous has threatened to take down the New York Stock Exchange's computers .

By Lance Whitney The iOS 5 update initially bricked my iPod Touch. [More]

Plants mastered chemistry a long time before humans, billions of years actually . In fact, we humans and most of the rest of the life on Earth can thank tiny cyanobacteria for mastering/evolving the molecule known as chlorophyll. Chlorophyll--a pigment that absorbs blue light--is the key to photosynthesis, and photosynthesis is the key to turning sunlight into food.

By Jo Marchant of Nature magazine A DNA analysis of ancient storage jars suggests that Greek sailors traded a wide range of foods--not just wine, as many historians have assumed. [More]

MINNEAPOLIS -- Less than two months after Hurricane Irene barreled up the eastern coastline of the United States, a group of scientists from some of the areas hardest hit presented evidence of the storm's dramatic geological effects on their home states. [More]

By Susan Young of Nature magazine The Ta

The most obvious effect of birth control pills is, well...birth control. But the pill may have subtler effects, too. Like influencing which guy a woman goes for, and her satisfaction with him--in bed and out.

By Shinichi Saoshiro TOKYO, Oct 14 (Reuters) - Japan should be less conservative [More]