The eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD destroyed precious Roman documents, along with the city of Pompeii. Now scholars have discovered a new way to read the scorched remnants of these ancient texts.

In Utah, Brigham Young University researchers are using light-imaging technology originally designed for NASA to clean up the scrolls, making it possible to read documents dating back more than 2,000 years.

“Some scholars have told me they take 2 or 3 weeks to read a line of text,” says project leader Steven Booras. “When that first image came up, I have to admit I was thinking, ‘Hey, we’ve got something here.'”
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Scientists in Chicago have created the first cyborg that is controlled by a living brain. It works like a robot and thinks like an eel.

It has been created by combining the extracted brain of a tiny, eel-like lamprey with a high-technology robot the size of a cigarette pack. The brain is kept alive in an oxygenated saline solution. When it detects a light, the electronic eyes on the device send a signal to the brain, which commands thewheels to roll via a microprocessor.

“Until the recent past, people were using biological nervous systems to inspire technology,” says Sandro Mussa-Ivaldi of Northwestern University. “Now we have gone one step beyond, to tap into the nervous system itself.”
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Washington state, faced with a severe drought, leading to dwindling reservoirs and an energy shortage, is planning to use one of its major natural resources to solve its energy problem: cows.

There are 246,000 cows in Washington State and their dung is clean-burning and environmentally friendly. It’s the main fuel used in much of India. According to a recent study by the Dairy Federation, waste from diary cattle in just one county could generate up to 10 megawatts of electricity, enough to light 8,000 homes.
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According to an intelligence report, the U.S. tipped off the Israelis that the Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden plans to support Yasser Arafat’s uprising against them. His cells and networks in Lebanon are ready to launch strikes into Israel.

Bin Laden is famous for killing innocent civilians during his terrorist attacks. He was behind the 1993 bombing of the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut and the blasting of Israeli locations in Argentina. Five suspects who are linked to his terrorist organization are currently on trial in Manhattan federal court for the 198 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenyaand Tanzania that killed 223 people, including 12 Americans.
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