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The Philae Lander sits in a shadow on comet 67P and its battery is drained. How difficult would it be to aim a tracking laser (or mirrored sunlight) from Earth at Philae to top up its battery?

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Philae comet lander sends more data before losing power

The Philae lander on the distant comet 67P has sent another stream of data back to Earth before losing power. The little probe delivered everything expected from it, just as its failing battery dropped it into standby mode.

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Comet lander: Future of Philae probe 'uncertain'

The Philae lander has attempted to drill into the surface of Comet 67P, amid fears that its battery may die within hours. The European Space Agency (Esa) says the instrument is being deployed to its maximum extent, despite the risk of toppling the lander.

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Rosetta: Battery will limit life of Philae comet lander

After a historic but awkward comet landing, the robot probe Philae is now stable and sending pictures - but there are concerns about its battery life. The lander bounced twice, initially about 1km back out into space, before settling in the shadow of a cliff, 1km from its intended target site.

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The school that says Osama Bin Laden was a hero

A hardline cleric in Pakistan is teaching the ideas of Osama Bin Laden in religious schools for about 5,000 children.

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Profile: Seal Team Six

The men who rescued two hostages from captivity in Somalia were part of the same elite special forces unit that killed Osama Bin Laden. Who are they? The Bin Laden raid was years in the planning but took just 40 minutes to execute.

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Osama Bin Laden killing: US Navy Seals row over shooting

A public row has arisen over which US commando fired the shot that killed Osama Bin Laden, more than three years after the al-Qaeda leader's death. Ex-Navy Seal Robert O'Neill, 38, has told the Washington Post in an interview that he fired the fatal shot.

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Why is there something rather than nothing?

People have wrestled with the mystery of why the universe exists for thousands of years. Pretty much every ancient culture came up with its own creation story - most of them leaving the matter in the hands of the gods - and philosophers have written reams on the subject.

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Study measures Atlantic plastic accumulation

US researchers, writing in Science, suggest the volume of plastic appeared to have peaked in recent years. One reason could be tighter marine pollution rules that prevent vessels dumping their waste at sea.

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Egyptian Philae obelisk revealed anew

Fresh information is being obtained on the Philae obelisk, the stone monument that played such a key role in helping to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs. Today, the pink granite shaft stands on the UK National Trust's Kingston Lacy estate in Dorset, where it was brought from the Nile in the 1820s.

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Petition · WHO: End the suffering of the Ebola crisis. Test and distribute homeopathy as quickly as possible to contain the outbreaks. · Change.org

Over 3,000 idiots and counting. This is the intersection of Hanlon’s Razor with Clarke’s third law: any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.

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Tomáš Fülöpp on Twitter: "Why do homeopaths mimic conventional medicine — w

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Maldives girl's 100 lashes sentence overturned

A 15-year-old girl who was sentenced to 100 lashes for engaging in premarital sex has had her punishment overturned by a Maldives court.

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Rosetta mission: Philae comet lander pictures its target

The Philae robot, soon to try to land on Comet 67P, has taken another dramatic image of its quarry. The picture is very similar to the one it acquired in mid-September - only this one is much closer, snapped from a distance of just 16km.

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Ants work with acacia trees to prevent elephant damage

A species of acacia tree found in Eastern Africa seems to be protected from elephant damage - by the ants that live on it.

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The story of the fake bomb detectors

The sentencing of a British couple for making fake bomb detectors marks the end of a series of trials after a global scam which saw the devices end up in conflict zones and used by governments around the world.

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Does your brain have a mind of its own?

How many times has this happened to you? You leave work, decide that you need to get groceries on the way home, take a cellphone call and forget all about your plan. Next thing you know, you’ve driven home and forgotten all about the groceries. Or this. You decide, perhaps circa Jan.

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Complex organic molecule found in interstellar space

Scientists have found the beginnings of life-bearing chemistry at the centre of the galaxy. Iso-propyl cyanide has been detected in a star-forming cloud 27,000 light-years from Earth.

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'Life chemicals' may have formed around far-flung star

There is now even more evidence that life on Earth may have been seeded by material from asteroids or comets. Prior research has shown how amino acids - the building blocks of life - could form elsewhere in the cosmos.

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Sign the Petition

Homeopathy has a proven track record of treating and preventing serious epidemic diseases. It’s used by governments for dengue fever, leptospirosis, epidemic fever, malaria, and Japanese encephalitis epidemics, and, historically, for other serious contagious diseases.

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Slave descendants to sue Lloyd's

Descendants of black American slaves are to sue Lloyd's of London for insuring ships used in the trade. High-profile US lawyer Edward Fagan, who secured settlements from Swiss companies in the Nazi gold case, is taking the action for 10 plaintiffs.

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Webmention

Webmention[1] is a W3C recommendation that describes a simple protocol to notify any URL when a website links to it, and for web pages to request notifications when somebody links to them.

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Stonehenge secrets revealed by underground map

Archaeologists have unveiled the most detailed map ever produced of the earth beneath Stonehenge and its surrounds. They combined different instruments to scan the area to a depth of three metres, with unprecedented resolution.

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Museum of Hoaxes

Were teenagers in the 1960s injecting themselves with peanut butter and mayonnaise as a way to get high? On a recent visit to Sitka, Alaska, I had a chance to pay my respects at the grave of Porky Bickar, the prankster responsible for one of the greatest April Fool's Day hoaxes of all time.

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Blade Runner: Which predictions have come true?

It's been 30 years since the release of Blade Runner and 10 years since Minority Report. Both are rich sources of predictions about the future. But what has actually come to pass?

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