Blogotariat

Your Yahoo password has probably been compromised, but it's going to be hard for you to find out.

Scientists have identified a gene that helps us feel and keep tabs on our body's position in space.

Obesity now affects more than 600 million people worldwide and is increasingly becoming a serious public health problem. But despite this, we still don't completely understand what causes people to become obese. Scientists know it's an interaction between our genes and our environment, including the unique environment of microbes that live in our guts, but they are still unsure of how exactly these factors come together to cause someone to become overweight and eventually obese.

The Three Gorges Dam stands 185m high and 3,035m wide. Hydropower projects have had huge impacts on the Yangtze. The dam was designed to benefit people by controlling floods, generating power and aiding navigation, but it has upset the natural flow of the river. WWF and others are working with the operators of the Three Gorges Dam to ensure enough water is being released at key moments, thereby restoring the natural pulse of the river and supporting the needs of wildlife downstream.

For certain species of spider, sex culminates with the male getting eaten. But not all spiders go meekly into the jaws of their partners. Some males tie their mates up to avoid becoming a meal. Others copulate with females before they have grown into mature sexual cannibals, scientists reported September 20 in the journal Biology Letters.

Even remote rocky landforms feel the effects of human activities. In southern Utah, waves and earthquakes caused by people set the enormous Rainbow Bridge vibrating, indicates a study published September 21 in Geophysical Research Letters.

There may soon be a field guide to the microbes of the International Space Station. NASA announced on September 21 that it is seeking research proposals to investigate tiny creatures ferried from Earth on the bodies of the more than 200 astronauts who have visited the space station.

A delivery van is a tiny warehouse on wheels. Away from the conveyor belts and simple machines of a warehouse, humans, usually two of them, do all the rudimentary tasks of delivery: driving, finding the packages in the back, and placing packages on doorsteps. Mercedes-Benz, in collaboration with drone delivery company Matternet, created a concept Vision Van that replaces this routine with an automated system, and adds two drones on top for speedy delivery.

Semcon, a product development company specializing in how humans actually use things, conducted a study on people's attitudes toward self-driving cars. People in Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany responded, and nearly half said they had very little trust in autonomous vehicles.

EpiPen is an increasingly expensive life-saving treatment for severe allergic reactions.

If you're thinking a fitness tracker is going to help you lose weight, research says the tracker may actually impede your total potential for weight loss, assuming you're committed to making the changes already.

Following my previous post, I’d like to add a bit more to the debate about Brexit and migration. On this issue, a common defence of the Leave campaign is that the central concern was about the need to cut the number of migrants to the UK so as to reduce competition for jobs. The plausibility of this defence has been undercut by recent negotiations, widely reported in the Australian press, but largely ignored by British media.

Our politicians have sold our country out from under the feet of the citizenry. We are no longer even the primary audience that our politicians are worried about. Policies are now crafted to be suitable to the Murdoch and Fairfax organisations and the big end of town. Exclusively. Common sense does not matter. Nor do Aussie citizens.