Obama: NSA must divulge unknown bugs like Heartbleed – unless the bug works to their advantage

In January 2014, in the midst of the NSA scandal, President Obama decided that the NSA must divulge any undisclosed flaws in Internet security that they were aware of. This means if the NSA is aware of software stack bugs like the recently discovered Heartbleed bug, they must publicly acknowledge the bug. But detractors have…

It was only about 20 years ago that scientists discovered that some sponges are carnivorous, meaning – they eat other animals! Since then, scientists have identified about a half-dozen of the squishy little slayers. Today however, we add four new species to the list. The newly discovered carnivorous sponges live on the deep seafloor in…

Mysterious black ring photographed in the skies above Leamington Spa, England

16-year-old Georgina Heap was playing tennis with her mother when she looked up at the sky and noticed a mysterious black ring floating high in the air. The huge black ring was spotted in the skies above Leamington Spa, a spa town in central Warwickshire, England, and remained in sky for about three minutes before…

Topographic maps describe the shape of the land and can be used to help you locate natural and man-made features like woodlands, waterways, important buildings, and bridges. The information derived from a topographic map can help you locate sources for water and even if a clearly-defined water resource is not visible on the map, you…

Freak space cherry tree in Japan blossomed years earlier with odd five-petal flowers

As part of an educational program for Japanese children, several cherry tree stones (the hard inner layer that contains the seed) were carried to the International Space Station by Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata in November 2008. Once returned to earth, the seeds were planted in various locations throughout Japan with expectations that the cherry trees…