Sorry, science-fiction fans: Time travel is impossible. That is the sobering conclusion, anyway, of a Hong Kong-based team of physicists. They found that the maximum speed of a single photon, the basic unit of light, “obeys the traffic law of the universe,” Agence France-Presse reports. The photon cannot go faster than the speed of light—186,282 miles per second—and thus provides […]
Read more
A specimen of the world’s largest flower, the titan arum, is about to bloom at the U.S. Botanic Garden in Washington, D.C. To attract carrion insects, the flower emits a stench botanists likened to “a very dead elephant.”
Read more
Almost one in three Americans has been arrested for a crime other than a traffic violation by the age of 23, according to a new study of 7,335 young people. The 30 percent arrest rate, sociologists said, reflects a more aggressive societal attitude toward such crimes as vandalism, underage drinking, drunken driving, shoplifting, and drug possession.
Read more
Percentage of U.S. women prisoners who are mothers of young children: 61
Read more
A Paralympic medal winner who spent half her life in a wheelchair has made a miraculous recovery, and now hopes to represent her country in the Olympics. Monique van der Vorst had been paralyzed from the waist down since the age of 13, and won two silver medals as a hand-cyclist in the 2008 Paralympic Games. But the 27-year-old Dutch athlete […]
Read more
“Yes, we did produce a near-perfect republic. But will they keep it? Or will they, in the enjoyment of plenty, lose the memory of freedom? Material abundance without character is the surest way to destruction.” – Thomas Jefferson
Read more
Timeliness, after scientists unveiled an atomic clock so accurate that it won’t lose or gain a single second in 15 billion years, which is roughly as long as the universe has existed.
Read more
The graduating class of 2015 is the most indebted in history, owing a total of $56 billion in student loans. About 71 percent of college students graduating this year took out loans, at an average of $35,051 each. In 1996, just 58 percent of students took out loans, owing less than $20,000 each at graduation.
Read more
A growing numbers of drought-afflicted California farmers began hiring dowsers to locate underground water. “Scientists don’t believe in it,” said vintner Marc Mondavi, “but I do and most of the farmers in the [Napa] Valley do.”
Read more
About a dozen inmates die behind bars each day, or about 4,400 jail and prison inmates each year. In jails, suicide is the leading cause of death.
Read more