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A picture from the Lucara Diamond Corporation of the 1,111 carat gem quality, Type IIa diamond ============================================================================================================================================ A 1,111 carat "high quality diamond" has been discovered at a mine in Botswana, said to be the biggest find in more than a century, according to the mine company. The gem, only second in size to the Cullinan diamond which was unearthered in South Africa in 1905, was mined by Lucara Diamond Corp. "The magnificent stone, which originated from the south lobe of Lucara's Karowe Mine, is the world second largest gem quality diamond ever recovered and largest ever to be recovered...

LINDEN, N.J. (CBSNewYork) — The FBI and local police are investigating after a drone fell out of the sky and crashed into a truck in New Jersey on Wednesday morning. As CBS2’s Christine Sloan reported, of particular concern to authorities is that the incident happened on a road just outside a Phillips 66 refinery in Linden. The driver of the truck apparently got out and had words with the operator of the drone, who took off, investigators said. John Victor Jacobson, head of New Jersey-based Drone Service Systems, said he cannot think of a good reason to fly one of...

Credit: NASA, ESA, S. Baum & C. O’Dea (RIT), R. Perley & W. Cotton (NRAO/AUI/NSF), and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) =============================================================================================================== Scientists often use the combined power of multiple telescopes to reveal the secrets of the Universe – and this image is a prime example of when this technique is strikingly effective. The yellow-hued object at the centre of the frame is an elliptical galaxy known as Hercules A, seen by the Earth-orbiting NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. In normal light, an observer would only see this object floating in the inky blackness of space. However, view Hercules A with...

A scanning electron microscope image of newly-grown enamel using amelogenin-chitosan hydrogel. Credit: Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry of USC ==================================================================================================== Dual discoveries at USC propose a promising method to regrow nonliving hard tissue, lessening or even eliminating pain associated with tooth decay, which the National Institutes of Health calls the most prevalent chronic disease. Janet Moradian-Oldak, a professor at the Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry of USC, has investigated methods to regrow tooth enamel for the past two decades. The process is especially tricky because unlike bone, mature enamel cannot rejuvenate. Tooth enamel is a nonliving tissue. The a-ha moment...

The instant online symbol of global support for Paris after last week’s attacks was a roughly rendered peace symbol with an Eiffel Tower in the middle of it. The French designer Jean Jullien sketched it as soon as he heard the news of the atrocity. He called it “Peace for Paris,” and it immediately became a sensation on social media. Its success is a sign of the times. We have become experts at treacly online mourning. We take grotesque atrocities and launder them into trite symbols and slogans that are usually self-congratulatory and, of course, wholly ineffectual. The 19th-century author...

President Obama just spoke from the G-20 Summit in Turkey, where he rejected the idea that a large-scale deployment of American troops in Syria is the answer after the Paris terror attacks. At one point, the president called Friday's attacks a "setback" but touted the current strategy that is in place to combat ISIS in Syria. "There will be an intensification of the strategy that we put forward. But the strategy that we put forward is the strategy that is going to work. It’s going to take time," he said. Following the 45-minute remarks, Bill Hemmer recapped, explaining that those...

CROWDS of extreme right-wing protesters have disturbed a solidarity march in France as news breaks that at least one of the terrorists responsible for the slaughters in Paris was a Syrian refugee. A peaceful demonstration taking place in the centre of Lille, northern France, was interrupted by right-wingers appearing to belong to the Front National. The unrest came as Front National leader Marine Le Pen declared French people “are no longer safe” and called for France to take back control of its borders. Many people have taken to the streets across France today to show their solidarity with Paris despite...

Campus activists in America showed their true faces during an international tragedy last night: they are the selfish, spoiled children we always knew they were. Black Lives Matter and Mizzou protesters responded to the murder of scores of people in Paris at the hands of Islamic extremists by complaining about losing the spotlight and saying their “struggles” were being “erased.” Their struggles, remember, consist of a poop swastika of unknown provenance and unsubstantiated claims of racially-charged remarks somewhere near Missouri’s campus. So debased has the language on American campuses become that these incidents, which many observers believe to be hoaxes,...

Instagram sensation Dan Bilzerian received some bad news when he returned to his West Hollywood mansion after a September break-in — several of his guns were gone. But it wasn’t burglars who had taken the firearms, it was the Los Angeles Police Department. For two months after the break-in, Mr. Bilzerian, a professional poker player and gun rights champion, says police inexplicably continued to keep the nine firearms under lock and key without a warrant. When the eight pistols and one rifle were returned to their owner about a week ago, all the ammunition for the firearms was missing, raising...

A third mysterious black space object to fall from the sky into rural Spain has caused panic among locals. The strange-looking black orb was found in the village of Villavieja in Murcia - becoming the latest instance of an increasingly bewildering phenomenon, the Olive Press reported. It's not yet known what the objects are, though theories range from UFOs to pieces of space debris. The first instance of the strange phenomenon occurred one week ago, when Spanish goat farmers discovered the strange object, which bears a striking resemblance to the Star Wars torture device, the IT-O Interrogator, in Calasparra, Murcia....

Some of the people and organizations who donated money to the family of a now-disgraced Illinois police officer want their cash back after investigators revealed last week that the cop embezzled thousands of dollars from his department before staging his suicide to look like a murder. “I think that our community feels duped and betrayed,” said Ashley Lambert, who organized a charity event in honor of the officer. A tally of the more-publicized fundraisers held for the family of Lt. Joe Gliniewicz indicates a minimum of $201,000 was raised. The official Joe Gliniewicz Memorial Fund was set up at the...

This cartoon shows the transiting planet GJ 1132b to scale against its host star GJ 1132. Credit: Zach Berta-Thompson ==================================================================================================================== Scientists have discovered a new exoplanet that, in the language of "Star Wars," would be the polar opposite of frigid Hoth, and even more inhospitable than the deserts of Tatooine. But instead of residing in a galaxy far, far away, this new world is, galactically speaking, practically next door. The new planet, named GJ 1132b, is Earth-sized and rocky, orbiting a small star located a mere 39 light-years from Earth, making it the closest Earth-sized exoplanet yet discovered. Astrophysicists from...

The student protest at the University of Missouri began as a response to a serious problem — outbursts of vile racism on campus — and quickly devolved into an expression of a renewed left-wing hostility to freedom of expression. At the protest on Missouri’s campus yesterday, on a space that is expressly open to free expression, protesters barred journalists from covering the demonstrations. In one scene, protesters surrounded and harassed Tim Tai, a photographer with the student newspaper, chanting, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, journalists have got to go.” The scene is captured on a video here, which rewards close watching...

Two pages from the book "Arithmetica Infinitorum," by John Wallis. In the table on the left page, the square that appears repeatedly denotes 4/pi, or the ratio of the area of a square to the area of the circumscribed circle. Wallis used the table to obtain the inequalities shown at the top of the page on the right that led to his formula. Credit: Digitized by Google ============================================================================================================= In 1655 the English mathematician John Wallis published a book in which he derived a formula for pi as the product of an infinite series of ratios. Now researchers from the University...

SHANGHAI: China's national foreign exchange market will introduce direct trading of the Swiss franc, the operator said on Monday, as the country pushes greater international use of its yuan currency. Trading of the Switzerland currency against the yuan begins on Tuesday, the China Foreign Exchange Trade System said in a statement on its website. Direct trade increases efficiency and cuts transactions costs as deals do not use a third currency like the US dollar. The country's foreign exchange market already hosts direct trading of a number of currencies, including the Singapore dollar, the euro, Britain's pound and the New Zealand...

Image: J021659-044920. The red and yellow lobes are the galaxy’s radio lobes. The red spot in the center is the visible galaxy. Prathamesh Tamhane/Yogesh Wadadekar. ================================================================================================================== Astronomers in India have discovered a very unusual galaxy, and it’s dying. By now, in fact, it’s probably already dead. The new galaxy, known as J021659-044920, is 9 billion light years away from Earth. That means it’s really old in cosmic terms (but not quite as old as the oldest object astronomers have ever found, a galaxy 13 billion light years away called UDFy-38135539). Viewed in the visible spectrum, J021659-044920spans about 100,000 light years...

On 15 June 2015, V404 Cygni (V404 Cyg), a binary system comprising a sun-like star orbiting a black hole, woke up. A huge outburst of energy across the electromagnetic spectrum 'lit up' the sky. The last such outburst was 1989. Dr Kunal Mooley, a Hintze Research Fellow at the University's Centre for Astrophysical Surveys works on cutting-edge research based on the discovery and detailed study of transients at radio and optical wavelengths using a wide range of telescope facilities such as the Jansky Very Large Array, the Arcminute Microkelvin Imager (AMI), the Palomar Transient Factory, and the Giant Meterwave Radio...

Jeb Bush guaranteed victory in New Hampshire's first in the nation primary. Despite tanking poll numbers, the governor told WMUR he remains confident he can win. "I'm going to win it," Bush said. "Is it a must-win for you?" asked WMUR's John DiStaso. "Oh, I'm going to win it," Bush repeated. "I honestly believe I'm going to win New Hampshire."

Geologists have discovered a second magma chamber beneath volcano They believe this feeds the smaller chamber directly below the mountain Earthquakes in the area may be a sign of magma pumping between them Geologists still consider Mount St Helens to be of high risk of erupting Its scarred and jagged crater is a reminder of the terrible devastation that Mount St Helens wrought over the Washington countryside 35 years ago. Now a new study of the volcanic plumbing lurking beneath the 8,363ft (2,459 metre) summit suggests the volcano could yet again blow its top in an explosive eruption. Geologists studying...

Kraft Heinz announced Wednesday that it would be closing seven factories and cutting about 2,600 jobs. The closing factories are in Fullerton, California; San Leandro, California; Federalsburg, Maryland; St. Marys, Ontario, Canada; Campbell, New York; Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania; and Madison, Wisconsin, Michael Mullen SVP of corporate and government affairs, said in a statement. Over the next 12-24 months, he said, production in those locations will shift to other existing factories in North America. He said the decision to close the factories came after "an extensive review of the Kraft Heinz North American supply chain footprint, capabilities and capacity utilization." Calling...