NMDHS Marauders

Plugging gadgets into a socket in the wall, or loading them with batteries - or maybe even unfurling a solar panel - is how most of us think of getting electricity. But what about plugging them into your body?

"Centenarian Fauja Singh secured the Guinness World Record Sunday by becoming the oldest person to ever run a marathon. The 100-year-old year old crossed the finish line in just over eight hours, a feat some 20-somethings would have a hard time pulling off. "

"Fauja Singh, 100, finished Toronto's waterfront marathon Sunday evening, securing his place in Guinness World Records as the oldest person - and the first centenarian - to ever accomplish a run of that distance."

"A new study on cellphone safety has found that carrying a phone in a shirt or pants pocket exceeds radiation exposure guidelines spelled out by the the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and that children absorb twice as much cellphone radiation as adults. The study published in the journal Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine criticizes the way phone manufacturers measure levels of microwave radiation, and calls for the industry standard to be scrapped."

"Obesity has a greater impact on the blood pressure of teenage girls than on teenage boys, a US study has suggested. High blood pressure is a risk factor for heart disease and stroke in later life. The study of 1,700 teenagers, presented to the American Physiological Society conference, found girls had three times the risk of higher blood pressure."

"Ever wonder how much energy is used by your different major appliances or electronics? Or how much energy all such appliances and electronics in the U.S. use? Here's some info on that for four big ones: TVs, computers, clothes dryers, and refrigerators."

At age 14, in poverty and famine, a Malawian boy built a windmill to power his family's home. Now at 22, William Kamkwamba, who speaks at TED, here, for the second time, shares in his own words the moving tale of invention that changed his life.

"It was first suggested in 1995 that the intense pressure waves, which can briefly exceed the speed of sound, could come from trombones."

"The stereo movie has been adapted to human binocular vision. The movie does not represent what you would actually see with your two eyes if you visited a real black hole. In reality, the curved spacetime would distort wavefronts of light away from spherical, confusing your binocular perception. The conflicting visual cues might make you feel queasy. But the failure of binocular vision is merely a limitation of beings who have evolved in flat spacetime. Trinocular vision would work fine."

"The BBC's Jeremy Cooke has been to an eco-friendly GM pig farm in Canada to find out more. "

"Where do athletic and artistic abilities come from? With phrases like "gifted musician", "natural athlete" and "innate intelligence", we have long assumed that talent is a genetic thing some of us have and others don't. But new science suggests the source of abilities is much more interesting and improvisational"

Two students have recorded video of the Earth from high in the atmosphere using homemade equipment, at a cost of just £350.

"The researchers found a link between IQ and diet, even after taking into account other factors such as the mother's level of education, social class and duration of breast feeding. A diet high in processed food at the age of three was linked to a slightly lower IQ at the age of eight and a half, suggesting early eating habits have a long term impact."

"The 26-mile (42km) race involved 423 laps of an indoor track at an average speed of 0.77 km/h."

"The microscope imaged objects down to just 50 billionths of a metre to yield a never-before-seen, direct glimpse into the "nanoscopic" world. "

"While studying graphene's electronic properties, professor Chris Regan and graduate student Matthew Mecklenburg found that a particle can acquire spin by living in a space with two types of positions -- dark tiles and light tiles. The particle seems to spin if the tiles are so close together that their separation cannot be detected. "An electron's spin might arise because space at very small distances is not smooth, but rather segmented, like a chessboard," Regan said."

"A study reported at the American Chemical Society meeting in the US suggests feathers could lead to more environment-friendly, lighter plastics."

Murray and Becky Monk yearned for the best of both worlds: life in the breathtaking wilds of northwestern Ontario and the conveniences of modern life. They turned their wish into reality by moving to the solitude of a remote lake and setting up their own eco-friendly power system.

"Bad" white fat became "good" brown fat, Cell Metabolism journal reports.

"First results from a major astronomical survey using a cutting-edge technique appear to have confirmed the existence of mysterious dark energy."