Fungal frog killer hops into crayfish

Crayfish are vulnerable to the same fungus that is killing frogs all over the world. The discovery helps explain how the disease spreads even after all the amphibians in an area have been wiped out. Worryingly, chemicals released by the fungus may alone be enough to kill. ...

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Egypt referendum dispute triggers protest call

CAIRO: Egypt's opposition is calling for mass protests on Tuesday over alleged polling violations after Islamists backing President Mohamed Morsi claimed victory in the first round of a referendum on a new charter.A group of top judges, meanwhile, announced on Monday it would boycott supervision of the second round, and Germany said it has postponed debt relief for Egypt because of concerns...

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Nick Kristof live-tweets his Bahrain visa crisis

A tweet by NYT columnist Nick Kristof about being denied an entry visa to Bahrain. This might be the world's first high-profile live-tweets of an entry-visa denial. New York Times columnist Nick Kristof (@NickKristof), who knows how to use social media in smarter ways than most journalists (see my April 2012 post about his fans using social media to mark his birthday), found himself denied an entry...

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Crayfish Harbor Fungus That’s Wiping Out Amphibians

Scientists have found a new culprit in spreading the disease that's been driving the world's frogs to the brink of extinction: crayfish.In the last few decades, the disease caused by the chytrid fungus has been a disaster for frogs and other amphibians. More than 300 species are nearly extinct because of it. Many probably have gone extinct, but it can be difficult to know for sure when...

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Gunman's Computer Damaged, Drive Possibly Ruined

A computer at the Connecticut home where Newtown, Conn., school shooter Adam Lanza lived with his mother was badly damaged, perhaps smashed with a hammer, said police who hope the machine might still yield clues to the gunman's motive.The computer's hard drive appeared to have been badly damaged with a hammer or screw driver, law enforcement authorities told ABC News, complicating...

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Zebrafish made to grow pre-hands instead of fins

PERHAPS the little fish embryo shown here is dancing a jig because it has just discovered that it has legs instead of fins. Fossils show that limbs evolved from fins, but a new study shows how it may have happened, live in the lab. ...

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Developed economies to grow by 1.6% in 2013: Lagarde

SANTIAGO: IMF chief Christine Lagarde upwardly revised the Fund's estimate of economic growth among developed nations, which she said would increase by 1.6 per cent next year, up from an earlier estimated 1.5 per cent.She told Chile's La Tercera newspaper that developing countries should grow by 5.6 per cent, while the global economy is expected to expand by 3.6 per cent."So 2013 will...

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Kamikaze conclusion for successful moon mission

Streaking through vacuum at a mile per second just above the cratered surface of the moon, two washing machine-size science probes that have completed their mission to map the lunar gravity field will slam into a mile-high mountainside Monday, bringing a successful $500 million mission to a kamikaze conclusion.The twin probes, named Ebb and Flow in a student naming contest, have been flying in formation...

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Space Pictures This Week: Frosty Mars, Mini Nile, More

Photograph by Mike Theiss, National GeographicThe aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, illuminates the Arctic sky in a recent picture by National Geographic photographer Mike Theiss.A storm chaser by trade, Theiss is in the Arctic Circle on an expedition to photograph auroras, which result from collisions between charged particles released from the sun's atmosphere and gaseous particles...

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Obama Visits Families of Conn. Shooting Victims

President Obama has started visiting with families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, in which a gunman killed 20 young children and six adults in the school.A White House official told ABC News that the president was meeting with the families devastated by this tragedy in classrooms at Newtown High School.Assuming a consoling role that has become all...

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