Richest Billionaires in the World

Two-thirds of the wealthiest people in the U.S. added to their fortunes, boosting their average net worth by $400 million to a record $4.2 billion.

Rank Name Net Worth Age Source Country of Citizenship
1 Carlos Slim Helu & family

Carlos Slim Helu & family

$69 B 72 telecom Mexico
2 Bill Gates

Bill Gates

$61 B 56 Microsoft United States
3 Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett

$44 B 81 Berkshire Hathaway United States
4 Bernard Arnault

Bernard Arnault

$41 B 63 LVMH France
5 Amancio Ortega

Amancio Ortega

$37.5 B 75 Zara Spain
6 Larry Ellison

Larry Ellison

$36 B 67 Oracle United States
7 Eike Batista

Eike Batista

$30 B 55 mining, oil Brazil
8 Stefan Persson

Stefan Persson

$26 B 64 H&M Sweden
9 Li Ka-shing

Li Ka-shing

$25.5 B 83 diversified Hong Kong
10 Karl Albrecht

Karl Albrecht

$25.4 B 92 Aldi Germany
11 Christy Walton & family

Christy Walton & family

$25.3 B 57 Wal-Mart United States
12 Charles Koch

Charles Koch

$25 B 76 diversified United States
12 David Koch

David Koch

$25 B 71 diversified United States
14 Sheldon Adelson

Sheldon Adelson

$24.9 B 78 casinos United States
15 Liliane Bettencourt

Liliane Bettencourt

$24 B 89 L'Oreal France
16 Jim Walton

Jim Walton

$23.7 B 64 Wal-Mart United States
17 Alice Walton

Alice Walton

$23.3 B 62 Wal-Mart United States
18 S. Robson Walton

S. Robson Walton

$23.1 B 68 Wal-Mart United States
19 Mukesh Ambani

Mukesh Ambani

$22.3 B 54 petrochemicals, oil & gas India
20 Michael Bloomberg

Michael Bloomberg

$22 B 70 Bloomberg LP United States
21 Lakshmi Mittal

Lakshmi Mittal

$20.7 B 61 steel India
22 George Soros

George Soros

$20 B 81 hedge funds United States
23 Michele Ferrero & family

Michele Ferrero & family

$19 B 85 chocolates Italy
24 Sergey Brin

Sergey Brin

$18.7 B 38 Google United States
24 Larry Page

Larry Page

$18.7 B 39 Google United States
26 Jeff Bezos

Jeff Bezos

$18.4 B 48 Amazon.com United States
27 Thomas & Raymond Kwok & family

Thomas & Raymond Kwok & family

$18.3 B 0 real estate Hong Kong
28 Alisher Usmanov

Alisher Usmanov

$18.1 B 58 steel, telecom, investments Russia
29 Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud

Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud

$18 B 57 investments Saudi Arabia
29 Lee Shau Kee

Lee Shau Kee

$18 B 84 diversified Hong Kong
29 Georgina Rinehart

Georgina Rinehart

$18 B 58 Mining Australia
32 Berthold & Theo Jr. Albrecht

Berthold & Theo Jr. Albrecht

$17.8 B 0 Aldi, Trader Joe's Germany
32 Iris Fontbona & family

Iris Fontbona & family

$17.8 B 69 mining Chile
34 Michael Otto & family

Michael Otto & family

$17.6 B 68 retail, real estate Germany
35 David Thomson & family

David Thomson & family

$17.5 B 54 media Canada
35 Mark Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg

$17.5 B 27 Facebook United States
37 Ricardo Salinas Pliego & family

Ricardo Salinas Pliego & family

$17.4 B 56 retail, media Mexico
38 Alberto Bailleres Gonzalez & family

Alberto Bailleres Gonzalez & family

$16.5 B 80 mining Mexico
39 Rinat Akhmetov

Rinat Akhmetov

$16 B 45 steel, coal Ukraine
39 Cheng Yu-tung

Cheng Yu-tung

$16 B 86 diversified Hong Kong
41 Michael Dell

Michael Dell

$15.9 B 47 Dell United States
41 Vladimir Lisin

Vladimir Lisin

$15.9 B 55 steel, transport Russia
41 Azim Premji

Azim Premji

$15.9 B 66 software India
44 Steve Ballmer

Steve Ballmer

$15.7 B 56 Microsoft United States
45 Alexey Mordashov

Alexey Mordashov

$15.3 B 46 steel, investments Russia
46 Vladimir Potanin

Vladimir Potanin

$14.5 B 51 metals Russia
47 Phil Knight

Phil Knight

$14.4 B 74 Nike United States
48 Paul Allen

Paul Allen

$14.2 B 59 Microsoft, investments United States
48 German Larrea Mota Velasco & family

German Larrea Mota Velasco & family

$14.2 B 58 mining Mexico
50 Carl Icahn

Carl Icahn

$14 B 76 leveraged buyouts United States
50 Birgit Rausing & family

Birgit Rausing & family

$14 B 88 packaging Sweden
52 Forrest Mars, Jr.

Forrest Mars, Jr.

$13.8 B 80 candy United States
52 Jacqueline Mars

Jacqueline Mars

$13.8 B 72 candy United States
52 John Mars

John Mars

$13.8 B 75 candy United States
52 Joseph Safra

Joseph Safra

$13.8 B 73 banking Brazil
56 Vagit Alekperov

Vagit Alekperov

$13.5 B 61 Lukoil Russia
57 Mikhail Fridman

Mikhail Fridman

$13.4 B 47 oil, banking, telecom Russia
58 Mikhail Prokhorov

Mikhail Prokhorov

$13.2 B 46 investments Russia
59 Susanne Klatten

Susanne Klatten

$13 B 49 BMW, pharmaceuticals Germany
59 Francois Pinault & family

Francois Pinault & family

$13 B 75 retail France
61 Mohammed Al Amoudi

Mohammed Al Amoudi

$12.5 B 67 oil, diversified Saudi Arabia
61 Anne Cox Chambers

Anne Cox Chambers

$12.5 B 92 media United States
61 John Paulson

John Paulson

$12.5 B 56 hedge funds United States
64 Robert Kuok

Robert Kuok

$12.4 B 88 diversified Malaysia
64 Luis Carlos Sarmiento

Luis Carlos Sarmiento

$12.4 B 79 banking Colombia
64 Viktor Vekselberg

Viktor Vekselberg

$12.4 B 54 oil, metals Russia
67 Antonio Ermirio de Moraes & family

Antonio Ermirio de Moraes & family

$12.2 B 83 diversified Brazil
68 Roman Abramovich

Roman Abramovich

$12.1 B 45 steel, investments Russia
69 Donald Bren

Donald Bren

$12 B 79 real estate United States
69 Jorge Paulo Lemann

Jorge Paulo Lemann

$12 B 72 beer Brazil
69 Ronald Perelman

Ronald Perelman

$12 B 69 leveraged buyouts United States
72 Len Blavatnik

Len Blavatnik

$11.9 B 54 diversified United States
72 Leonid Mikhelson

Leonid Mikhelson

$11.9 B 56 gas, chemicals Russia
74 Leonardo Del Vecchio

Leonardo Del Vecchio

$11.5 B 76 eyewear Italy
75 John Fredriksen

John Fredriksen

$11.3 B 67 shipping Cyprus
76 Aliko Dangote

Aliko Dangote

$11.2 B 54 sugar, flour, cement Nigeria
76 Stefan Quandt

Stefan Quandt

$11.2 B 45 BMW Germany
78 Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor & family

Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor & family

$11 B 60 real estate United Kingdom
78 Harold Hamm

Harold Hamm

$11 B 66 oil & gas United States
80 Savitri Jindal & family

Savitri Jindal & family

$10.9 B 62 steel India
81 Andrey Melnichenko

Andrey Melnichenko

$10.8 B 40 coal, fertilizers Russia
82 James Simons

James Simons

$10.7 B 73 hedge funds United States
83 Ernesto Bertarelli & family

Ernesto Bertarelli & family

$10.6 B 46 biotech, investments Switzerland
84 Jack Taylor & family

Jack Taylor & family

$10.4 B 89 Enterprise Rent-A-Car United States
85 Abigail Johnson

Abigail Johnson

$10.3 B 50 Fidelity United States
86 Robin Li

Robin Li

$10.2 B 43 Technology China
86 Eliodoro, Bernardo & Patricia Matte

Eliodoro, Bernardo & Patricia Matte

$10.2 B 0 paper Chile
88 Ray Dalio

Ray Dalio

$10 B 62 hedge funds United States
88 George Kaiser

George Kaiser

$10 B 69 oil & gas, banking United States
88 Johanna Quandt

Johanna Quandt

$10 B 85 BMW Germany
88 Hans Rausing

Hans Rausing

$10 B 86 packaging Sweden
88 Tadashi Yanai & family

Tadashi Yanai & family

$10 B 63 retail Japan
93 Serge Dassault & family

Serge Dassault & family

$9.9 B 86 aviation France
93 Ananda Krishnan

Ananda Krishnan

$9.9 B 73 telecoms Malaysia
95 Klaus-Michael Kuhne

Klaus-Michael Kuhne

$9.8 B 74 shipping Germany
96 Pallonji Mistry

Pallonji Mistry

$9.7 B 82 construction Ireland
97 Alejandro Santo Domingo Davila

Alejandro Santo Domingo Davila

$9.5 B 35 beer Colombia
98 Horst Paulmann & family

Horst Paulmann & family

$9.3 B 77 retail Chile
99 Gennady Timchenko

Gennady Timchenko

$9.1 B 59 oil & gas Russia
100 Laurene Powell Jobs & family

Laurene Powell Jobs & family

$9 B 48 Apple, Disney United States
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Secret Diamond Crater Revealed By Russia

Diamonds on black
Hidden treasures: Russian scientists want the diamond field to be dug up
The Popigai crater in Siberia, Russia
The giant Popigai crater

Russian scientists have revealed that they kept secret a huge deposit of diamonds beneath a gigantic meteorite crater in Siberia for decades.
They claim that the 60-mile wide Popigai crater in eastern Siberia contains "many trillions of carats" of so-called "impact diamonds" - stones good for technological purposes, not for jewellery.
The scientists, from the Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said the diamond source is bigger than any known reserve in the world.
They are calling for it to be dug up now for the benefits it could bring to industries.
The deposit was first discovered by Soviet scientists in the 1970s, but was left unexplored as the Soviet leadership chose to produce synthetic diamonds for industrial use.
It remained classified until after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Nikolai Pokhilenko, the head of the Geological and Mineralogical Institute in Novosibirsk, told the Russian news agency RIA Novosti that the diamonds found in Popigai include special molecular forms of carbon.
This means they could be twice as hard as conventional diamonds and therefore have superlative industrial qualities.
Mr Pokhilenko said that the diamonds owed their unparalleled hardness to the enormous pressure and high temperatures created by the explosion when a giant meteorite hit the area 35 million years ago.
The institute is planning to send an expedition to the crater in co-operation with Russia's state-controlled diamond mining company Alrosa.

Somali election: Hassan Sheikh elected as president

Hassan Sheikh Mohamud New Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is a political newcomer
Somali MPs meeting in Mogadishu have elected Hassan Sheikh Mohamud as the country's new president, in the latest step to end decades of war.
The academic beat President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed in a run-off poll by 190 to 79 votes, officials said.
No candidate secured the required two-thirds majority in the first round of voting, conducted by secret ballot.
It is the first time for years that a president has been chosen on Somali soil, a sign of improving security.
However, the al-Qaeda linked group al-Shabab still controls many southern and central parts of the country, and has staged frequent suicide attacks in the capital since it was driven out of Mogadishu last year by African Union troops and pro-government forces.
Despite qualifying for the second round, outgoing Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali and moderate Islamist Abdulkadir Osoble then pulled out after coming third and fourth respectively. Eighteen candidates were eliminated at the first hurdle.
Outgoing Somali President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed conceded defeat during a live broadcast on national TV, saying he was "satisfied" with the results of the "just elections".
Different future? Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is an academic as well as a civic activist who has worked for several national and international peace and development organisations.
He graduated from the Somali National University in 1981 and went on to study in India, where he obtained a master's degree from Bhopal University.
For two years he worked for the United Nations children's organisation Unicef as an education officer in south and central Somalia, until the departure of UN peacekeepers in Somalia in 1995.
Four years after that he co-founded the Somali Institute of Management and Administration Development in Mogadishu, which later evolved into Simad University.
map
In 2011, he founded the Peace and Development Party and is currently serving as its chairman. He speaks Somali and English.
The election process began five hours late at a police academy in Mogadishu, following tight security checks.
The election was also delayed by the swearing-in of the last batch of MPs and then a vote on whether a group of disputed MPs, including former warlords, could take part. The MPs voted in favour of this.
The new speaker of parliament, Mohamed Osman Jawari, had urged MPs to vote with their consciences.
"May God help us to elect a good leader in an atmosphere of tranquillity. We must give the youth of Somalia a bright future," he said.
The process is still in many ways owned by outside powers who have for years been involved militarily and politically in Somalia, the BBC's Mary Harper reports.
But Hassan Sheikh Mohamud could represent a different kind of future for the country because he is not associated with the violence and corruption of the past, our correspondent says.
Nevertheless he faces massive challenges on multiple fronts, she adds - firstly, he will have to deal with the powerful politicians who lost the elections; then he has to try to reunite a country torn apart by two decades of civil conflict, much of which is controlled by the al-Shabab militia.
Since the overthrow of President Siad Barre in 1991, Somalia has seen clan-based warlords, Islamist militants and its neighbours all battling for control.

Democratic convention: Obama lays out election choice

Barack Obama spoke of the challenges ahead in his closing speech at the Democratic National Convention
US President Barack Obama has accepted the nomination of the Democratic party, telling voters they face a generational choice in November's election.
He highlighted the differences between his aims and Republican policies, and reprised his 2008 theme of "hope".
"I never said this journey would be easy, and I won't promise that now," Mr Obama told the Democratic convention.
Republican Mitt Romney is challenging Mr Obama for the White House, with polls showing a tight race.
Mr Obama told delegates in the hall and voters watching at home that the nations problems have built up over "decades" and cannot be fixed in a flash.

“Start Quote

From all that we've seen and heard, they want to take us back to an era of blustering and blundering that cost America so dearly”
Barack Obama US President
"But when you pick up that ballot to vote - you will face the clearest choice of any time in a generation.
"Over the next few years, big decisions will be made in Washington: on jobs and the economy; taxes and deficits; energy and education; war and peace - decisions that will have a huge impact on our lives and our children's lives for decades to come," he said.
Venue change Mr Obama took the stage not in a huge stadium in downtown Charlotte, North Carolina, as organisers had hoped, but inside the convention centre after Thursday's speech was moved because of weather concerns.
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Obama: My opponent and his running mate are new to foreign policy
He followed a rousing speech by Vice-President Joe Biden, who praised Mr Obama for his bravery in bailing our the auto industry and ordering the killing of Osama Bin Laden.
The president offered a string of critiques of Republican policies, describing his opponents as "happy to talk about everything they think is wrong with America" without offering suggestions on how to make things right.
"That's because all they have to offer is the same prescription they've had for the last thirty years," he said.
"Have a surplus? Try a tax cut. Deficit too high? Try another. Feel a cold coming on? Take two tax cuts, roll back some regulations, and call us in the morning!'"
But there was no mention of his own healthcare law, a signature achievement that remains unpopular with many Americans, and little explicit talk of the stimulus enacted in his first months in office.

“Start Quote

This was no game changer. It suggests the election campaign, like improvement in the economy, will be a long hard slog”
The speech prompted a response from Mr Romney's camp: "Tonight President Obama laid out the choice in this election, making the case for more of the same policies that haven't worked for the past four years," his campaign said in a statement after the speech.
"He offered more promises, but he hasn't kept the promises he made four years ago."
Mr Obama also spoke about his energy strategy, saying the US had opened "millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration... and we'll open more."
"But unlike my opponent, I will not let oil companies write this country's energy plan, or endanger our coastlines, or collect another $4bn in corporate welfare from our taxpayers."
On international issues, the president described Mr Romney and running-mate Paul Ryan as "new to foreign policy".
"But from all that we've seen and heard, they want to take us back to an era of blustering and blundering that cost America so dearly," he said, highlighting his success with Bin Laden and his withdrawal of troops from Iraq and planned drawdown from Afghanistan.

Gallup poll, 1 Sept

1 Sept Gallup poll: Obama 47%, Romney 46%
As Mr Obama finished the speech, he roused the crowd by telling them their votes had helped make the changes of his presidency.
"Only you have the power to move us forward, " he said. "I recognise that times have changed since I first spoke to this convention. The times have changed - and so have I. I'm no longer just a candidate. I'm the president."
Fired-up Biden Earlier, Vice-President Biden accepted his own re-nomination in an emotional speech that focused on family and national security.
"Folks, I've watched him," he said of the president. "He never wavers. He steps up."
"He asks the same thing over and over again: How is this going to work for ordinary families? Will it help them?"
Mr Biden also criticised Mr Romney for not backing the US auto industry bailout, referring to the former Massachusetts governor's time leading private equity firm Bain Capital.
"I just don't think he understood what saving the automobile industry meant, to all of America. I think he saw it the Bain way, in terms of balance sheets and write-offs," he said.
Joe Biden: "This man has courage in his soul, compassion in his heart and steel in his spine"
"The Bain way may bring your firm the highest profit. But it's not the way to lead your country from its highest office."
The third and final night of speeches in Charlotte also saw former Florida governor Charlie Crist - who was previously a Republican - and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry address the convention.
Mr Kerry criticised the Mr Romney for surrounding himself with "neo-conservative advisors who know all the wrong things about foreign policy".
"This is not the time to outsource the job of commander in chief," the Massachusetts senator said.
Former Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords, still recovering from a near-fatal shooting on a meeting with her constituents in 2011, appeared on stage to lead the convention in the pledge of allegiance.
Walking slowly and steadying herself to recite the pledge, Ms Giffords brought left many in the crowd dewy-eyed as she smiled through her recital.
Gabby Giffords leads US pledge at Democratic convention
Thursday's speeches brought an end to the Democratic convention, which also headlining speeches from Michelle Obama and former President Bill Clinton.
Mr Obama and Mr Romney now face two months of relentless campaigning before voters across the 50 states go to the polls on 6 November.
Source:BBC

"Blue Moon" Friday - Last One Until 2015

A full moon rises above Fairfield, North Carolina.
A full moon rises above cypress trees at Lake Mattamuskeet, North Carolina (file picture).
Photograph by George Grall, National Geographic
A bright "blue moon" will grace skies this Friday—the last one until July 2015. The last time sky-watchers were treated to a blue moon was New Year's Eve 2009.
If the skies are clear, revelers will get an eyeful of the second full moon of the month—commonly called a blue moon. A blue moon isn't actually blue—as commonly defined, the name reflects the relative rarity of two full moons in a month and is linked to the saying "once in a blue moon."
"There is nothing scientific about it, and it has no astronomical significance," Mark Hammergren, a staff astronomer at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, Illinois, said in 2009.
"But I believe it does give us some insight into history and makes us think of how our calendar system has derived from motions of objects in the sky."
(Take a moon myths quiz.)
Blue Moon Error
The popular definition of a blue moon isn't the only one—and it's one that's based on an editorial error, astronomers contend.
The widespread definition of the second full moon in a month stems from errors made in an astronomy magazine, when a writer misinterpreted how the term was used in the Maine Farmer's Almanac.
Later studies of almanacs published from 1819 to 1962 revealed that the term "blue moon" actually refers to the "extra" full moon that can occur in a year due to differences between the calendar year and the astronomical year.
(Related: "Leap Year—How the World Makes Up for Lost Time.")
Most years on average have 12 full moons, with 1 appearing each month.
That's because the lunar month—the time it takes the moon to cycle through its phases—corresponds closely to the calendar month.
But the calendar year is actually based on the solar cycle, or the time it takes Earth to make one trip around the sun. This means a year is not evenly divisible by lunar months, so every three years or so there are 13 full moons.
The farmer's almanac further divided the year into four seasons, with each season lasting three months. When a given season saw four full moons, the almanac dubbed the third moon as a blue moon.
Ultimately, a blue moon as defined by the calendar isn't that rare, added Hammergren. The term's significance instead lies in the way it links people to the motions of the cosmos.
"Just being able to recognize that we can have a full moon twice in a month and have [folklore] attached really highlights the fact that humans have been astronomers their entire existence," he said.
(Also see "Supermoon Pictures: Best Shots of Year's Biggest Full Moon.")
"True" Blue Moon
Before the editorial error, the term "blue moon" more often referred to the rare instances when the moon actually seemed to turn blue, as can happen under certain atmospheric conditions.
"After a forest fire or volcanic eruption, there may be enough particulate matter in the air so that the moon can take on a bluish tinge," Hammergren said.
For instance, a "true" blue moon occurred in 1950 after a large forest fire in Canada blew smoke across most of the Northern Hemisphere.
Another appeared in 1980 after the last major eruption of Mount St. Helens, which sent tons of ash into the upper atmosphere.
"There are plenty of wildfires burning in the hot, dry U.S.A. this month," according to NASA Science News. "If any of them produce smoke with an extra dose of micron-sized particles, the full moon might really turn blue."
Source:Andrew Fazekas

Half Of Harvard Class 'Cheated' On Exam

Students walk through Harvard University's main campus in Cambridge, Mass. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

it's one of the most exclusive universities in the world, but Harvard is investigating 125 of its students for alleged plagiarism.



Students walk through Harvard's main campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts

As many as 125 students at America's prestigious Harvard University are being investigated for allegedly cheating in their final exam, administrators have revealed.
The official university site reported that a large number of undergraduates "may have inappropriately collaborated on answers, or plagiarised classmates' responses, on the final exam for the course".
An initial investigation by the Harvard College Administration Board of more than 250 final exams resulted in cases of alleged cheating involving "nearly half the students for the course".
The Ivy League college has not identified the course, or the students allegedly involved in the scandal - one of the largest to affect Harvard.
But student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, said it was Government 1310: "Introduction to Congress" course.
The allegations arose when a faculty member noticed "similarities between a number of exams".
Anyone found to have cheated could face punishments, including a one-year suspension from the college.
Michael Smith, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, said: "We take academic integrity very seriously because it goes to the heart of our educational mission.
"Academic dishonesty cannot and will not be tolerated at Harvard.
"These allegations, if proven, represent totally unacceptable behaviour that betrays the trust upon which intellectual inquiry at Harvard depends."
Harvard, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of the most exclusive universities in the world, with students paying around £40,000 a year to attend.
Source:news.sky.com

Gaza 'will not be liveable by 2020' - UN report

Palestinian men transport bags of cement through tunnels used for smuggling goods on 23 August
Tunnels under the Egyptian border have been a lifeline for Gaza in recent years.
The Gaza Strip will not be "a liveable place" by 2020 unless action is taken to improve basic services in the territory, according to a UN report.
Basic infrastructure in water, health, education and sanitation "is struggling to keep pace with a growing population", according to the report.
It estimates Gaza's population will rise from 1.6m to 2.1m by 2020.
Israel tightened a blockade on Gaza after the Islamist movement Hamas came to power in the territory in 2007.
Israel says the blockade, which is policed with Egyptian co-operation and has never been fully lifted, is necessary to prevent weapons reaching Hamas.
The UN report estimates Gaza will need double the number of schools and 800 more hospital beds by 2020, and says the territory is already suffering from a housing shortage.
The report also says the coastal aquifer, the territory's only natural source of fresh water, may become unusable by 2016.
Disconnected territory UN officials point to the difficulty of improving the situation given "the closure of the Gaza Strip, violent conflict, and the pressing need for Palestinian reconciliation".
"An urban area cannot survive without being connected," said Maxwell Gaylard, the UN's humanitarian chief in Gaza.
Gaza has no air or sea ports, and the economy is heavily dependent on outside funding and smuggling through tunnels under the Egyptian border.
Even though Gaza has experienced some economic growth in recent years, the report says it "does not seem to be sustainable" and finds that Gazans are worse off now than in the 1990s.
Unemployment was at 29% in 2011 and has risen since then, particularly affecting women and young people.
Traffic through the cross-border tunnels was hit in recent weeks by violence between Egyptian security forces and militants in Egypt's Sinai peninsula, which borders Israel and Gaza.

Related Stories

Source:BBC

Earth Is Running Out of Helium


Bears not attracted to menstruating women

Despite campfire fears dating back to at least 1967, black bears and grizzly bears are not attracted to the odors of menstruation, according to a recent Yellowstone National Park report.
Polar bears may be interested in the smell of menstrual blood, the report found, but bears that roam in North America are not. Food is a much more important temptation for bears, according to the findings.
The idea that bears might preferentially attack menstruating women is not new. In 1967, a night of infamous grizzly bear attacks in Glacier National Park in Montana left two women dead. One woman was having her period, and the other was carrying tampons.
The attacks led to speculation that the women's menstrual odors might have "triggered" the attacks. The Park Service and other agencies even began warning women that bears might be attracted to the smell of menstrual blood, despite no scientific evidence to back up those warnings. 
Since 1992, the Forest Services' Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee has tried to debunk this myth, but it has been difficult to dislodge. The new Yellowstone report, released in February, draws on a series of old studies to set the record straight.
[ 7 Medical Myths Even Doctors Believe ]
In one of these studies, conducted in 1991, researches exposed black bears, the most common kind of bear in the United States, to used tampons and to four menstruating women. They found no interest among any of the bears to the scents. Nor have researchers found any examples of black bears attacking menstruating women. Nor are grizzly bears interested in women having their periods. A 1985 analysis of hundreds of grizzly bear attacks on humans found no evidence linking any of the attacks to menstruation — including the infamous "Night of the Grizzlies" attacks in Glacier. The two bears involved in those attacks were what biologists called "food conditioned," according to "Backcountry Bear Basics: The Definitive Guide to Avoiding Unpleasant Encounters" (Mountaineers Books, 2006) by Dave Smith. These bears were used to eating garbage and had begun to associate humans with food.
The one exception to bears' disinterest in menstrual blood was the polar bear, the Yellowstone report finds. A 1983 study found that four captive polar bears exposed to a series of scents responded strongly only to seal smells and used tampons.
But as Smith points out in his book, the tests were limited to four bears and only 12 encounters with live, menstruating women. The bears were also much less interested in menstrual blood than any sort of food scent, eating used tampons half of the time they smelled them compared with 100 percent of the time for seafood and 92 percent of the time for seal oil. Even alcohol was more palatable to the polar bears than used tampons. They guzzled down beer 66 percent of the time. (They also ate unused tampons 13 percent of the time.)
At Yellowstone Park, the report concludes, there is no evidence of a link between bear attacks and menstruation. Nevertheless, the Park Service recommends using tampons instead of external pads and unscented menstrual products to keep potentially appealing odors down.   
Credits:@livescience

If you live until 2045, you may never have to fear death

If you have enough cash, a Russian man may be able to help you live forever
Immortality is something all of us have thought of, but nobody really takes seriously. A 31-year-old Russian man named Dmitry Itskov wants you to seriously consider the possibility of living forever, and perhaps even plan on being able to do so by 2045. His plan, called simply "The 2045 Initiative," will sound familiar if you've seen the James Camera blockbuster "Avatar" — and he just needs a few billion dollars to make it a reality.
Itskov's project has several phases, with each step bringing mankind closer to the ultimate goal living forever. The first step in the project is to create robotic humans that can be controlled remotely. He plans on crossing this hurdle by 2020 at the latest. Then, by 2025, a human brain will be transferred into a robotic skeleton to continue life after death. By 2035, the avatar's brain will be constructed separately, and your own personality will simply be "transferred" into it when you are ready to end your human existence. And finally, by the year 2045, humans will be able to walk around in holographic avatars for eternity, never fearing death.
Not surprisingly, the Avatar project is extremely expensive, and Itskov needs some serious financial help if he's to pull it off. So, naturally, he's asking the world's richest people to help fund the movement. In return, he's pledging to help each donor on his or her own immortality quest. You know, because you just can't spend $50 billion in one lifetime.
This article was written by Mike Wehner and originally appeared on Tecca
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