An American collector has become an overnight multimillionaire after a set of 65 glass negatives he picked up at a garage sale turned out to be genuine Ansel Adams works, he and his lawyer said Tuesday.

Rick Norsigian, a school district painter and collector, bought the photographic plates in Fresno, California for $45 a decade ago. Now they have been authenticated and are valued at $200 million, he told a press conference.

“The experts have emphatically determined that the negatives were in [Read more...]

Lynne Featherstone, the British equalities minister, has begun a campaign against what she sees as unrealistic body images in the media. She will soon convene a series of hearings to address the use of thin fashion models and photographic retouching, and has declared “Mad Men” actress Christina Hendricks a physical role model for young girls.

According to the Guardian newspaper, Lynne Featherstone will convene a series of [Read full story...]

BP Plc’s newly named chief executive on Tuesday called the Gulf oil spill a “wake-up call” for the entire industry as the company tallied up its losses and disclosed two U.S. investigations.

Bob Dudley, who will replace gaffe-prone Tony Hayward as CEO on October 1, said safety would be among his highest priorities as he tries to refurbish the oil company’s battered reputation.

Image repair may become even tougher after BP said it would offset the cost of the spill against its taxes, costing U.S. taxpayers almost $10 billion.

Rean on the issue:
BP photoshops fake photo of crisis command center, posts on main BP site
Russia offers a solution to BP oil spill
Oil leak conspiracy: is Obama to be blamed?
The Oil Spill: Anatomy of a Blowout
BP: Money buys you a permit to pollute
Lawmakers blast oil firms’ drilling plans
Bacteria can help clean up oil spills
Experts double estimate of BP oil spill size
Kevin Costner calls the Congress to use his oil-separating machine

[Read full story...]

The massive pock in southwestern Egypt was created no more than a few thousand years ago.

Researchers poring over Google Earth images have discovered one of Earth’s freshest impact craters — a 45-meter-wide (148-foot-wide) pock in southwestern Egypt that probably was excavated by a fast-moving iron meteorite no more than a few thousand years ago.

Although the crater was first noticed in autumn 2008, researchers have [Read more...]

If you happen to live in fear of asteroids, then here’s a sobering fact for you: Our planet absorbs asteroid impacts like a truck grille eats bugs. Plus, according to NASA’s Dr. Donald K. Yeomans, most of them aren’t worth getting bent out of shape over.

“On a daily basis, we’re hit with basketball-sized objects, and Volkswagen-sized objects come in a few times a year,” Yeomans says. “Fortunately, the limiting size for something that will actually do ground damage is about 30 meters [98 feet], and you’d expect something like that to come in every 200 years or so on average.”

Yeomans heads NASA’s Near Earth Object (NEO) Program Office, which continues to spearhead [Read more...]

As the desert landscape unfolds ahead, the jet fighter pilot glances to his right. Spotting an enemy target, a sensor attached to his helmet relays the information straight back to his flight controls, allowing him to fire immediately without turning his aircraft.

U.S. defense company Raytheon Inc. is giving the first glimpse of its Scorpion helmet technology for F-16 and A-10 combat jets on a simulator at the Farnborough International Airshow after this week announcing a $12.6 million contract with the U.S. Air Force.

Raytheon is marketing the technology, which transmits data on [Read more...]

It looks like an iPad, only it’s 1/14th the cost: India has unveiled the prototype of a $35 basic touchscreen tablet aimed at students, which it hopes to bring into production by 2011.

If the government can find a manufacturer, the Linux operating system-based computer would be the latest in a string of “world’s cheapest” innovations to hit the market out of India, which is home to the 100,000 rupee ($2,127) compact Nano car, the 749 rupees ($16) water purifier and the $2,000 open-heart surgery.

The tablet can be used for functions like word processing, [Read more...]

The latest threat from the DPRK came the day before a large joint US-South Korean naval exercise is scheduled to start off the Korean peninsula.

It follows Washington’s announcement last Wednesday that it would impose new sanctions on the renegade regime.

Pyongyang raised the prospect of using its small nuclear arsenal in any future confrontation in a statement from the National Defence [Read full story...]

The business figures, who were well-known in the Middle East, built the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and reportedly had close links with the Palestine Liberation Organisation. They previously hired senior Labour figures as “consultants” but began donating money to the Conservatives shortly before the election.

The money was donated by a small British firm [Read more...]

Sony has recently published patents which will allow two-player 3D gaming on a single screen.

The new technology, which is so simple it could be filed under the heading ‘D’oh… why didn’t I think of that?’, could see an end to split-screen gaming but is unlikely to see the light of day for a few years at least.

Current stereoscopic technology uses shuttered glasses [Read full story...]