Jakarta officially sinking, Indonesia looking for new capital
Jakarta is set to become one of the first major cities to be in serious trouble because of global warming. Rising sea levels have caused more storm surges in the city – additionally, because its aquifers (underground permeable rock formations) have been draining in large quantities, the land is also sinking in. This double whammy is destroying the city, and the country is now hunting for a new capital. More on Wired.
Self taught programmer cracks 20 year old MIT puzzle
MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory released a ‘time capsule’ cryptography puzzle in 1999 to commemorate the lab’s 35th anniversary — the puzzle remained unsolved for 20 years. Last week, self-taught Belgian programmer, Bernard Fabrot, solved it after working on it for the last three and a half years. The puzzle was created by Ron Rivest and requires squaring a number 80 trillion times — a task that would consume incredible amounts of computational power. The answer unlocks a time capsule designed by Frank Gehry containing objects contributed by Bill Gates and Tim Berners-Lee. More on the lab’s site
Possible Russian spy whale causes international stir, defects to Norway
A beluga whale — normally shy and unapproachable— caught the attention of authorities in Norway when it turned sociable with boats and ships passing by. Upon examination, they found it had a harness that read “Equipment St. Petersburg,” prompting the suspicion that it could be a Russian spy whale. The whale now refuses to leave, and Norway is considering moving it to Iceland. More on WaPo
All shrimp in the UK have cocaine in them
Researchers studying micro-pollution by evidence of chemicals and pesticides in freshwater shrimp in the UK, found that all shrimp they examined contained cocaine. The analysis of five rivers revealed that no shrimp was free of the drug, which is most likely flushed out in copious amounts throughout the country. The study comes on the heels of several such studies conducted around the world. More on NY Times.
Also read: Indians are buying and selling heroin, cocaine & ganja online, and UN is worried
Water found on samples from asteroid Itokawa
The Japanese Hayabusa spacecraft had returned samples of the asteroid Itokawa to earth after their sample return mission in 2010. US scientists analysing some of the samples have now found traces of water, adding to a growing body of evidence of water in asteroids. The findings could add value to our understanding of how water came to be on earth. One popular theory is that when the earth underwent a period of bombardment after its formation, asteroids rich in water deposited as much as half the earth’s water in the oceans. More on space dot com.