Sorry everyone!

I had a major breakdown on the server side. I’m trying now to recover that and will try to be up ASAP.

Forces of Nature not only looks at hurricanes, earthquakes and tornados, it helps you make your own.

Nature? Gotta love it. Sunsets, flowers, majestic mountains, refreshing ocean breezes. But from time to time, even nature can have a bad day. Krakatoa is a good example. Hurricane Andrew is another. National Geographic’s Forces of Nature takes an [...]

New ’smart bricks’ are wired to signal buildings’ structural problems.

Smart bombs. Smart drugs. Smart cards. And now … smart bricks. Equipped with electronic sensors, these clay-fired building blocks could make homes and office towers far more “intelligent” than today’s versions - and, quite possibly, safer.

For example, smart-brick technology might have helped firefighters change their rescue [...]

Brazil’s culture minister and singing superstar Gilberto Gil is not calling for the death of President Bush, whatever concert-goers might have thought.

Gil, 62, took time off from his government role this weekend to play shows in Sao Paulo, treating fans to many of his own classics as well as songs by Bob Marley and John [...]

Imagine this. You’re driving around in your HOV (highly ostentatious vehicle), and you follow your normal route home.

The next day, you are notified by your insurance company: “Under the terms of Court Order 34/FKC/34 paragraph 12 subsection iii, your auto insurance is void.”

It turns out that you drove within a mile of the house [...]

Hong Kong police arrested 115 men for illegally gambling on insect fights on Sunday in the same building that housed a cricket lovers’ association, a police spokesman said.

Police seized about 300 crickets and $1,025 in cash during the bust, said police spokesman T.K. Ng.

The alleged bug gamblers remained in custody Sunday, but weren’t immediately [...]

In South Korea’s capital, sweating through the highest temperatures of the year, the hottest topic is whether to eat dogmeat stew or ginseng chicken soup.

With the mercury hitting 93 degrees in Seoul on Tuesday and set to rise, thousands are heading to restaurants for a traditional if possibly controversial meal to replenish nutrients lost through [...]

Secretary of State Colin Powell will cross paths with a black cat on Friday the 13th, posing for a picture with a copper-eyed Bombay male that bears his name.

Colin Powell — the cat — will pay a courtesy call on the top U.S. diplomat on Friday Aug. 13 and the two will appear before photographers [...]

This week, the skies above the Northern Hemisphere will be peppered with little bits of space debris that create the annual Perseid meteor shower. It could be the best display in several years, peaking Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

Here are 10 cool facts you can use to impress friends and family late at night or [...]

MIT-NASA team to test first interplanetary laser communication link.

A NASA?MIT Lincoln Laboratory team will forge the first laser communication link between Mars and Earth. This unique experiment, part of NASA’s Vision for Space Exploration, will greatly benefit the transmission of data from robotic spacecraft.

In 2010, the Mars Laser Communication Demonstration (MLCD) will test the [...]