Virtual Issues

Need a cheap way to store hydrogen? Forget expensive nanotubes and put cold feathers in your tank instead, say researchers

Land contaminated by radioactive fallout and not fit for growing food could be cleaned up by growing biofuel crops that suck contaminants out of the ground

Walter Munk worked out how to forecast surf conditions to aid amphibious invasions of the second world war – now he’s a legend among surfers

Need a cheap way to store hydrogen? Forget expensive nanotubes and put cold feathers in your tank instead, say researchers

The sun periodically leaves Earth open to assaults from interstellar nasties in a way that most stars do not

Land contaminated by radioactive fallout and not fit for growing food could be cleaned up by growing biofuel crops that suck contaminants out of the ground

The doom-mongers may have got it wrong, there is enough land to produce the food needed to feed a growing population, reports say – and most of it is in Africa

During a candlelight vigil in Dubai, an Iranian woman wearing a green ribbon lights a candle before a picture of Neda Agha-Soltan, a young woman who died during the election protests in Iran. Neda’s death has become a rallying point for the opposition. (Photo: Getty Images)

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    Critics say contracts will benefit giant firms, hurt government politically.

    
Baghdad – Iraq is poised to open its coveted oil fields to foreign companies this week for the first time in nearly four decades, a politically risky move in a country eager to shake off the stigma of occupation.

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    In 1996, when Barack Obama was running for the Illinois Senate, he was asked in a survey by Outlines, a gay community newspaper in Chicago, if he supported same-sex marriage. Unlike most candidates, who merely indicated yes or no, Obama took the unusual step of typing in his response, to which he affixed his signature. Back then not a single state permitted same-sex marriage, and sodomy was a crime.

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