Researchers have figured out how to recreate the bright, beautiful colors of butterfly wings, as well as their ability to strongly repel water. The colors of a butterfly’s wings are the result of an unusual trait—the way they reflect light is fundamentally different from how color works most of the time. A team of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania has found a way to generate this kind of “structural color.” Shu Yang, associate professor in the department of materials science and engineering, led the research. She and colleagues report their findings in the journal Advanced Functional Materials. “A lot of research over the last 10 years has gone into trying to create structural colors like those found in nature, in things like butterfly wings and opals,” Yang says. “People have also been interested in creating superhydrophobic surfaces which is found in things like lotus leaves, and in butterfly wings, too, …

Perhaps reminiscent of the infamous Montauk monster, a giant eyeball has washed up on a Florida beach (as if Florida needed anything else weird). The Internets are buzzing with questions: whose eye is it? What is it? To us, it looks an awful lot like the giant squid eyeball we recently saw on a behind-the-scenes tour of the Smithsonian. To find out, we inquired with some of our intrepid National Geographic grantees. But first, where did the eye come from? According to news reports, the mysterious eye washed up on Florida’s Pompano Beach, where it was found by a beachcomber. Instead of whisking it away, as was the case in Montauk, the fine citizen handed it over to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission on Wednesday. Those scientists put the softball-size eye on ice and sent it to the Fish and Wildlife Research Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida. A …

What is that you understand it is that the world is not quite as people perceive it. Since our childhood we are subject to a “formatting” of our mind to accept a world that, believe me, will be a veritable hell worthy of science-fictions films where the freedoms of men will be completely flouted. The purpose of the masters of the world, small group of people that secretly controls the Governments is not just money but a total control of the world, a world Government with foolproof security where any revolt will be almost impossible ! # How will they establish this Government ? Or should I say, how did already begin to achieve it ? Know that the best way to totally control the population is to prevent to think by itself ! # How ? Claiming for example to the population that more it entertain and more she …

Employing commercial aircraft to inject sulphur into the stratosphere is not a viable strategy, according to Finnish researchers. Even if planes flew at higher altitudes and emitted ten times the current legal limit of sulphur, the cooling effect would be lower than if the same amount of sulphur was injected over the tropics. “Using commercial aircraft for sulphur injection would demand unrealistic scenarios to cause significant radiative forcing and thus cooling,” Anton Laakso of the Finnish Meteorological Institute told environmentalresearchweb. “It would require enhancement of fuel sulphur concentration clearly over our current legal limits and lifting the flight paths of practically all intercontinental flights to the stratosphere – which the current type of aircraft can do only in the polar regions.” Even if all this were possible, Laakso said that, because current air traffic is concentrated in northern mid-latitudes, the strategy would lead to unbalanced forcing between the northern and southern …

A BBC film crew was detained after it breached the back gate of the top secret military facility known as Area 51 while filming a new documentary about UFO conspiracy theories. During the incident in the Nevada desert, a camouflage-dressed guard carrying an M-16 told a member of the British team, “We could make you disappear and your body will never be found,” according to a crew member. What exactly happened after guards thwarted the documentarians at the Nevada Air Force base is under debate. The film crew members alleged they were forced to lie on the ground at gunpoint for hours while law enforcement decided what to do. The local sheriff, who dispatched several officers to the scene, denies this account, saying the trespassers were dealt with swiftly. The chain of events at what’s officially called Nellis Air Force Base unfolded May 14 but details are only now surfacing, …

The Government will announce details this month of a controversial national identity scheme which will allow people to use their mobile phones and social media profiles as official identification documents for accessing public services. People wishing to apply for services ranging from tax credits to fishing licences and passports will be asked to choose from a list of familiar online log-ins, including those they already use on social media sites, banks, and large retailers such as supermarkets, to prove their identity. Once they have logged in correctly by computer or mobile phone, the site will send a message to the government agency authenticating that user’s identity. The Cabinet Office is understood to have held discussions with the Post Office, high street banks, mobile phone companies and technology giants ranging from Facebook and Microsoft to Google, PayPal and BT. Ministers are anxious that the identity programme is not denounced as a …