Mercyvill

UK's first Bitcoin ATM STORY HIGHLIGHTS A cafe in London has installed the country's first Bitcoin ATM machine The machine takes money and dispenses Bitcoin which is then used to buy cakes and coffees Owner says the machine is one step further in controlling our own money (CNN) -- By now we're all familiar with the term Bitcoin, the notorious digital currency with dozens of copycats. But most of us would find it difficult to imagine actually using this crypto-currency or even picturing what it looks like. In fact, only a handful of venues in bustling London actually accept Bitcoin as a means of payment.

For Finns, Rovaniemi's location just north of the Arctic Circle is Christmas headquarters. Children make gingerbread cookies with Mrs. Claus, enroll in Elf School and write wish lists with a traditional quill. Several priests have recently told kids that Santa Claus isn't real Parents lash out at "killjoys" ruining the spirit of Christmas Jake Wallis Simons says it's all very well to have it as a make-believe tradition Many parents now go too far in fooling their kids into believing in him, he says London (CNN) -- Let's play spot the villain. On Monday, a group of children from Stalham Academy in Norfolk, UK, received an unexpected message in their Christmas sermon. The Reverend Margaret McPhee, a trainee vicar, shared with them the simple truth that Santa Claus doesn't exist . The real meaning of Christmas, she said, wasn't Santa, Barbie and Xboxes. It was a...

Pebble: E-Paper Watch for iPhone and Android: $10.3 million pledged of $100,000 goal, 68,929 backers -- Pebble is a minimalist watch that displays texts and emails, vibrates for each call and controls music playlists, among other features. 10 most-funded Kickstarter campaigns ever Want to launch a successful Kickstarter campaign? Here's how to do it Ryan Grepper raised $8 million for his Coolest Cooler Compelling design and the right timing are key, he says Experts say building a social media audience early is key

OLUBANKOLE WELLINGTON A.K.A BANKY W. Life and career Early life and career beginnings Wellington was born in the United States to Nigerian parents, but the family moved back to Lagos Nigeria when he was five years old where he began singing in his church choir at the age of 8. After completing his secondary school Education at Home Science Association Secondary School, he moved to New York to attend college on a scholarship; earning a degree in Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.While still in college, he won the 'Albany Idol' competition, which catapulted him into the spotlight. He overcame many personal trials and obstacles to quickly become an in-demand artist on the local music scene; performing alongside major acts on tour. He wowed audiences with his silky smooth voice while building a loyal following; he established the Empire Mates Entertainment (E.M.E.) record label as a platform to get his music to his fans and began work on an EP.

Where does body fat go when it's lost? Into the air, actually. xrender/Shutterstock This is where people think fat goes when it's "lost": Meerman/BMJ But! Most people are wrong, according to physicist Ruben Meerman and biochemist Andrew Brown . Their calculations were published yesterday in the British medical journal BMJ (hence "faeces" in their survey results above), where the authors profess that despite soaring rates of obesity, there is "surprising ignorance and confusion about the metabolic process of weight loss."

Some argue that a female sexual-dysfunction drug is a matter of equality among the sexes. Others say it creates a medical problem where none exists. Everett Collection/Sean Nel/Shutterstock/The Atlantic “Aren’t women’s sexual needs as important as erectile dysfunction in men?” To hear one side tell it, that’s the central issue in the debate over what’s known as “pink Viagra,” a sexual-dysfunction drug for women. Health organizations and the pharmaceutical industry say the absence of a female drug is a pressing problem that affects millions of relationships in the U.S. every year—and is the result of decades of inequality in scientific research. On the other hand, some researchers believe these groups, along with the drug industry, are creating a medical need where one doesn’t really exist, and that th...

The details of the new film's wardrobe aren't historically accurate, but its costumes successfully convey the glamour and decadence of the era for a 21st-century audience. Warner Brothers Feathered headpieces? Check. Long strings of beads? Check. More Brooks Brothers than a Princeton reunion? Check. Spectator shoes, cloche hats, and Bakelite bangles? Check, check, check. The Great Gatsby delivers the fashion clichés of the 1920s (and a few from other eras) that we expected to see. But they don't look quite as we expected to see them. The colors are richer, the dresses more bespangled, and the flappers less perky. This Gatsby isn't the Gatsby of John Held, Jr. cartoons , nor is it Boardwalk Empire . It's darker, grittier, and much sexier than the priggish Fitzgerald could have imagined. It's a 21st century Gatsb y, set in the 1920s, which, paradoxically, ups its connection to the decadent period it depicts. If you want historically accurat...

How psychology, gender roles, and design explain the distinctive way we behave in the world's stalls. Shutterstock When Oprah Winfrey served on a Chicago jury in 2004, she couldn’t go to the bathroom attached to the jury room unless her fellow jurors sang to drown out the noise. One of the songs they sang was Kumbaya. When Alexis Sanchez used the bathroom in her college dorm, she brought her iPod with her. “I would blast it,” she says. “I would play 'D. A. N. C. E.' by Justice, and some Maroon 5 song. That was my poop playlist. It had to be a ritual or else I would focus too much on if there were other girls there who could hear or smell what was happening.” Sanchez, now a 22-year-old front-end web developer for the Tampa Bay Times , ...

Continue reading the main story Fat can be breathed out as well as burned off as you lose weight, biochemists who have studied metabolism at a microscopic level say. But they warn that people still need to huff and puff with exercise to keep slim - hyperventilating on its own will not do the trick. The Australian team traced the route of fat out of the body as atoms. Their findings are published in the Christmas edition of the British Medical Journal. Continue reading the main story “ Start Quote These results show that the lungs are the primary excretory organ for weight loss” The study authors When fat is broken down to its constituent parts, a couple of things happen. Chemical bonds are broken, a process which releases heat and fuel to power muscles.

Continue reading the main story The rules for creating babies from three people - which state only two would be classed as parents - have been announced by the UK government. The fertility technique uses material from the mother, father and a donor woman to prevent deadly diseases. MPs will soon vote on whether to make the UK the first country in the world to legalise the procedure. Opponents say it is unethical to make babies with DNA from three people and that it represents a "slippery slope" . The UK scientists that have led the research hope to offer the procedure next year.

Have you ever looked at a mound of brown-green, slimy seaweed and thought, gee – I wonder what it’s like to sit in a tub filled with that stuff? Probably not. Few people do. The Irish, however, have been making the most of seaweed since the 12th Century, when monks would harvest a type of seaweed known as dillisk from the rocky coastline and distribute it among the poor for nourishment. Later, it was used to replace chewing tobacco, to eliminate parasitic worms and – apparently – quell “women’s longing”. I could understand that: the stench of fresh seaweed washed ashore is enough to quash any desires I have too.

Our boat pulled in about two hours before sunset, when the disappearing light was turning the Mediterranean Sea from sapphire to aquamarine and the descending shadows were creeping up the imposing rock walls that isolate Butterfly Valley. The beach was nearly empty and the water was calm enough to skip stones across. As the sun finally lowered itself into the sea, I dove in with it, floating on what looked like liquid sunshine. Located on Turkey’s famous, 500km Lycian Way and only accessible by water, the 86,000sqm Butterfly Valley is home to roughly 100 species of butterflies, including the endemic orange, black and white Jersey Tiger. A waterfall that cascades from the 350m-high back canyon wall eventually becomes a gentle river, watering the lavender-flowered native chaste trees: the butterflies’ natural habitat. The Turkish government named the valley a preservation area in 1987 to protect the butterflies and local flora ­– a distinction that has protected the val...

The chance discovery of a mystery rock wrapped inside a diamond has made scientists question how our oceans formed – and what might be lurking beneath our feet… Minerals preserved in diamond have revealed hints of the bright blue rocks that exist deep within the Earth. We know more about the surface of Mars than we do the mantle of the planet we live on. As little as 30kms (19 miles) below the surface – the distance between the centre of London and Heathrow Airport – the continental crust turns into the Earth’s mantle, a layer some 2,900km (1,800 miles) thick that surrounds the Earth’s molten outer core.

For three years, a group of researchers has been cataloging incidents like the kidnapping of schoolgirls in Chibok. A map of violent incidents in Nigeria during the week of April 12-17, when more than 200 schoolgirls were kidnapped in Borno State. (Nigeria Security Tracker) One month ago, as people around the world celebrated Holy Week and Passover, Nigeria suffered its "worst week for violence and carnage" since the country's 1967-70 civil war, according to John Campbell, a former U.S. ambassador to the country. The incidents appeared in the grisly keyword search they'd set up to track violence in Nigeria: "Boko Haram," "kill," "killed," "dead," "death," "violence," "raid," "robbers," "gun," "bomb," "gunmen," "attack." Yes, more than 200 girl...

On Day 12 of WikiLeaks's release of U.S. State Department cables, the daily drip, drip, drip of diplomatic secrets implicated the pharmaceutical industry. The company was Pfizer, the country was Nigeria, and the context was the long-simmering, still-bitter aftermath of the drug giant's quick-and-dirty 1996 trials of an experimental antibiotic for children during a devastating meningitis outbreak. A truly chilling cautionary tale of industry-funded clinical trials in the developing world, this event is recalled in the West mainly as the inspiration for John le Carré's evil-pharma thriller The Constant Gardener . The cables suggest that the world's largest drugmaker may have blackmailed the head of Nigeria's Ministry of Justice into dropping a $6 billion criminal lawsuit. The 1996 meningitis emergency in northern Nigeria presented Pfizer with a golden opportunity : to test its then-promising broad-spectrum antibiotic, Trovan, in children. Pedia...

(Shutterstock*) Four years after the uprisings that broke the mold of the old Middle East, 2015 promises to be another year of tumultuous change. The eruptions of 2011 unleashed decades of pent-up tensions and dysfunction in the political, socioeconomic, and cultural spheres; these dynamics will take many years, if not decades, to play themselves out and settle into new paradigms and equilibriums. In 2014, four Arab countries—Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen—sank decisively into the ranks of failed states with no longer any effective central authority over the expanse of national territory. ISIS arose as the largest radical threat in the region’s modern history, challenging political borders and order and proposing political identities and governance paradigms. Sunni-Shi’i conflict intensified throughout the Levant and reached Yemen; an intra-Sunni conflict also pitted supporters and opponents of the Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt rebuked its previously...