Sapphire's HD 4850 TOXIC Finally Lands
	We had to wait quite some time before we finally got to see the latest Sapphire graphics card, but chances are it may have all been worth it. Of course, we are talking about the highly anticipated HD 4850 TOXIC Edition, a card that has been so hyped that it should practically sell the moment it hits the store shelves. Or, at least, this is what Sapphire is hoping as far as its latest product is concerned. As expected, the new ... [read more >>]
	17 July 2008, 06:29GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Sapphire's Toxic HD 4850 to Arrive Soon
	These past few days, graphics card maker Sapphire has been showered with quite some attention from the online media, and that happened especially ever since AMD unleashed the new RV770-based graphics card lineup. But Sapphire is also expected to release a card based on AMD's mid-range HD 4850 GPU, which is said to provide a whole new Radeon performance level, when compared with other HD 4850-based cards. Bearing a name th ... [read more >>]
	10 July 2008, 04:43GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The "Technology" of the Bombardier Beetle Has Been Explained
	The chemical war is far from being invented by people. It has been employed for over 100 Ma by the bombardier beetles, over 500 species, included in the Carabidae family - tribes Brachinini, Paussini, Ozaenini, or Metriini. They can fire a mixture of chemicals from special glands in their posterior. The beetles use a pair ... [read more >>]
	02 April 2008, 04:17GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Secret of Arrested Human Animation Is in Rotten Eggs and Farts
	You might have seen the trick in SF movies: hibernating space navigators go to their target locations, located at distances of light years, while asleep, in an arrested animation, just like bacteria and tardigrades do. But an arrested metabolism could save lives not only in space, but on Earth too. ... [read more >>]
	28 March 2008, 18:21GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Snakes Neutralize Voodoo Poison
	Newts and salamanders may look cute and helpless, but you'd be surprised to know that they produce one of the most powerful toxins for protection in the amphibian world. Still, the common garter snakes (Thamnophis sirtalis) of North America indulge in rough-skinned newts (Taricha granulosa), considered the most poisonous amphibians in the world: the venom of just one animal, 12 to 22 cm (5-9 in) long can kill 12 people. The poison is ... [read more >>]
	20 March 2008, 05:33GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Is the Killer Alga that Deadly?
	The discovery of the tropical alga Caulerpa taxifolia in the Mediterranean Sea, at the end of the '80s, triggered a great warning signal. The "killer alga" was declared "harmful for the Mediterranean ecosystem", and its rapid reproduction an "ecological catastrophe". The alga appeared to have escaped from the Monaco Aquarium. The next decade meant a fearsome fight against the killer alga: we ... [read more >>]
	25 February 2008, 08:57GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Top 15 NASA's Plants That Can Save Your Life!
	The world we live in is full of synthetic chemicals, most of which are toxic. They are encountered from our food to all the objects we touch. No wonder the explosion of Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) cases (see: http://news.softpedia.com/news/The-Disease-of-the-Technology-MCS-74254.shtml). But if you think that contamination is something occurring outdoor, you're awfully wrong. The "technology toxins" stalk inside your ... [read more >>]
	09 February 2008, 07:07GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Four Facts About Fungi
	1. In Eastern Europe and Italy, mushroom harvesting is a tradition, and the annual number of intoxication cases and deaths is high. Dishes based on wild mushrooms are something common, but there are about 250 species of toxic mushrooms growing in Europe. The most dangerous are death cap (Amanita phalloides) and destroying angel (Amanita virosa), which can cause death if ingested. 2. Which is the world's largest living organism? Yo ... [read more >>]
	03 December 2007, 14:16GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Why Does Imported Chinese Pet Food Kill Cats and Dogs?
	There may be an economical boom in China, but do cheap products respect consumers' life? After toxic compounds were found in Chinese toothpaste and so-called "herbal drugs", now the cause of the toxicity of pet food brought from China has been explained by an UC Davis team in a research published in the Journal of Veterinary Diagnostic Investigation: a deadly combination of melamine and cyanuric acid causes kidney failure in ... [read more >>]
	29 November 2007, 04:22GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Beethoven Died of Lead Poisoning!
	Even if Beethoven was deaf, he ‘listened’ to his doctor. But this proved even worse, as his doctor poisoned him. With lead. A Viennese forensic expert shows that the composer’s physician unwittingly overdosed the genius with the toxic metal. It was clear that the master had been very ill years before his death in 1827, at the age of 57. Previous analyses showed that Beethoven had experienced lead poisoning, with high levels of the toxin in ... [read more >>]
	30 August 2007, 06:11GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Why Does Drinking Bottled Water Represent an Environmental and Health Risk?
	Plastic is everywhere around us, and nowadays we almost drink from nothing else than plastic containers. It's so fancy to carry with you a plastic bottle and drink your water / juice / soda little by little. But while US bottled water sales are going up by an annual 9.7 %, on a market estimated at approximately $11 billion, amassing at the same pace mountains of tossed plastics, alarm calls are made for people to go back to drinki ... [read more >>]
	16 August 2007, 07:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Mushrooms Gene Decoding Will Lead to Better and Cheaper Biofuels
	Mushrooms are yummy but sometimes they can be more than that. That's why a team at the University of Warwick is co-ordinating a global effort to achieve the genome sequencing of the most important mushrooms for the westerners: button or common mushroom (Agaricus bisporus). Decoding the genetic make up of the mushrooms could lead to the processing of biofuels, support the effort to manage global carbon and help cleanse he ... [read more >>]
	18 July 2007, 04:14GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

About 4,000 Toxic Chemicals Are Found in the Air We Breathe
	The chlorine insecticides, like DDT, are known to move through the food chain and to make bald eagle lay paper thin shelled eggs or poison the milk of the Inuit (Eskimo) women. The amounts thrown on the fields may look minute but once these carcinogens enter the food chain in small levels, starting with the microscopic algae, it binds to the fat molecules and reaches an increasingly higher concentration (a process named biomagnification) w ... [read more >>]
	13 July 2007, 05:10GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The 'Gulf War Syndrome' Is Caused by Gas Sarin
	Gulf War Syndrome characterizes a complex of physical and mental symptoms affecting150,000 Gulf War veterans. The syndrome was largely dismissed by doctors but now it appears increasingly evident that it could have been provoked by low-level exposure to the poisonous gas sarin, famous due to its employment by the Aum Shinrykio member in the subway of Tokyo in 1995. The government researchers discovered changes in the brain’s white ... [read more >>]
	19 May 2007, 07:04GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Sapphire HD 2900XT TOXIC Edition With Two Water Coolers
	A few days ago I mentioned that water cooled ATI HD 2900XT versions are expected to be available in two weeks time. However, Sapphire doesn't seem to like the waiting part and already announces its own water cooled solution: the HD 2900XT TOXIC edition. Known for its quality water cooling systems, Sapphire extends the TOXIC family with the addition of ATI's latest top-of-the-line graphics cards. The Sapphire HD2900XT TOXIC edi ... [read more >>]
	15 May 2007, 09:01GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

You Stink, But I'll Eat You
	In the constant struggle between prey and predators, plants can employ the most disgusting chemical methods to keep away vegetarians. Even so, co-evolution can make herbivores bypass these defenses. Such is the case of a species of fruit fly, Drosophila sechellia, for example, which enjoys the fruit of a Polynesian shrub named Tahitian Noni (Morinda citrifolia) or "vomit fruit", alluding to its flavor. Other Drosophila flies ... [read more >>]
	01 May 2007, 17:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Great Peril from Arsenic Fed Chicken Meat!
	This is the symbol of death. Since Middle Ages, arsenic and its compounds are known as especially powerful toxins. In large doses, arsenic impairs ATP production and the citric acid cycle, thus inhibiting cell respiration while increased hydrogen peroxide rises the oxidative stress. Arsenic poisoning is induces by multi-system organ failure caused by cell death. Post mortem autopsies reveal massive hemorrhage in t ... [read more >>]
	10 April 2007, 08:35GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The "New Car Smell" Proven Not to Be Harmful
	You know the specific chemical plastic aroma emitted by any new car... These odors are regularly emitted from plastics, synthetic fabrics, upholstery, carpets, adhesives, paints, cleaning materials and other sources and are volatile organic chemicals. Only a small percentage of these volatile organic molecules are obvious; the rest are odorless. This smell makes us nervous but breathe easy: a new research at the Technical Univers ... [read more >>]
	10 April 2007, 04:31GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

What Is Homeopathy?
	Each day, more persons accusing chronic pains turn their attention to the mysterious homeopathy. In countries like Germany, France or UK, 30-70 % of the patients have visited at least once a homeopath. This science was developed by the German physician Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843) and is not a natural medicine, like many believe. Homeopathy is based on the principle emitted by Hippocrates (460-337 BC), a Greek physician that sa ... [read more >>]
	06 April 2007, 09:48GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Why Honey Is Not Poisonous?
	They say a rose can be venomous... Even if a beautiful woman can have a nasty character, there are indeed beautiful flowers that can be toxic. And if the nectar from these flowers would reach the honey you enjoy every morning ... It is still a puzzle for the researchers why many spring flowers displaying bright advertisements for sweet rewards to lure honeybees would try to poison them with poisonous nectars. Even some commo ... [read more >>]
	02 April 2007, 05:14GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How Do the Organisms Cope with the Toxic Heavy Metals?
	Today, the problem of bioacumulation of heavy metals in the organisms is severe. Copper, cadmium, zinc, tin, mercury are found in the anthropic or human affected ecosystems in levels that are 10 times higher than in nature. Heavy metals abound around us in tiles (rich in cadmium and zinc), fertilizers (copper), pesticides (mercury), gas (lead) and so on. Even stable systems, like high power lines, contaminate the surrounding terrains w ... [read more >>]
	23 March 2007, 11:50GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

... Achieve the Best Natural Adhesive
	You could be amazed by what mussels can do. These mollusks live in seas and freshwaters. Scientists are fascinated since ever by how these beings attach themselves to the rocks. The animals can resist to the power of the waves or hungry predators and are almost impossible to pull out. How do they do it? When the young mussels establish in a site, they put out their tongue-shaped foot and through a channel along their foot slide a ... [read more >>]
	15 March 2007, 12:12GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia