Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, wader, Man Oh Man, rfall, and JML9999. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Interceptor7, BentLiberal, Oke and jlms qkw. The guest editor is annetteboardman.
Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
BBC
Dozens dead in Russian plane crash
A passenger plane has crashed at an airport in the Russian city of Kazan, killing all 50 people on board.
The Boeing 737 had taken off from Moscow and was trying to land but exploded on impact at about 19:20 local time (15:20 GMT), officials said.
The Emergencies Ministry said there were 44 passengers and six crew members on the Tatarstan Airlines flight.
Investigators are now looking at whether a technical failure or crew error may have caused the crash.
Investigative committee official Vladimir Markin told Rossiya 24 TV that experts were checking whether poor quality fuel and weather conditions could have been contributing factors.
It was raining in Kazan when the aircraft crashed.
BBC
US offers $10m bounty for Benghazi attackers
The US has been quietly offering as much as $10m (£6.2m) since January for information about the attack on a diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya.
The state department confirmed the reward in a letter to a Republican lawmaker who questioned them about it.
The appeal had not been published on its Rewards of Justice site because of security concerns, the department said.
Four Americans, including the US ambassador to Libya, died in the attack on 11 September 2012.
Republicans in Congress have accused President Barack Obama and the state department of initially playing down the attack, as well as lax
at US diplomatic outposts.
"Due to security issues and sensitivities surrounding the investigation, the event-specific reward offer has not been publicly advertised on the RFJ website," the department said in a statement. "RFJ tools can be utilised in a variety of ways, without publicising them on the website."
BBC
Nazi-looted art: German collector says he owns pictures
The German owner of more than 1,400 art works, many believed to have been stolen by the Nazis, says he will not give them up voluntarily
Cornelius Gurlitt, who inherited the hoard, told Der Spiegel magazine the paintings were "acquired legally".
Investigations are continuing to establish who the original owners might be.
The haul, estimated to be worth $1.35bn (£846m), was discovered in Mr Gurlitt's apartment last year.
The trove includes works, long thought to have been lost or destroyed, by Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Otto Dix and Max Liebermann.
Art experts say many of the paintings and sketches, some unframed, are of exceptional quality.
The works were discovered in Mr Gurlitt's home in March 2012 during a routine tax inspection.
BBC
Brazil says Amazon deforestation rose 28% in a year
Brazil says the rate of deforestation in the Amazon increased by 28% between August 2012 and last July, after years of decline.
The government is working to reverse this "crime", Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira said.
Activists have blamed the increase in destruction on a controversial reform to Brazil's forest protection law.
Last year Brazil reported the lowest rate of deforestation in the Amazon since monitoring began.
The provisional statistics from August 2012 to last July suggest that the area suffering deforestation was 5,843 sq km (2,255 sq miles), compared to 4,571 sq km (1,765 sq miles) in the previous 12 months.
The 28% rise interrupts a period of declining deforestation which began in 2009. However, it still remains the second lowest annual figure for forest loss in absolute terms.
The worst year on record was 2004, when 27,000 sq km of forest was destroyed.
CNet
Wishful thinking at the highest levels
Scientist: Quantum physics can prove there's an
afterlife
If there's a choice between an afterlife and nothing at all, I'd plump for the former.
It gives us a peculiar kind of hope that there is more. And, in America, we know that more is always better.
Discussions surrounding the afterlife tend to focus on belief. One scientist, however, is suggesting that there might be firm evidence of a great beyond.
Professor Robert Lanza, adjunct professor at the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University, is a proponent of biocentrism.
This turns our idea of the universe on its head. Instead of imagining that it's the universe that creates life, the idea is that the universe is a product of our own consciousness of it.
The Independent has thrust my consciousness toward Lanza's Web site, which attempts to reprogram the way we see, well, everything.
Take death, for example. This "cannot exist in any real sense," he says. This is a relief, as it does seem frightfully real when you watch it happen.
CNN
The world is awash with cash
Dubai Airshow sees record $192 billion in orders on frenzied first day
Dubai, UAE (CNN) -- The biennial Dubai Airshow began Sunday with the Gulf region's major carriers announcing some of the biggest aviation deals in history.
There was as much speculation swirling around the size of the orders before the event as there was desert sand outside the nearby Al Maktoum airport.
However few predicted that $192.3 billion worth of deals for commercial jets (at list prices) would be announced on the first day -- a new record that has outstripped the orders from the entire 2007 airshow.
The region's three big players -- Etihad, Emirates and Qatar Airways -- announced orders for 393 new commercial planes. Boeing and Airbus shared the spoils, with high demand for the 777X, Boeing's next-generation version of the existing 777.
Raw Story
From replacement kidneys to guns, cars, prosthetics and works of art, 3D printing ‘will change the world’
From replacement kidneys to guns, cars, prosthetics and works of art, 3D printing is predicted to transform our lives in the coming decades as dramatically as the Internet did before it.
“I have no doubt it is going to change the world,” researcher James Craddock told AFP at the two-day 3D Printshow in Paris which wraps up later on Saturday.
A member of the 3D Printing Research Group (3DPRG) at the UK’s Nottingham University, Craddock nevertheless predicted that use of 3D printing would be limited.
“You wouldn’t want to make a cup from a 3D printer because it would probably fall apart, leak or poison you, but you would use it for high-value, beautiful items or replacement parts,” he said.
“The real revolutionary factor is industrial use,” he added.
The Guardian
Senator seeks to extend ban on 'undetectable' 3D-printed guns
As the technology to print 3D firearms advances, a federal law that banned the undetectable guns is about to expire. The New York senator Chuck Schumer says he is seeking an extension of the law before it expires on 9 December.
Schumer said the technology of so-called 3D printing has advanced to the point where anyone with $1,000 and an internet connection can access the plastic parts that can be fitted into a gun. Those firearms cannot be detected by metal detectors or x-ray machines. Schumer says that means anyone can download a gun cheaply, then take the weapons anywhere, including high-security areas.
The Democrat is pushing the extension along with Senators Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Bill Nelson of Florida. The effort was announced on Sunday.
3D technology has recently advanced to create handguns capable of shooting several shots, rather than just one, before it ceases to function. Schumer also says the guns can now be made with all plastic parts, and no metal. A blueprint for one such firearm was recently downloaded more than 100,000 times, Schumer says.
L A Times
Might as well watch on line; full moon is bright.
Leonid meteor shower peaks tonight: Watch online, right here
The Leonid meteor shower occurs each November when the Earth passes through a stream of debris left in the wake of comet Tempel-Tuttle. The icy comet orbits the sun once every 33 years, shedding dust and detritus as it zips through space. When bits of that detritus burn up in our planet's atmosphere, we see meteors.
The Leonids are considered one of the more dependable meteor showers of the year, delivering an average of 15 shooting stars per hour. Occaionally, they even produce meteor storms. For example, in 1966, observers reported seeing 1,000 meteors per minute for one, glorious, 15-minute period. There is no meteor storm expected this year, and unfortunately the moon will be almost totally full during the peak of the Leonids, and its light will drown out all but the brightest meteors.
L A Times
Toxic waste seems to naturally vanish from Palos Verdes Shelf
Decades after industrial waste dumping turned part of Southern California's seafloor into a toxic hot spot, scientists have dredged up a mystery.
Chemicals fouling the ocean off the Palos Verdes Peninsula seem to be going away without being cleaned up.
Samples taken from the sediment suggest more than 100 metric tons of the banned pesticide DDT and industrial compounds known as polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, have vanished from one of the country's most hazardous sites, almost a 90% drop in just five years.
Scientists are at a loss to explain the decline across the 17-square-mile site, which sits about 200 feet below the ocean surface and two miles off the Los Angeles County coast. The compounds break down very slowly. They have accumulated in the food web over decades, made some sport fish unsafe to eat and, until recently, rendered bald eagles on Santa Catalina Island unable to reproduce.
The Atlantic
I'm saving you money with this one….if you believe it.
Apple Cores Are a Myth
What do you think an apple core is? What's the thing we throw away?
It is a ghost. If you eat your apples whole, you are a hero to this ghost. If you do not, you are barely alive. Come experience vitality.
Earlier this year, in "How to Eat Apples Like a Boss," a video by Foodbeast, the Internet was promised the gift of confidence in apple-eating. Elie Ayrouth ate an apple starting at the bottom, proceeding to up to the top, and finishing with a wink to the camera, as bosses do. Eating as such, Foodbeast said, the core "disappears."
I do them one better and say that it never existed. The core is a product of society, man. There is a thin fibrous band, smaller in diameter than a pencil and not bad to the taste. If you eat your apple vertically, it is not noticeable.
The Raw Story
Why even atheists should be praying for Pope Francis
That Obama poster on the wall, promising hope and change, is looking a little faded now. The disappointments, whether over drone warfare or a botched rollout of healthcare reform, have left the world’s liberals and progressives searching for a new pin-up to take the US president’s place. As it happens, there’s an obvious candidate: the head of an organisation those same liberals and progressives have long regarded as sexist, homophobic and, thanks to a series of child abuse scandals, chillingly cruel. The obvious new hero of the left is the pope.
Only installed in March, Pope Francis has already become a phenomenon. His is the most talked-about name on the internet in 2013, ranking ahead of “Obamacare” and “NSA”. In fourth place comes Francis’s Twitter handle, @Pontifex. In Italy, Francesco has fast become the most popular name for new baby boys. Rome reports a surge in tourist numbers, while church attendance is said to be up – both trends attributed to “the Francis effect“.