At least those that smoke and live in Japan they are…
The BBC have a report on how Japanese cigarette vending machine companies are coping with a new law. (Did you know you have to be over 20 to buy fags there?!?). Anyway, pretty soon, any companies responsible for selling tobacco products to under age consumers [...]

If so, you may find cracked’s article on ‘The Awful Truth Behind 5 Items Probably On Your Grocery List‘ informative.
Some of the products are reasonably well know for their potential human rights issues, such as Coca Cola as well as Chiquita and Dole bananas, but I’d not heard about the issues Iams pet foods were [...]

No, not a serious piece on the issues mariners face in many areas of Asia and Africa, but instead links to a couple of articles on plans to punish those who download and share copyrighted material by withdrawing their access to the internet.
On one hand, we have the British government considering such plans, whilst members [...]

That would have been a truly shocking story to come across, wouldn’t it. Sadly, that isn’t the case; check here for details.

The Greek government had planned to give unmarried couples better rights, and whilst the Archbishop pictured above has publicly refused to comment on these plans, the synod has proclaimed in a sensationalist manner that [...]

Following on from the previous post, we have another article from the BBC on innovative ways to harvest power from activities people already carry out. This one is all about utilizing a potentially huge source of energy - children. As mothers everywhere will attest, kids can sometimes seem to run around all day, with no [...]

Check out this video from the BBC for a report on how Kazakhstan is aiming to revive its national identity. I have not heard any more news about the President’s aim to have the Kazakh language written with Latin style letters, rather than Cyrillic (???? ???? ??? ??????? :)), though other former Soviet-ruled territories have [...]

I’ve combined the following two news items into one post, as they are quite closely related. Firstly we have news of a dynamo that harvests the potential power we all generate, whenever we walk somewhere.

The principle involved with hybrid cars, where energy that would otherwise be wasted when you brake is recuperated, has been applied [...]

This is an arm wrestling arcade machine. The idea is simple, and definitely existed in English fair grounds for a long time. Put your money in the slot, and then try to impress your friends (or potential girlfriend ) by beating the machine.
Unfortunately, this particular model had to be withdrawn, following three separate incidents [...]

Although flexible silicon circuits have been around for a few years, the next stage has eluded scientists - until now. If you look at a basic circuit, with just some SMCs, such as transistors, resistors, capacitors and so on, then these can mostly be placed on a flexible base already. However, complex, multi-level ICs have [...]