Yetis are real? Geneticist offers a plausible explanation

A alleged Yeti scalp on display at the Khumjung Monastery in Nepal.

(Credit: Nuno Nogueira)

The Yeti, Bigfoot's cold-climate cousin, is back in the limelight. There's no mysterious giant footprint or shaky video footage, but there is a well-regarded British geneticist at the center of it all. Bryan Sykes, a professor of human genetics at the University of Oxford, is featured in an upcoming documentary called "Bigfoot Files" on Channel 4 in the UK.

Ahead of the show's October 20 debut, Channel 4 released the news that Sykes conducted DNA research on hair samples purported to be from Yetis. What he claims to have found is a genetic match for an ancient polar bear.

The two hair samples came from different areas in the Himalayas, but matched up genetically with a 40,000-year-old polar bear jawbone found in Norway.

"This is an exciting and completely unexpected result that gave us all a surprise," Sykes said.

Full article here.

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When will the iPhone 6 be launched?

The iPhone 5S is upon us so we're naturally wondering when the iPhone 6 will come out. Here's all you need to know about the rumoured iPhone 6 release date, specs and new features.

Read more: http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/mobile-phone/3436742/iphone-6-release-date-new-features/#ixzz2hzc5k5yA

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How IBM is making computers more like your brain. For real

ZURICH, Switzerland -- Despite a strong philosophical connection, computers and brains inhabit separate realms in research. IBM, though, believes the time is ripe to bring them together.

Through research projects expected to take a decade, Big Blue is using biological and manufactured forms of computing to learn about the other.

On the computing side, IBM is using the brain as a template for breakthrough designs such as the idea of using fluids both to cool the machine and to distribute electrical power. That could enable processing power that's densely packed into 3D volumes rather than spread out across flat 2D circuit boards with slow communication links.

And on the brain side, IBM is supplying computing equipment to a $1.3 billion European effort called the Human Brain Project. It uses computers to simulate the actual workings of an entire brain -- a mouse's first, then a human's -- all the way down to the biochemical level of the neuron. Researchers will be able to tweak parameters as the simulation is running to try to figure out core mechanisms for conditions like Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, and autism.

Full article here.

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iPhone 5s pitted against iPhone 5 in stunning camera showdown

It might be more than a year old now, but Apple’s iPhone 5 still has one of the most impressive cameras that has ever been included on a cell phone. In terms of color reproduction and clarity, the iPhone 5 pushed mobile photography to a whole new level. With the iPhone 5s, however, Apple claimed that it made its 8-megapixel camera even more impressive. Early tests suggested that there are indeed some noticeable improvements and an in-depth iPhone 5s camera review came to some pretty impressive conclusions. But we still hadn’t seen a thorough review from a well-respected photographer comparing the iPhone 5s camera to the one on the iPhone 5 — until now.

Via Engadget, travel photographer Austin Mann recently pitted the iPhone 5s camera against the camera from Apple’s previous-generation iPhone 5 while trekking around Patagonia recently. “We climbed mountains, hiked to glaciers, slept in the wilderness… all the while documenting it with these two awesome little camera phones,” Mann wrote.

The resulting shots are absolutely stunning, but they also provide a fantastic and in-depth comparison of the cameras on the 5s and 5. Standard shots and panoramas were taken and compared, and the results are pretty clear… but we won’t spoil the review.

Source:

Austin Mann

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Apple iPhone 5s Vs. 5c: Why The Budget iPhone 5 Is Underperforming In Sales

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) was faced with an interesting predicament last year: The iPhone 5 cost more than $200 to make, but when that model would see its inevitable price drop in 2013 -- in time for the release of the iPhone 5 successor, the iPhone 5s -- Apple would effectively lose money by selling last year’s iPhone for less than $100.

Apple’s solution? Make the iPhone 5 cheaper to build, and thus cheaper to sell. In other words, create a new iPhone that could perform the same as the iPhone 5, and even look similar to the iPhone 5, but build the phone with different, cheaper materials. That phone ended up being called the iPhone 5c, and analysts believeApple saves at least $30 producing each iPhone 5c compared to the iPhone 5.

The iPhone 5c strategy made a great deal of sense for Apple: The iPhone 5 was a hit amongst consumers, so if the company sold the same phone experience, but cheaper to build at a cheaper price, it would be a win for both consumers andApple. To sweeten the deal, Apple would even offer to sell the iPhone 5c in anarray of colors, which would hopefully propel the new iPhone in the same way the iPod enjoyed a second wind in the early 2000s with the release of the colorfuliPod Mini.

Unfortunately for Apple, it seems the iPhone 5c is not performing as well as hoped. In the month since the two phones’ Sept. 20 release date, the more expensive iPhone 5s has reportedly outsold the iPhone 5c. In the first week,Boston-based Localytics said the iPhone 5s was roughly 3.4 times more popularin the U.S. than the iPhone 5c, and roughly 3.7 times more popular internationally. On Monday, Consumer Intelligence Research Partners told AllThingsD the iPhone 5s has been outselling the iPhone 5c by more than a two-to-one margin, adding the iPhone 5s accounted for 64 percent of new iPhone sales and the iPhone 5c for just 27 percent. Apple will not release any specific statistics regarding iPhone sales.

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