This Rose Parade marks a major step for a young float designer

Charles Meier pulled his first all nighter when he was 11 years old. His mother found him asleep in a flower box.It was the...

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In Memoriam: 9 Tech Titans Who Died in 2012

"We made machines for the masses," said Jack Tramiel, the founder of the company that gave the world the Commodore 64. Then he nodded to the man sitting beside him, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. "They made machines for the classes." The year was 2007, and Tramiel was on stage at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Commodore 64, a machine...

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Kanye West, Kim Kardashian expecting 1st child

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — A kid for Kimye: Kanye West and Kim Kardashian are expecting their first child.The rapper announced at a concert Sunday night that his girlfriend is pregnant. He told the crowd of more than 5,000 at Revel Resort‘s Ovation Hall in song form: “Now you having my baby.”The crowd roared. And so did people on the Internet.The news instantly went viral on Twitter and Facebook,...

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Chinese Firm Is Cleared to Buy American DNA Sequencing Company

Ramin Rahimian for The New York TimesDNA sequencing machines at Complete Genomics in California. The firm dismissed concerns about its acquisition. The federal government has given national security clearance to the controversial purchase of an American DNA sequencing company by a Chinese firm. The Chinese firm, BGI-Shenzhen, said in a statement this weekend that its acquisition of Complete...

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Bits Blog: Ryan Block: Why I'm Quitting Instagram

The flap over Instagram’s changing its terms of service has not died down even weeks after its announcement and subsequent partial reversal. People are still arguing whether Instagram’s photographers will stay loyal to the service. Ryan Block, former editor in chief of AOL’s Engadget and the co-founder of the popular tech community site gdgt.com, writes in a guest post for Bits about his reasons for...

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Immigration reform could get overshadowed in Congress

WASHINGTON — The window to pass immigration laws next year is narrowing as the effort competes with a renewed debate over gun...

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Wired Science Space Photo of the Day: Hidden Flames

This composite image combines EIT images from three wavelengths (171Å, 195Å and 284Å) into one that reveals solar features unique to each wavelength. Since the EIT images come to us from the spacecraft in black and white, they are color coded for easy identification. For this image, the nearly simultaneous images from May 1998 were each given a color code (red, yellow...

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Hot spots draw believers, but not doomsday

As the sun rose from time zone to time zone across the world on Friday, there was still no sign of the world’s end — but that didn’t stop those convinced that a 5,125-year Mayan calendar predicts the apocalypse from gathering at some of the world’s purported survival hot spots.Many of the esoterically inclined expected a new age of consciousness — others wanted a party. But, in some places said to...

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Elwood V. Jensen, Pioneer in Breast Cancer Treatment, Dies at 92

Tony Jones/Cincinnati Enquirer, via Associated PressElwood V. Jensen in 2004. Elwood V. Jensen, a medical researcher whose studies of steroid hormones led to new treatments for breast cancer that have been credited with saving or extending hundreds of thousands of lives, died on Dec. 16 in Cincinnati. He was 92. The cause was complications of pneumonia, his son, Thomas Jensen, said. ...

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Senate Leaders Racing to Beat Fiscal Deadline

WASHINGTON — Senate leaders and their aides spent Saturday searching for a formula to extend tax cuts for most Americans that could win bipartisan support in the Senate and final approval in the fractious House by the new year, hoping to prevent large tax increases and budget cuts that could threaten the fragile economy. As part of the last-minute negotiations, the lawmakers were haggling...

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Medical board appeals to public to combat prescription overdoses

In an appeal for the public's help in stemming the epidemic of prescription drug deaths, the Medical Board of California is...

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Ambitious Tome Chronicles the Rise of a New Urbanist Community

Visions of Seaside is an upcoming 608-page hardcover book that documents how the theory of New Urbanism was put into practice in the construction of a small town in Florida in 1981. The book will contain over 1,000 drawings, photographs and diagrams created for Seaside, the first fully New Urbanist town, along with academic essays by Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture...

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Stahl arrested for investigation of lewd conduct

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles police say actor Nick Stahl has been arrested for investigation of lewd conduct.The 33-year-old “Terminator 3″ star was arrested about 8 p.m. Thursday on Hollywood Boulevard. He was booked on a misdemeanor count of lewd conduct and released from custody.The Los Angeles Times reports (http://lat.ms/YU6uBO) that Stahl was arrested at an adult movie shop during a routine...

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Senate Leaders Set to Work on a Last-Minute Tax Agreement

Luke Sharrett for The New York TimesIn a televised statement at the White House after meeting with Congressional leaders on Friday, President Obama said he was “modestly optimistic” that an agreement could be reached. WASHINGTON — At the urging of President Obama, the Democratic and Republican leaders of the Senate set to work Friday night to assemble a last-minute tax deal that could pass both chambers...

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Fiscal standoff leaves U.S. payrolls in doubt

WASHINGTON — If the nation goes over the "fiscal cliff," some Americans will wake up Tuesday with financial headaches to rival...

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12 Tech Moments of 2012 That Made You Say 'WTF?'

The tech world never ceases to amaze. Sometimes, people build amazing things. And sometimes, the people who build amazing things do other stuff that leaves your jaw on the floor. Some of it's good. Some of it is oh so very bad. And some of it is just plain weird. Here, we give you our 12 most amazing tech moments of 2012. (Click on the images above.) Yes, you'll get all kinds. The good. The bad....

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R&B singer Brandy engaged to music executive

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – R&B singer and actress Brandy Norwood is engaged to music executive Ryan Press, a spokeswoman for the singer said on Thursday.This will be the first marriage for the singer, who goes by the moniker Brandy. Press is an executive with music publisher Warner/Chappell Music. A date for the wedding has not been announced publicly.Norwood, 33, has a 10-year-old daughter with...

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The New Old Age Blog: United States Lags in Alzheimer's Support

This month, the United States Senate Special Committee on Aging released a report examining how five nations — the United States, Australia, France, Japan and Britain — are responding to growing numbers of older adults with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.Every country has a strategy, but some are much further ahead than others. Notably, France began addressing Alzheimer’s disease and dementia in...

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China Toughens Its Restrictions on Use of the Internet

HONG KONG — The Chinese government issued new rules on Friday requiring Internet users to provide their real names to service providers, while assigning Internet companies greater responsibility for deleting forbidden postings and reporting them to the authorities. The decision came as government censors have sharply stepped up restrictions on China’s international Internet traffic in recent...

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A risky return to the U.S.

The barrilero never stops moving.All day he wheels cardboard barrels stuffed with used clothing through the narrow aisles of...

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New Year's Resolutions From 10 Top Minds and Makers

Every New Year people around the globe resolve to get healthy by joining gyms, eating better and quitting the detrimental habits that we complain about for the remaining eleven and a half months. We applaud those efforts, but propose that in 2013, we don't just work on our waistlines, but on our hacking, coding, soldering and making skills as well. We've gathered 10 DIY experts to get their proposed...

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Billy Crystal channels real-life role in “Parental Guidance”

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – After a decade away from the big screen, funnyman Billy Crystal has mined his real-life experiences as a grandfather and is back in the holiday season movie “Parental Guidance.”The film, which opened in U.S. theaters on Christmas, stars Crystal as a recently fired baseball announcer, who agrees to watch his three grandchildren with his wife (Bette Midler), while his daughter...

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Creating the Ultimate Housework Workout

Robert Wright for The New York TimesChris Ely, an English butler, and Carol Johnson, a fitness instructor at Crunch NYC, perfecting a houseworkout. CAN housework help you live longer? A New York Times blog post by Gretchen Reynolds last month cited research linking vigorous activity, including housework, and longevity. The study, which tracked the death rates of British civil servants, was the latest...

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