A Nijmegen professor has won an Ig Nobel Prize for his study of dirty banknotes. He discovered that Romanian banknotes hold almost all bacteria the longest, while notes from Croatia and India are surprisingly clean. The Ig Nobel Prizes are meant for research that first makes you laugh and then makes you think. They were awarded last night at Harvard …

September 12 is the International Day of Migraine. A good thing that this day is there, thinks neurologist and migraine expert professor Gisela Terwindt. Because despite the fact that 18 percent of men and 33 percent of women have it, there is a big taboo on brain disease. Eight questions about migraine You say there is a taboo on migraine. …

The hurricane Dorian crossed the Bahamas on Sunday night. The eye of the storm has now passed the Abaco Islands. Wind speeds of up to 295 kilometers per hour are measured. This makes Dorian one of the toughest hurricanes to ever hit the US coast. The hurricane is heading for the US state of Florida, where thousands of people have …

The sexual preferences of people are partly determined by genes, but there is not one specific gene that makes someone homosexual, a large study shows. Nearly half a million people participated in the study, about which the renowned scientific journal Science published yesterday. Previous studies among twins and family members had already shown that sexual preference is genetically influenced, but …

An Australian woman experienced the horror of her life when she walked through her house and suddenly saw a giant spider on the wall. Laree Clarke did not want to hurt the animal, but rather did not want it in her house and she called on the internet for help. “Is there anyone who could remove this from my house,” …

As of 1 September 2020, Google will stop using the Google Hire platform, the recruitment system it launched two years ago. Google states on the website that, “although Hire is successful”, it has to focus on other products in the Google Cloud Portfolio. The service has been developed to make it easier to recruit new employees by, among other things, …

Facebook has hired people from outside to write and check transcripts of audio clips in Messenger. This happened in certain cases without the participants in the conversation being aware of this. Facebook says that it has since stopped. Bloomberg reports this based on sources and Facebook has confirmed to the news agency that it stopped this practice more than a …

In the Pairi Daiza Belgian zoo a giant panda twin is born. The zoo, which is situated 40 kilometers southwest of Brussels, has reported on Facebook that panda-mother Hao Hao has given birth to twins in good health. Father Xing Hui and brother Tian Bao would also be delighted. The panda couple Xing Hui and Hao Hao were lent by …

One meter high and with its seven kilos much too heavy to fly. A new strange bird has been discovered in New Zealand. The animal has been extinct for 19 million years, but with its huge body it must have been the largest parrot ever. It is not surprising that such a huge bird is found in New Zealand. The …

North Korean cyber experts have illegally captured an estimated 2 billion euros with cyber attacks. The country invests that stolen money in the North Korean nuclear weapons program. The United Nations comes to that conclusion in a report, which is in the hands of AP and Reuters news agencies. According to the report, North Korea is hacking banks and stock …