Lights go out across planet for Earth Hour

Lights were going out across the world on Saturday as millions of homes and businesses in major cities went dark for one hour in a symbolic gesture to highlight concerns over climate change. In Australia, floodlights of the Sydney Opera House were extinguished as the city’s iconic harbor kicked off events for Earth Hour, a day-long energy-saving marathon stretching through 88 countries and 24 time zones.

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‘Monsters’ promotes girl power, friend power

The latest 3-D animated movie involves the possible extinction of the human race and features a mad scientist with the head of a cockroach, a prehistoric half-ape/half-fish, a 50-foot-tall woman (OK, 49-foot-11), and a blue brainless blob named B.O.B. And they’re the good guys

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Desperate Japanese head to ‘suicide forest’

Aokigahara Forest is known for two things in Japan: breathtaking views of Mount Fuji and suicides. Also called the Sea of Trees, this destination for the desperate is a place where the suicidal disappear, often never to be found in the dense forest. Taro, a 46-year-old man fired from his job at an iron manufacturing company, hoped to fade into the blackness.

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Drowning islands warn of future perils for ‘environmental refugees’

There is one holiday destination that should shake the faith of even the most vehement climate change skeptic: the Carteret Islands, part of Papua New Guinea, located northeast of Bougainville. The palm trees sway gently under a balmy sun, the beaches are perfect, and stretched out as far as the eye can see is the wide blue of the Pacific Ocean.

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Army Robots: Will Humans Still Be in Control?

Is the day approaching when the U.S. military can deploy a robot that can drive itself around a corner, use senors to detect an enemy fighter on-the-move and destroy the target instantly with missiles and machine guns — all without human intervention? The Pentagon thinks the day may be imminent and it wants to make ensure that its technology doesn’t get ahead of military doctrine.

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Love on the Fly: Volunteer Vacations

If you’ve had your fill of moonlit beach walks and peach-colored drinks, try something altogether different. I recently spoke with several couples whose idea of a passionate vacation involved less hand-holding and more giving a hand: they spent their vacation time volunteering. Jamie Cann and his wife, Mary, returned recently from a trip to Tanzania.

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Spacecraft to blast off in search of ‘Earths’

Calling it a mission that may fundamentally change humanity’s view of itself, NASA on Friday prepared to launch a telescope that will search our corner of the Milky Way galaxy for Earth-like planets. The Kepler spacecraft is scheduled to blast into space on top of a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida just before 11 p.m. ET.

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