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If you were paying attention last month, you might remember alarming headlines reporting an anti-Islam YouTube video "sparks violence in Libya," is "inciting violence," and caused "U.S. embassy workers' deaths."

One problem: those reports were untrue.

A flurry of disclosures in Washington, D.C., this week revealed that the Obama administration's blaming of the YouTube video for prompting a military-style attack that killed four Americans in Benghazi was wrong. And those revelations have reignited a long-running partisan debate over national security and security funding.

Republicans suggested that the White House's efforts … Read more

Oregon State University researchers this week revealed details about a piece of amber from the Early Cretaceous period that contains a spider in its web attacking an intruding wasp.

The fossilized moment of doom -- the first of its kind discovered in amber -- derived from the Hukawng Valley in Myanmar, somewhere around 97 to 110 million years ago. … Read more

MegaUpload has been on a winning streak in court, but last week a U.S. district judge denied the company's request to dismiss a criminal indictment against it.

The U.S. Attorney's office has accused MegaUpload and its leaders of operating the cloud-storage service as a criminal enterprise. U.S. officials allege that founder Kim DotCom and six other associates encouraged users to upload pirated movies, music, and other media to MegaUpload's lockers so managers could get rich on advertising revenue and premium subscription fees.

MegaUpload's lawyers asked the court to throw out the indictment against … Read more

I've always said that if there is ever a time to talk about video games, it's at a college football game. Of course, I'm almost always wrong about these kinds of things. But not this time! I've finally been validated in the form of a halftime show marching band. Check it out.

If you missed it, make sure to watch the running horse at 6:01 -- simply incredible! The sweet tribute to gaming was posted by YouTube user handmrow gobucks, who writes: … Read more

Twitter may be officially blocked in China, but a report out late last month that's attracted a number of skeptics suggests that the microblogging service still has more users there than any other country in the world, including the United States.

According to statistics published by GlobalWebIndex and analyzed by Emarketer, Twitter has 35.5 million active users in China, and just 22 million in the U.S. India actually comes in second in the report, with 33 million people tweeting or reading tweets regularly.

The idea that anyone at all could be using Twitter in China isn't … Read more

To put it lightly, something sensational happens upon feeding large concentrations of toxic gold chloride (also known as liquid gold) to the bacteria Cupriavidus metallidurans. After about a week's time, the bacterium creates a 24-karat gold nugget from the digested toxins.

"Microbial alchemy is what we're doing, transforming gold from something that has no value into a solid, precious metal that's valuable," said Kazem Kashefi, assistant professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at Michigan State University, where the research is taking place. … Read more

U.S. District Judge Liam O'Grady will hold another hearing to help him determine what to do with the digital files owned by MegaUpload users.

O'Grady is responding to a motion filed by Kyle Goodwin, an Ohio-based sports videographer. Goodwin has sought the return of the video files, mostly of high school sports action, that he stored at MegaUpload, the Internet storage locker that was taken offline by the U.S. government.

In January, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia accused MegaUpload founder Kim DotCom and six other company managers of criminal copyright violations, … Read more

You might not be a golf fan, and if that's true, you probably don't know that this weekend, the United States is facing off against Europe in the biennial Ryder Cup. You may not even know what the Ryder Cup is. But a hash tag in the sky might get your attention.

Regardless of your golf knowledge, a lot of people have been paying attention -- and enjoying the Americans' lead in the competition. But some European boosters are realizing that their heroes might need a little extra encouragement.

That's probably why attendees on hand in Medinah, … Read more

Officials in New Zealand's government apparently believed the law gave them the right to spy on MegaUpload founder Kim DotCom because he was a foreign national.

They were wrong.

In New Zealand today, Prime Minister John Key apologized to DotCom for the spying conducted against him by the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB).

The United States has accused DotCom of criminal copyright violations. In January, New Zealand police raided his home and arrested him. Just ahead of the raid, the GCSB began collecting intelligence against DotCom to see if he posed any danger to the police who would later … Read more