Vietnamese fishermen "salvage" Internet lines

Fishermen who were allowed to take unused war-era undersea copper cables have gone too far, "salvaging" fibre-optic lines providing some of Vietnam's Internet and other international communications.

"Now just one undersea cable connects Vietnam with the outside world," Thanh Nien (Young People) newspaper said.

Read more ...

Space Slingshot: Impossible or Obvious?

Galaxies get bigger and bigger through galactic mergers. Two small galaxies come together, merge their stars, and you get a bigger galaxy. But astronomers have always wondered, what happens with the two supermassive black holes that seem to always lurk at the heart of galaxies. What happens when two compact objects with millions of times the mass of our sun collide? Good question.

An international team of physicists have developed a computer simulation designed to answer this very question. And in a recent article in Science Express, they published the results of the simulation.
Read more...