“Cops fear a mass suicide after more than 100 doomsday cult members in Brazil barricaded themselves inside a house to await “the end of the world”. Leader and self-proclaimed prophet Luis Pereira dos Santos, has convinced his followers the apocalypse will happen today at 8pm GMT (4pm local time).

They are preparing to kill themselves by drinking soup laced with rat poison, authorities believe. Santos – known to his flock as Daddy Luis – claims an angel visited him four years ago telling him the exact time the world was going to end. Last month the 43-year-old cult leader instructed his 113 followers to leave their jobs, give away all their possessions and take their children out of school. The group have since been holed up inside a ten-bedroomed house, which they call The Ark, on the outskirts of Teresina, the capital of Brazil’s north-eastern state, Piaui.

Fifty military policemen forced their way in and removed 19 babies and children after receiving “credible” information that the group were planning to kill themselves by drinking poison.    A “significant quantity” of rat poison was found at the residence during the operation, which met little resistance from the cult members, a police spokesman said. Apocalypse group leader Santos said he didn’t fear the police, denying that the group were planning to drink poison.” (The Sun)

‘What if we are just operating on some alien supercomputer? Could we run some tests to find out? Apparently, we’re getting there.

As TechSpot says it, “even the most powerful universe simulation would be subject to certain limitations of its host universe. The team believes those limitations would be observable by its inhabitants, too.” Finding those limitations involves studying how particles travel through the universe and how they might react to the edge of the universe, Wired reported.’ {GlobalPost)

“It was a unique and groundbreaking experiment to show British television viewers the true effects of a jet disaster.

After four years of preparation a Boeing 727 was crashed into the Mexican desert – answering the question most consider when getting on a plane – where should someone sit to give themselves the best chance of survival.

And in a macabre twist, people logged into Facebook last night could ‘check-in online’, choose where they would have sat on the flight and after the terrifying collision, which ripped off the front of the jet in a cloud of sand, debris and twisted metal, they found out if they had died or survived.

The impact was pulled off deliberately for a documentary by the Discovery Channel and Channel 4 exploring the results of a ‘serious, but survivable’ crash-landing – producing incredible footage of its demise.

And its conclusion was that despite having the best seats and service on the plane, being in first or business class makes you less likely to survive a crash landing.” (Mail Online)

“The Beatles once sang, “Have you heard the word is love?” In a Wikipedia war raging around the group, the word is “the.” For some eight years, editors at the online encyclopedia have been debating whether the article “the” should be uppercased when referring to the band. Is it “the” Beatles or “The” Beatles?

The lowercase faction says the Wikipedia manual of style and external style guides are on its side. The uppercase faction says that trademarks should be capitalized and that the official Beatles website uses an uppercase definite article.

The dispute has become so contentious that some Wikipedia editors have been banned from participating. “Discussions on this page may escalate into heated debate,” warns the internal “Talk” page where editors discuss changes to the Beatles entry.” (WSJ.com)