Yahoo! Buzz US: Top Stories

When Was the 4th of July First Celebrated? (LiveScience.com)

Fri, 3 Jul 2009 06:46:47 PDT

LiveScience.com - John Adams predicted in a letter to his wife Abigail that Americans would celebrate their Independence Day on July 2. Off by two days - not too bad for government work.

Australia discovers 3 new large dinosaurs (Reuters)

Fri, 3 Jul 2009 01:01:45 PDT

Reuters - Fossils of three new species of dinosaurs have been discovered in Australia, including a meat-eater larger than Velociraptor from the Jurassic Park movies, suggesting Australia may have a more complex prehistoric past.

Apple Stores now fixing cracked iPhone screens in-house (Updated)

Thu, 2 Jul 2009 14:11:46 PDT

An iPhone falls to the ground in slow motion and makes its first impact on a corner. You watch as the cracks branch out over the screen like a spiderweb. If it hasn't happened to you, it has happened to someone you know—and now, Apple can fix it on the spot at one of its retail locations. Jim Dalrymple at The Loop has confirmed that Apple retail stores have begun performing this in-house repair with what amounts to a big suction cup in the back. The machine separates the broken glass from the rest of your precious iPhone, letting the technician install a shiny new one. This is one of the on

Yahoo! Mail Maintenance

Fri, 3 Jul 2009 09:03:41 PDT

I want to give a quick heads up that we will be conducting maintenance over the next week that might impact some of you. The maintenance is part of our ongoing efforts to give you the best Mail service possible. Beginning today, you may experience problems accessing your Yahoo! Mail account. If you are one of the very few affected, have no fear. It should be available again is as short as 30 minutes. Apologies for any inconvenience this causes you. As always, please feel free to contact customer care for any concerns or issues. They can be reached via this link: http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/ya

Rain snarls traffic in Northeast ahead of holiday (AP)

Thu, 2 Jul 2009 10:14:49 PDT

AP - Torrential rains are soaking New England and causing traffic backups and power failures as the holiday weekend approaches.

Three new dinosaur species found in Australia (AFP)

Fri, 3 Jul 2009 01:39:22 PDT

AFP - Australian scientists hailed the country's most significant dinosaur discovery in decades on Friday after three new species were unearthed in a Queensland billabong.

Tropical Rainfall Moving North (LiveScience.com)

Thu, 2 Jul 2009 08:46:49 PDT

LiveScience.com - Earth's most prominent rain band, near the equator, has been moving north at an average rate of almost a mile (1.4 km) a year for three centuries, likely because of a warming world, scientists say.

People getting stuck on freshly tarred street

Thu, 2 Jul 2009 10:03:05 PDT

Like flypaper for humans. (Via Arbroath)

Books as planters

Thu, 2 Jul 2009 14:03:37 PDT

BB pal Tara McGinley spotted these delightful planter kits, called Honbachi, from Japan, containing the plant, soil, and a hollowed-out book. Looks like it would be fun and easy to DIY too! Book planters

Scientists tour the Creationism Museum

Thu, 2 Jul 2009 23:03:18 PDT

Tony sez, "Recently, a group of paleontologists were in town for the North American Paleontological Convention at the University of Cincinnati, and decided to take a field trip to the Creation Museum just across the river, in Kentucky. My aunt went to cover it for AFP, and I had the doubly good fortune of living just a stone's throw away, so I tagged along to see what these guys were up to. It was an eyeful, to say the least. Gorgeous facilities with amazingly engaging displays and animatronics, and at least a few hundred cubic cubits of bad science and misinformation. One young lady stood, fu

Snowfall on Mars? NASA's Phoenix Lander recorded it

Fri, 3 Jul 2009 06:11:35 PDT

NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander, which spent the summer in Mars' northern polar regions performing a variety of science experiments, caused quite a stir when rumors circulated that it had discovered signs of life on the Red Planet. NASA eventually held a press conference to dispel the rumors, promising that more details would eventually be revealed when scientists got around to publishing papers that would describe the experiments in detail. That day has finally arrived; today's issue of Science contains four papers that describe various findings from the mission. There's no sign of alien life,

Google App Engine misfires

Thu, 2 Jul 2009 16:09:34 PDT

A morning outage in Google App Engine--a hosting service for Web application developers--was resolved around noon Pacific Thursday.

Yahoo! data center will be powered by Niagara Falls

Thu, 2 Jul 2009 14:44:50 PDT

Companies like Google and IBM are trying to lead the world in cutting-edge, efficient data centers. Not to be outdone, on Tuesday Yahoo! announced they're hoping to change to future of data centers as well. The company unveiled plans to build one of the world's most efficient data centers in Lockport, NY, and the details do sound pretty exciting. The data center will be powered mainly by hydroelectric power from Niagara Falls, with 90 percent of that energy going towards powering the servers. The center itself will be built to resemble a chicken coop, using 100 percent outside air to cool