Scientists from the national research agency in France have found that infants as young as five months old may show signs of conscious thought. The neuroscientists attached electrodes to the infants’ heads to measure changes in electrical brain activity called event related potentials, or ERP. Critics are skeptical and claim the scientists are misinterpreting the results.
Here’s a different kind of time-lapse film, creating a brilliant effect using syncopated building lights and blurred traffic patterns set to music. The French designer Supralude shot this in Brooklyn, incorporating a remix of Nine Inch Nails’ “21 Ghosts” performed by Near Deaf Experience.
France has sent around 300 soldiers to the Central African Republic to secure the airport and diplomatic installations in the capital of Bangui after rebels seized the city in fierce fighting over the weekend. The skirmishes claimed the lives of 13 South African soldiers. The French troops hope to restore order in the landlocked republic, a former French colony.
France’s top defense official claims the terrorist group al-Qaeda stockpiled tons of weapons in Mali and planned to use the Central African country’s north as a base for international attacks.
The French conducted 193 nuclear weapons tests on the idyllic islands making up French Polynesia. Decades on, can the islands ever be completely decontaminated? SBS Dateline from Australia reports.
A farmer’s daily routine gets blown apart when all of his animals — the hens, the cows, even his pet dog — start turning into inflated blimps. At first he shrugs off the strange phenomenon, but eventually, he’ll have to change his habits to cope. This comic short is the handiwork of three students — Gary Fouchy, Yohann Auroux Bernard and Sebastien De Oliveira Bispo – from the French animation school Supinforcom. H/T Kuriositas
In their haste to flee the French intervention, the Islamist militants who had taken over northern Mali left behind a crucial piece of evidence: A document written by their leader that outlines their plans for conquering the region.
Courtesy of some merry pranksters, a lecherous drunk gets ambushed by some unexpected fireworks in Georges Melies’ 1905 comedy from France.
Paris is taking steps to deport several radical Muslim clerics. The French government accuses the clerics of promoting radical Islam and inciting young French citizens to commit violence as part of a movement towards ‘global jihad.’ France has become a bigger target since it sent troops to drive Islamic terrorists out of Mali.
A 28-year-old woman associated with the 9/11 Truther movement has defaced Eugene Delacroix’s painting “Liberty Leading the People.” The iconic 1830 work, commemorating the French Revolution, is believed to have served as the inspiration for the Statue of Liberty.
The woman struck while the painting was on loan to the Louvre-Lens Museum, an art museum in northern France that often displays works from the Louvre’s collection. She used a red permanent marker to scrawl a Truther message on the painting. Police apprehended her, but prosecutors have yet to release her identity.
Jail time is too cushy for this vandal. She should be airdropped into the Sahara, wherever the Jihadi insurgents are now holed up, and forced to fend for herself among her own kind.
