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Germany's Terminally-Ill 'Dr. Death' to Put Own Body on Show

The German anatomist dubbed "Doctor Death", who has turned stomachs worldwide preserving and displaying dead bodies, said Wednesday he is terminally ill and plans to exhibit his own corpse.

Gunther von Hagens, 65, told the Bild mass circulation daily he is suffering from incurable Parkinson's disease and intends to have his dead body put on display to "welcome" visitors to his exhibition.

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NASA Finds More Cracks on Discovery Fuel Tank

NASA said Thursday it has found four more small cracks on the metal supports of the shuttle Discovery's external fuel tank, as the aging shuttle undergoes X-ray testing before its final space mission next year.

Repairs would be made to the cracks in a similar fashion to the cracks discovered after the November 5 launch attempt, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said in a statement.

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Scientists Compile List of World's Plants

British and U.S. scientists say they've compiled the most comprehensive list of land plant species ever published — a 300,000-species strong compendium that they hope will boost conservation, trade and medicine.

The list, drawn up by researchers at Kew Gardens in London and the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, is intended to help resolve one of botany's most basic problems: Figuring out which plants go by what name.

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Facebook Founder Named Time's 'Person of Year'

Time magazine named Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg "person of the year" Wednesday, ignoring a push by readers of the magazine for WikiLeaks maestro Julian Assange to take the honor.

Zuckerberg, only 26, is the second youngest person named to the cover of Time's ritual annual.

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Yahoo Preparing to Lay off 600 to 700 Workers

Yahoo Inc.'s holiday trimmings will include 600 to 700 layoffs in the Internet company's latest shake-up triggered by lackluster growth.

Employees could be notified of the job cuts as early as Tuesday, according to a person familiar with Yahoo's plans. The person asked for anonymity because Yahoo hadn't made a formal announcement.

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IBM Pitches "Smart" Cities as Planet Savers

IBM is helping cities worldwide get "smarter" about using resources in ways that are good for the Earth as well as local budgets.

IBM announced that the coastal Texas town of Corpus Christi has joined cities such as London, Sydney, Stockholm, and Amsterdam in using Internet Age tools to better manage water, trash, parks and more.

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Experts Race to Solve Egypt Shark Attack Mystery

Marine experts on Wednesday quizzed witnesses to shark attacks as beaches at Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh remained closed after a woman was torn apart by a shark.

South Sinai governor Mohammed Shosha told Agence France Presse authorities would announce later in the day whether they would reopen beaches which are visited each year by between three and four million tourists.

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Japan Probe Overshoots Venus, Heads Toward Sun

A Japanese probe to Venus failed to reach orbit Wednesday and was captured by the sun's gravitational pull in a setback to Japan's shoestring space program, which will have to wait another six years to try again.

The failure in the crucial orbital insertion stage of the probe was a big letdown for Japan, which has never succeeded in an interplanetary mission but has marked some major successes in space on a relatively tight budget that is focused primarily on small-scale science projects.

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WikiLeaks' Site Back with Swiss Address after 6 Hours

The whistleblower website WikiLeaks was back on line Friday with a new Swiss address -- wikileaks.ch -- six hours after its previous domain name -- wikileaks.org -- was shut down.

"WikiLeaks moves to Switzerland," the group declared on Twitter, although an Internet trace of the new domain name suggested that the site itself is still hosted in Sweden and in France.

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Google Vows Quicker, Tougher Copyright Enforcement

Google Inc. is promising to do a better job of weeding out copyright violations on the Internet.

As part of a crackdown announced Thursday, the Internet search leader said it will respond to complaints about pirated material posted on its YouTube video site and other services within 24 hours. Google didn't specify what its average response time is now, but many copyright holders have griped in the past about the company taking too long to remove videos or other content posted illegally.

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