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The 404 1,185: Where 50 euros go a long way (podcast)

Bathroom break video: iPad magician at the world famous German "Hofbraeuhaus" in Munich, the beer capital.

Show title credit: Beatmaster (join us live at noon Eastern everyday to suggest a show title. The most-used suggestions at the end of every month will win a prize!)

Episode 1,185

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Gasp over hundreds of billions in gold at Bank of England

Have you ever seen billions of dollars in gold bars? A video -- made in the name of science -- gives a glimpse into the massive gold reserves at the Bank of England.

University of Nottingham professor Martyn Poliakoff loves the elements. The eccentric science wizard works with others on a popular Web site and YouTube channel known as The Periodic Table of Videos; one latest video focuses on one of the most valuable elements in existence -- gold. … Read more

Paralyzed woman takes home ReWalk power legs

Power suits are getting more commonplace. A paralyzed British woman has become the first person to take home a robotic exoskeleton that helped her walk the London Marathon earlier this year.

Claire Lomas, who finished the 26.2-mile race over 17 days, is setting the pace for home use of the ReWalk at home, according to Israeli maker Argo Medical Technologies.

The 32-year-old mother was paralyzed from the chest down after a 2007 horseback riding accident, but the motorized legs allow her to stand, climb and descend stairs, and walk around independently. … Read more

New England Journal of Medicine releases iPad edition

The New England Journal of Medicine, the oldest continuously published medical journal in the world (it celebrated its 200th anniversary in 2012), is now offering up its content on the iPad.

The journal says the iPad edition of its weekly, peer-reviewed content includes audio, video, expandable images, and features such as sharing, searching, and notating.

"We know that you're busy, and you want to have the relevant clinical information you need, right at your fingertips," reported the journal on its blog this week.

The app is available free for download at the iTunes App Store. Current journal … Read more

The 404 987: Where we get nailed for intentional grounding (podcast)

Twitter reports that football fans sent roughly 10,000 tweets in the final 3 minutes of last night's game, but that wasn't enough to overthrow the all-time record for tweets per second.

Guess which film roped in 25,088 tweets per second last December? Hint: it wasn't made in America.… Read more

Is Bleacher Report ready for some football?

SAN FRANCISCO--The Super Bowl takes place in just over 72 hours, and Brian Grey and his lieutenants are trying to plan what is by far their most important day of the year.

Grey is the CEO of Bleacher Report, one of the largest sports Web sites in the U.S., and a place nearly 26 million people visited in January for the latest insights into their favorite teams.

Unlike many sports publications, Bleacher Report doesn't concentrate on breaking news with a team of paid writers. Instead, it relies on sports enthusiasts around the country and the world who are … Read more

Eurostar is the best way to get from London to Paris

PARIS--There's something amazing about taking the train from London to Paris in just two-and-a-half hours.

To be sure, it's been possible to make that trip since 1994, but if you've never done it before, stepping onto a train in the middle of the British capital and stepping off in the center of the French capital is totally cool.

I've been traveling to Europe since 1979, and I'd crossed the English Channel by boat back in the mid-1980s, and by plane in the 1990s. Going by fast train was always one of those abstract things that … Read more

RIM blog hacked in warning over London unrest

Research In Motion's official BlackBerry blog was defaced earlier today in retaliation for the company's apparent decision to assist the London police.

It's still unclear what assistance, if any, RIM has extended to the London police, who are combating widespread street unrest that has wracked England's capital for the last several days. A spokesman for RIM did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

But yesterday, RIM tweeted that it felt sympathy for people "impacted by the riots in London. We have engaged with the authorities to assist in any way we can."

That was enough to trigger a response from a group calling itself Team Poison, which subsequently posted a message on RIM's BlackBerry blog and announced on Twitter that it had compromised the site. It then fired a warning shot of sorts, threatening to release access to the company's database if RIM shares information that helps the police make arrests. … Read more

Aboard the ship that launched a thousand ocean liners

BRISTOL, England--Imagine being a wealthy traveler in the early 1840s and thinking about whether to buy a ticket aboard the brand-new SS Great Britain, an iron-hull giant of an ocean liner. It promised a speedy crossing from the U.K. to New York, but to your skeptical eyes, it probably also promised a speedy split in half and an agonizing drowning on the high seas.

That was the dynamic that awaited Isambard Kingdom Brunel's great new ship when it was launched in 1843 by England's Prince Albert. Brunel, a famous engineer responsible for, among other things, the Great … Read more

At Bletchley Park, breaking Enigma codes and winning WW II

BLETCHLEY, England--The list of important sites is endless: Omaha Beach, Dunkirk, London, Paris, Toulon. But if you're a real World War II aficionado, you may think of Bletchley Park with special fondness.

This nondescript town about 45 minutes outside London is where famed mathematician Alan Turing led a group of master code breakers in a successful battle against Germany and its once-unbreakable cipher codes.

Over the course of several years, the British government assembled a team and sequestered it here, working on various devices intended to break the codes. In the days prior to the war, the Germans rarely … Read more