Lifeboat Foundation

Facebook is preparing to test a new “reactions” feature that would allow users to reply to posts with more than a “Like,” according to a report from Engadget ES. The site on Thursday published mockups of the feature, which adds a range of emoticons to Facebook’s standard thumbs-up Like button. Citing unnamed sources, Engadget reports that the feature will be rolled out to users in Spain and Ireland as early as Friday.

The report follows a recent announcement from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who said at a public Q&A session last month that the site had begun working on new ways for users to “express empathy” beyond the “Like” button. The set of reactions published by Engadget does not include the thumbs-down “Dislike” button that many had expected at the time of Zuckerberg’s announcement, though it does feature angry and sad smiley faces. Other icons include a heart, a smiling face, a shocked face, and something that looks like a laughing face.

Facebook has recently introduced new tools to make it easier for users to personalize their profiles and posts. This month, it launched a Snapchat-like “Doodle” feature that allows users to draw on photos, and the site has started to test looped video profile pictures.

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NASA is unveiling a new opportunity for start-up companies to license patented NASA technology with no up-front payment. The Startup NASA initiative addresses two common problems start-ups face: raising capital and securing intellectual property rights.

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OIL FROM PLASTIC.

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The new finding, a clay tablet, reveals a previously unknown “chapter” of the epic poem from ancient Mesopotamia. This new section brings both noise and color to a forest for the gods that was thought to be a quiet place in the work of literature. The newfound verse also reveals details about the inner conflict the poem’s heroes endured.

In 2011, the Sulaymaniyah Museum in Slemani, in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, purchased a set of 80 to 90 clay tablets from a known smuggler. The museum has been engaging in these backroom dealings as a way to regain valuable artifacts that disappeared from Iraqi historical sites and museums since the start of the American-led invasion of that country, according to the online nonprofit publication Ancient History Et Cetera.

Among the various tablets purchased, one stood out to Farouk Al-Rawi, a professor in the Department of Languages and Cultures of the Near and Middle East at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London. The large block of clay, etched with cuneiform writing, was still caked in mud when Al-Rawi advised the Sulaymaniyah Museum to purchase artifact for the agreed upon $800. [In Photos: See the Treasures of Mesopotamia].

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Crimean company EMIIA presented a device that can “see” through walls and depict moving objects in a real-time mode.

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