Technology

By IANS Chandigarh : Farmers in Haryana are using the SMS (short messaging service) facility on their mobile phones to get answers to their agriculture-related queries. A free SMS service started by the state's agriculture department in Feb this year has become quite a hit with farmers of the state. They can get answers to all their queries by sending an SMS to a number assigned by the state government.

By Arun Kumar, IANS Washington : Warnings from pundits that the millions of engineers and scientists India and China produce each year would soon challenge the US' technical superiority may be a little premature, according to Newsweek International. While Delhi and Beijing are slowly moving in the right direction to improve their high-tech and science programmes, "yet getting either country up to speed will be an enormous task", said the magazine.

By RIA Novosti Moscow : A Molnia-M booster rocket was launched from the Plesetsk space centre in north Russia Tuesday to orbit a Cosmos military satellite, a Russian Space Forces spokesman said. The carrier rocket was launched at 8.39 a.m. Moscow time (4.39 a.m. GMT), and was scheduled to put the military satellite into orbit at 9:35 a.m. Moscow time (5:35 a.m. GMT). The four-stage medium-range Molnia-M, which has a lift-off weight of 305 metric tonnes, is used for launching spacecraft of up to two metric tonnes into high-elliptical orbits.

By Bernama Kathmandu : Microsoft and Intel are set to launch the Intel Classmate PC (CMPC) for schoolchildren in Nepal soon, China's XINHUA news agency reported Wednesday quoting a local daily as saying. Tilden Wu of Intel said at a press meeting in the capital on Tuesday that the laptop would cost between US$200 and US$300 and would be available in Nepali market in a month or two. A part of Intel's World Ahead Program, the CMPC is targeted at providing one computer per student in emerging markets.

By IANS, Washington : Globalisation may have wrought many positive changes in our lives, but it has also helped propagate evils like trafficking and organ trade, according to a new study. Some of the world's most disadvantaged people, lured by the dazzle of dollars and a lavish lifestyle, fall prey to traffickers who divest them of their entire savings and send them across international borders with fake documents, the study found.

By NNN-PTI, Bangalore, India : India's space scientists have developed hydrogen fuel cells to power an automobile bus by leveraging their know-how of the homegrown cryogenic technology for rockets. The two-year effort has yielded positive results and the scientists are now readying for the fuel cells to be fitted into a bus. "That's not exactly the cryogenic technology... (It's) liquid hydrogen handling and that's where we have some expertise. So, we have finalised the design", Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation, G Madhavan Nair told PTI here.

By Madhusree Chatterjee, IANS, New Delhi : If the universe seems mysterious to you, try becoming a 'cosmic detective'! For, nature has left behind many clues to unravel its mystery, says US-based award-winning scientist Mani Bhaumik who has just penned a children's novel on the subject. "The study of the universe is a mystery - fortunately nature has left behind some telltale clues around us and like a detective we can pick up the clues and follow the trail to solve the mystery," Bhaumik told IANS in an informal chat in the capital.

By IANS, Dhaka : Applauding India's Chandrayaan-1 lunar mission and the discovery of water on the moon, a Dhaka daily has said the find has significantly widened the scope for space research. But The Daily Star newspaper, in an editorial Saturday, cautioned against rivalry among those engaged in research and exploration on the moon. "The old big powers and the newly emerging ones like India and China have therefore a big stake in ensuring that the pristine moon may not turn into an object of future rivalry among them in the future.

By EFE, Mexico City : The rhinoceros fossils kept in a museum in western Mexico belonged to an ancient rhino species called Teleoceras hicksi that lived more than four million years ago, scientists have said. The fossils were found in the Jalisco state in the 1960s and preserved at the Regional Paleontology Museum in the state capital Guadalajara. "When we learned that nobody had studied the fossils, we took the initiative and today we're describing for the first time a species that had been identified only in the US, lead researcher Ruben Guzman Gutierrez told EFE Thursday.

By IANS, Chandigarh: India's ambitious 5,000-km range Agni-V nuclear-capable missile will be launched soon, a senior scientist said here Sunday.

By IANS, San Francisco: A hacker Friday revealed a security flaw that he claimed could make Apple's iPhone particularly vulnerable to text message cheating.

Kabul: Six Taliban fighters were killed Saturday in a blast in Afghanistan's eastern province of Ghazni, police said. "A local Taliban leader named Mullah Saddiq,...

New Delhi : First splashy full page ads in major Indian newspapers and now a personal piece by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a...

Berlin, May 18 (DPA) When buying a vacuum cleaner, consumers should not be led astray by high wattage. The amount of electricity used has little to do with performance, according to a recent test of 17 vacuum cleaners by Stiftung Warentest, the Berlin-based independent German consumer-protection group reported in its April issue. Suction power depended on the appropriate interplay of the basic device, nozzle construction, suction pipes and airflow, the group added.

By IANS New York : Intel, the world's largest semiconductor company, was forced to apologise after a print ad circulated by the company around blog-land invited wrath from around the world over its racist connotation. The ad shows six black sprinters crouched in the start position in front of a white man wearing a shirt and chinos (khaki pants) in an office. In a statement on its website Friday, Intel said: "We made a bad mistake. I know why and how, but that simply doesn't make it better."

By DPA Tokyo : The Japan Meteorological Agency Monday began operating the world's first system to give pre-earthquake warnings to the public. The system is designed to detect earthquakes by sensing small seismic waves that precede big quakes and give warnings a few seconds before a major quake hits to regions expected to suffer damage. Warnings would be aired through a public television station, NHK, and private stations as well as radio stations, the agency said. The service is only available in Japan.

By IANS New York : Mother's care is important even for plants, a new study says. A study by researchers at the University of Virginia shows that maternal plants give cues to their offspring that help them adapt to their environmental conditions. Findings of the study have been published in the latest issue of the journal Science. The researchers found that plants grown in the same setting as their maternal plant performed almost three-and-half times better than those raised in a different environment.

By Parveen Chopra, IANS New York : Amar Bose, a pioneer in modern acoustics who is known for the high-end audio products bearing his name, has been inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in the US, which has previously honoured Thomas Edison, Graham Bell and the Wright Brothers. Born in the US to a Bengali father and a German mother, Bose's name is in the 2008 list of 18 inventors to be honoured, 11 of them posthumously, by the Ohio-based Hall of Fame in May.

By Madhusree Chatterjee, IANS, Gurgaon : There was a time when art was considered an expression of human creativity and emotions. But art in India is fast becoming a craft powered by resource from the internet and technical skills culled from artists who post their works online. The bottom line, says curator Ameeshi Tapuriah, is aesthetic or visual appeal and affordable prices. Her four-day show of contemporary art, "Odyssey", featuring 26 artists, opened at the arts and culture hub Epicentre in Gurgaon Friday.

By Venkata Vemuri, IANS, London : txtN skul kds n net lngwij bout internet rskz... Go to if you can't understand this. When you can't beat 'em, join 'em. That's what a London awareness group has gone ahead and done, using mobile phone texting to communicate with school children about Internet risks. Thousands of posters are on display in corridors and classrooms in nearly 2,000 secondary schools in London telling students how to use the Internet in a safe manner.

By IANS, Copenhagen : The capital of Denmark has set itself the ambitious target of becoming the world's first carbon-neutral capital by 2025 by bringing its net carbon dioxide emissions down to zero. The target was announced by the seven mayors of Copenhagen here Tuesday, while they launched the city's new climate plan. The plan has 50 specific initiatives to achieve the city's target of a 20 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2015.

By Venkatachari Jagannathan, IANS, Sriharikota (Andhra Pradesh) : Indian space agency ISRO Monday crossed a new milestone Monday in launching third party satellites by slinging three foreign satellites into orbit, reaching a total of 25 satellite launches.

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By IANS, Washington: Scientists from China are developing a cotton fabric that can clean itself of stains and bugs when exposed to ordinary sunlight.

By IANS, London: Computer firm Hitachi has developed a quartz glass-based storage system that will last for an unbelievable 100 million years.

By IANS/RIA Novosti, Moscow : Russia's Proton-M carrier rocket with US telecom satellite Intelsat-23 blasted off Sunday from the Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan.

Islamabad : Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has decided to introduce machines at the Islamabad airport to detect fake passports, a media report said...

New York: Fuelling speculation that advanced civilisation once thrived on Mars, NASA's Curiosity rover has found a pyramid-like structure on the Red Planet, media...

New Delhi: Internet search giant Google on Tuesday paid tributes to Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan on his birth anniversary. The doodle showed the...

TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter नई दिल्ली: दुनिया की सबसे बड़ी मैसेजिंग सर्विस वाट्सऐप पर प्रतिबन्ध लगाने के लिए कल सुप्रीम कोर्ट में एक याचिका दायर की...

By Frederick Noronha, IANS Panaji : Goa-based Rudolf Ludwig's friends started getting frantic e-mail messages about the musician-turned-art gallery owner being stranded in Nigeria and badly in need of money. His wife Yolanda fielded off telephone calls to their Goa home, explaining that nothing of this sort had happened. When more friends started phoning in, Ludwig, who was very much in Goa, realised his e-mail account on the popular GMail network had been hacked into. His password had been changed and he couldn't enter his own account.

By IANS Nagpur : Even as the central government is promoting organic farming in a big way, the head of a central research institute in the agriculture sector refused to allow a talk on the subject by an expert at a farmers' fair held at Nagpur in Maharashtra.

By DPA Washington : The next NASA mission to Mars has been delayed two years after a conflict of interest was discovered in proposals for the unmanned exploration craft, the US space agency said. The next mission for the Mars Scout programme has been pushed back to 2013 from 2011, Mars exploration programme director Doug McCuistion told reporters.

By Xinhua Beijing : Scientists in Brazil found the fossil of a new species of prehistoric predator dating back about 80 million years to the Late Cretaceous period that represented a "missing link" to modern-day crocodiles, media reported Friday.

By Xinhua, Beijing : A team of astronomers have come up with an idea for a kind of lunar concrete that could be used to build structures on the moon such as giant telescopes, solar power arrays and even homes.

By IANS, Toronto : A wireless sensor network under development will not only collect data from remote environmental locations but also help monitor them anywhere in the world. A University of Alberta research team recently launched EcoNet, a functional model of a wireless sensor network (WSN) for environmental monitoring in the display house at the University's Agriculture/Forestry Centre.

By IANS, Sydney : The Zadco telescope has recorded a massive gamma ray burst that happened 11 billion years ago, long before our own planet had even been formed. The burst was a billion times brighter than our sun. "As if seeing one of the biggest explosions in the universe wasn't dramatic enough, we had a catastrophic computer crash on the night," said David Coward, University of Western Australia (UWA) senior research fellow and Zadko Project leader.

By IANS, Chandigarh : Some invaluable documents related to legendary French architect Le Corbusier who planned Chandigarh in the 1950s can be seen online very soon, thanks to a move to digitise them. The administration of the union territory of Chandigarh has decided to digitise all the old documents of Corbusier about the designing of the city and all the correspondence between the Indian government and other architects of that time. Chandigarh is one of India's most well-planned cities.

By IANS, Sydney : Researchers have discovered how an entire ocean destroyed itself 50 to 20 million years ago when its floor sank 1,100 km into the earth between Australia and New Zealand. Using new computer modelling programmes, Monash University geoscientist Wouter Schellart was able to reconstruct the resulting cataclysm when the ocean's tectonic plate sank into the earth's interior, forming a long chain of volcanic islands at the surface.

By IANS, Bhubaneswar: India Saturday successfully tested two indigenously developed nuclear capable missiles, Dhanush and Prithvi II, an official said. "Both the missiles were successfully launched at the same time at about 5.30 a.m.," S.P. Dash, director of the Integrated Test Range at Chandipur in Orissa's Balasore district, told IANS. The Prithvi II surface-to-surface ballistic missile, with a range of 350 km, was launched from Chandipur, 230 km from Bhubaneswar.

By IANS, London : Astronomers have uncovered the 'missing link' in the evolution of the universe following the Big Bang.

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By IANS, Sydney : Asteroids in space are linked to meteorites that land on earth, a new discovery claims. Analysis of dust samples from an asteroid known as Itokawa has unspooled these links.

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By IANS/RIA Novosti, Moscow: Google and YouTube will receive updates regarding "blacklisted" websites in Russia, the country's communications oversight agency said.

Thiruvananthapuram/Frankfurt: Lufthansa Cargo has gone live with Technopark headquartered IBS' iCargo IT solution at 120 stations in its network, including its three hubs of...

Kolkata : In a victory of sorts for female commuters who did not shy to clash with their male counterparts, the Eastern Railway...

By IANS New Delhi : One could not help comparing American-Indian astronaut Sunita Williams with Shah Rukh Khan, who played the role of a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) engineer who came back to India to ignite the minds of people in the Hindi movie "Swades". The metaphor may sound somewhat remote, but a senior US embassy official Monday drew a comparison between the two stars in a programme where Williams interacted with around 150 school students.

By Prashant K. Nanda, IANS New Delhi : The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and Indian universities have become "white elephants" and need to be revamped to achieve successes in science, says eminent space scientist K. Kasturirangan. Many of the laboratories in CSIR, the country's biggest scientific body, need a complete overhaul and their mission, organisational set-up and infrastructure need to change for the better, Kasturirangan said in an interview.

By Xinhua Beijing : Warner Music is thumbing its nose at Apple and will sell music downloads without copyright protection technology through Amazon's online store. Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been vocal about persuading record labels to sell music downloads without copyright protection technology -- also known as DRM, or digital rights management. In announcing a deal with EMI to sell its music on iTunes free of DRM, Jobs predicted that half the music on iTunes would be DRM-free by the end of the year.

By Xinhua Beijing : A British company has developed a camera that can detect weapons, drugs or explosives hidden under people's clothes from up to 25 meters away, according to British media reports Monday. The T5000 camera, created by a company called ThruVision, uses what it calls "passive imaging technology" to identify objects by the natural electromagnetic rays -- known as Terahertz or T-rays -- that they emit.

By Xinhua Washington : The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour, with seven astronauts aboard, lifted off at 2:28 a.m. EDT (0628 GMT) on Tuesday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida,NASA TV live broadcasting showed. The shuttle is delivering a two-armed robot made by Canada, the first part of Japan's space laboratory Kibo and a collection of experiments to the International Space Station.

By IANS Washington : Scientists have discovered an extraordinary source of some of the richest, most fertile soil in the world, often called 'black gold'. They simply have to mix charcoal in the soil. And it can battle global warming as well by holding the carbon in the soil instead of letting it escape into the atmosphere, according to a new study. The discovery goes back 1,500 years to the central Amazon basin where tribal people mixed their soil with charcoal derived from animal bone and tree bark.

By Xinhua, Beijing : A dwarf planet orbiting outside Neptune has been designated the third plutoid in the solar system and named Makemake, the International Astronomical Union said on Saturday. The red methane-covered dwarf planet formerly known as 2005 FY9 or "Easterbunny" is named after a Polynesian creator of humanity and god of fertility. Just last month the IAU, which names planets and other heavenly bodies, decided to create a new class of sub-planets called plutoids.

By IANS, London : In popular perception, playful pachyderms are perceived as stiff gaited, but latest research has established that they are almost as mobile as trotting horses. For example, John Hutchinson of The Royal Veterinary College visited several zoos in Britain and had even been to Thailand to study how Asian elephants moved their legs as they walk and run. Keepers of Colchester and Whipsnade Zoos in Britain were keen to know more about the animals' natural limb movements in order to develop training programmes and prevent the onset of arthritis.

By IANS, Thiruvananthapuram : The Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), a unit of the country's premier Indian space research programme, plans to send two humans into space by 2015, an official said here Sunday. Speaking to IANS, director of the VSSC unit here K. Radhakrishnan said the project is awaiting a final clearance from the central government. "The pre-project approval of Rs.95 crore ($19 million) has already come and the approval of the main project is being awaited," said Radhakrishnan.

By DPA, Hamburg : The most intense X-ray beam of its type in the world has been generated inside a 2,300-metre circular tunnel under the German city of Hamburg, the Desy research institute said Monday. The machine, which cost 225 million euros ($297 million), was switched on in April, but unlike a light bulb it takes weeks to tune up. The X-ray light came Saturday. More months will now be spent adjusting measuring devices. Next year, scientists can begin actually using the machine to peer at atomic structures in proteins, cancer cells and the like.

By IANS, New Delhi : Cloudy skies in large parts of northern and western India Wednesday marred a clear view of the century's longest total solar eclipse but the celestial spectacle was clearly visible over Varanasi. Tens of thousands of people across the country rose early to see the eclipse that was to begin at the earliest at 5:29 a.m. and end at 7:41 a.m. in India. It was to have been clearly visible in places like Surat, Indore, Bhopal, Varanasi, Patna, Taregna near Patna, Daman, Darjeeling, Dibrugarh, Gangtok, Gaya, Itanagar, Ujjain and Vadodra.

By Venkatachari Jagannathan, IANS, Chennai : While the preparations for launch of India's ocean monitoring satellite Oceansat 2 and six other nano satellites Sep 23 is on, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is getting ready for the bigger launch slated in the next two months -- that of the communications satellite GSAT 4.

By IANS/EFE, Buenos Aires : A species of dinosaur that lived 190 million years ago has been found in Argentina, a researcher said. "No discoveries with these characteristics had ever been made in the region. It's an important discovery because it helps us understand the environmental diversity of the period," researcher Santiago Bessone of the Museum Egidio Feruglio, an institution based in the Argentine Patagonian city of Trelew that was responsible for the expedition, told EFE.

By IANS, Thiruvananthapuram : You can now share your files, transfer pictures, music, videos and documents instantly using Tranz, a latest technology developed by young IT entrepreneurs at Innoz Technologies Pvt. Ltd here. The service is free within the country. Speaking to IANS, Deepak Ravindran, the CEO of Technopark-headquartered Innoz, said that Tranz is a file-sharing and networking application that enriches your mobile internet experience.

By IANS, Los Angeles : Astronomers have discovered a large number of previously unknown regions in the Milky Way where massive stars are being formed. The star-forming H II regions are sites where hydrogen atoms are stripped of their electrons by intense radiation from young stars. With the helo of infrared and radio telescopes Spitzer Space, the researchers traced these regions which remain hidden due to gas and dust clouds around the Milky Way, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) said Wednesday.

By IANS, London : In a major privacy breach, internet search giant Google copied computer passwords and entire emails from households across Britain.

By IANS, London: Bungling NASA scientists are believed to have found tiny live microbes on Mars - but mistakenly killed them by boiling them alive, a media report said Saturday.

By IANS, Beijing: Chinese astronauts Sunday manually docked a spacecraft with an orbiting module, the first such attempt in China's space exploration history, authorities said.

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Washington : The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket-propelling Dragon spacecraft laden with crucial supplies to the International Space Station (ISS) exploded shortly after lift-off in...

Washington : NASA's New Horizon spacecraft has captured stunning coloured images of Pluto as it gets ready for a close flyby of...

By RIA Novosti Moscow : The re-entry module of the Foton-M bio-satellite successfully landed at 11.58 a.m. Moscow time (7.58 a.m. GMT) Wednesday in northern Kazakhstan, RIA Novosti reported. The satellite was launched Sep 14 on a Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan carrying gerbils, snails, cockroaches and many other creatures sealed in special containers and filmed by a video camera during the flight, as part of experiments carried out by the Institute of Biomedical Problems (IBMP).

SILICON VALLEY, Dec 15 (Bernama) -- A global consortium of top students, professors and experts in various engineering fields plan to use the rapidly growing Indian automotive market as a launch pad for a new generation of cars that could revolutionise the international automobile industry. Vehicle Design Summit, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology initiative, aims to develop a 4-passenger, 200MPGe, high-performance industry-standard car with minimal life cycle costs and wide appeal both in developed and developing countries.

By IANS Chennai : City-based software services company Zylog Systems Ltd will soon offer voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) services by partnering with a leading US company. "We are contemplating to become a service provider and focus on the retail segment. The current players are catering to the enterprise segment," Sudarshan Venkatraman, chairman and CEO of the company, told IANS.

By Prensa Latina Hanoi : Vietnam will soon launch its first telecommunications satellite from South America, Deputy Director Nguyen Quang Hung of State Vinast Agency's Satellite Information Center informed on Wednesday. The device arrived today at the Kourou launch base in the French Guiana Overseas Department and will be launched by the European Arianespace consortium at the end of March or early April, to be transferred to the National Post and Telecommunication Agency of Vietnam, indicated Hung.

By DPA Washington : Two European emperors and an uncounted number of innocent collectors have died over centuries at its hand. Now, starting Tuesday, the infamous, yellow-green death cap mushroom is front and centre as the "Encyclopaedia of Life" opens its website to the general public. The unveiling is the culmination of more than two years of work by scientists and internet experts intent on documenting the world's 1.8 million known species in one place.

By IANS, London : Fist sized bats emit much louder sounds than the noisiest rock concerts anywhere, according to a new study. Using microphone arrays and photographic methods, researchers found that bats emit ear shattering sounds exceeding 140 deciBels (dB) at 10 cm from the source, far louder than the 115-120 dB produced by a rock concert, reports Sciencedaily. This is the first comparative field study of bat echo-location sounds, illustrating the value of an interdisciplinary approach combining bat biology, ecology, behavioural biology and acoustics.

By IANS, London : Don't go by its size. The Etruscan shrew, one of tiniest known mammals that weighs just two grams, ranks among the quickest, most ruthless and adaptive predators. It overcomes starvation by feeding twice its weight of crickets, cockroaches and spiders daily, preys that are nearly its size. Hence the attacks have to be quick as a flash. “The Etruscan shrews trust in their sense of touch and the tactile shape recognition to an extent we do not know from other animal species,” said Michael Brecht of Bernstein Centre in Berlin.

By Zofeen T. Ebrahim, IANS, Karachi : A new song, "Mein Ne Uss Se Yeh Kaha", which has taken the Pakistani music scene by storm, is neither the usual crooning for a lost love nor does it take the usual cynical view of society. The song is a satirical poem by the late Habib Jalib, a poet with leftist leanings, written some time in the 1960s, when Pakistan was reeling under the rule of its first dictator, Ayub Khan. Jalib was incarcerated and put behind bars many times for his verses.

By Xinhua, Paris : The southwestern French city of Bordeaux is hosting an international symposium on space tourism, what marks yet another sign that this form of travel is no longer confined to the realm of science fiction, the French media reported on Thursday. With the first space tickets on sale since 2005, the "symposium which is bringing together international experts from Wednesday to Friday" in Arcachon, near Bordeaux, is expected to create more awareness regarding this form of tourism, according to organizers of the event.

By IANS, Washington : Chinese scientists have shown how certain materials beneath an invisibility cloak could allow them to be seen again. "Cloaking is an important problem since invisibility can help survival in hostile environment," said Huanyang Chen of Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China. He and his colleagues have proposed a theoretical "anti-cloak" that would partially cancel the effect of the invisibility cloak, which is another important problem as it turns out.

By IANS, Washington : Our ancestors, going back 2.5 million years, had jaws of steel with which they cracked open hard nuts and objects, unlike human species today with much more delicate and smaller teeth, a research study has shown. Mark Spencer, Arizona State University (ASU) assistant professor and evolutionary scientist, and doctoral student Caitlin Schrein used futuristic computer modelling and simulation technology to build a virtual model of the A. africanus skull to see how the jaw operated.

By Arun Kumar,IANS, Washington : Computer spies have broken into the US Defence Department's costliest weapons programme ever, the $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter project, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. Similar incidents have also breached the Air Force's air traffic control system in recent months, it said citing unnamed "current and former government officials familiar with the attacks.

By Madhusree Chatterjee, IANS, New Delhi : As small and medium businesses in India struggle to stay afloat during the global economic slowdown, they are opting for cheaper computing services, and a Boston-based entrepreneur is here to promote his solution, cloud computing, in which software is shared over a wide network of computers.

By Richa Sharma, IANS, New Delhi : What makes the earth go around the sun, aeroplanes fly and volcanoes erupt? A group of 35 Delhi school students has been busy unravelling the mysteries of the universe and understanding basic science through a programme prepared by US space agency NASA. The children - from at least eight schools in the capital - were part of a five-day summer camp 'Journey into Outer Space' being run by Mad Science, a global organisation working to spread science literacy among children in the age group of 7-12 years.

By IANS, Varanasi : Two people died and four were injured when thousands swarmed the banks of the Ganga here Wednesday morning to take a dip in the holy water, believed to be further blessed by the total solar eclipse. "One person drowned and the other got crushed in a stampede. The names of the dead are yet to be determined," said P.C. Meena, deputy inspector general of police (DIG). Just like the Ganga was overwhelmed with people, the Saryu river in Ayodhya also attracted a crowd on this rare occasion.

By IANS, New Delhi: In a bid to control pollution, the Delhi government's transport department has decided to use a new technology by which the pollution level of all types of vehicles can be measured even when these are on the move. "Our government is committed to develop pollution-free transport system in Delhi. Remote sensing technology is a world class technology which measures pollution from all type of vehicles like petrol, diesel, CNG & LPG with 100 percent accuracy through ultra-violet and ultra-sonic rays," said Transport Minister Arvinder Singh Lovely.

By IANS, London : New mobile phone software will help epidemiologists and ecologists analyse data remotely and map findings across the world, without going to the lab. The study authors from Imperial College-London (ICL) say the software will also enable members of the public to act as 'citizen scientists' and help collect data for community projects.

By IANS, New Delhi : On Jan 15, people living in the southern tip of the country at Dhanushkodi in Tamil Nadu will get to watch the 'Ring of Fire' when the moon will cover the sun's disc during the millennium's longest annular solar eclipse. However, sky gazers in Delhi will also have something to cheer about as they will get to see more than half of the eclipse.

By IANS, Mamallapuram: Taking the trilateral developmental initiative between India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) to the next step, programme coordinators are mulling ways to expand the programme's reach.

By IANS/RIA Novosti, Moscow : The Arctic region, a strategic area for Russia, is heavily polluted and needs "major cleaning", Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Thursday. Putin visited Alexandra Land, one of the islands in Russia's far north, and found that over 40,000-60,000 tonnes of used lubricants in thousands of barrels as well as plane, car and other wreckage had been piled up in the Arctic for years. "The reduction of military cooperation after the collapse of the Soviet Union resulted in this scrap heap," the premier said.

By DPA, Paris : France will introduce its so-called "Google tax" on online advertisements Jan 1, parliament decided Tuesday.

By IANS, London : NASA will launch a spacecraft Friday to unravel the secrets of Jupiter, the largest planet in the universe.

By IANS/EFE, Brasilia : Scientists have found bones in Brazil that belonged to a 20-foot-tall sloth that lived some 10,000 years ago.

By IANS, Srinagar : Scientists at the agricultural university in the Jammu and Kashmir capital have successfully produced the world's first cloned pashmina goat, a statement said Tuesday.

By IANS, Washington : A new theory about why black holes become so hugely massive has been put forth by astronomers from University of Leicester, UK and Monash University, Australia.

By IANS, Beijing : Five minor planets have been named after top Chinese scientists with the approval of the International Astronomical Union (IAU).

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By IANS, New Delhi: Over 270 government websites were hacked till July this year, Minister of State for Communications and IT Sachin Pilot informed parliament.

By IANS, London: Scientists have synthesised a molecule that targets and destroys a key protein responsible for development of cervical and other cancers, says a study.

Kochi: Students of an engineering college in Kerala have been selected to compete in a challenge to design a rover for the US Mars...

By Venkatachari Jagannathan, Chennai : India's first satellite - Aryabhata - was launched successfully by a Russian rocket on an April day 40 years ago,...

New Delhi : Most earthquakes originate from compressional or tensional stresses built up at the margins of the huge moving plates that make up...

Washington : As tensions between India and Pakistan continue to escalate, US National Security Advisor Susan Rice is expected to arrive in Pakistan...

New Delhi: The city government on Wednesday told the Delhi High Court that it was willing to fund the entire project of installation of...

New Delhi : Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu on Friday launched free Wi-Fi service at three more railway stations across India via videoconferencing here. These stations...

By IANS Thiruvananthapuram : It is now uncertain whether a space institute of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will actually come up on a plot in the Ponmudi hill station of Kerala, with a minister Thursday calling the land deal shady. "It is now clear that the individual who sold the land to ISRO was shady, but the Kerala government is clear that it will go ahead with the proposed institute, clearing all the issues that have cropped up," Forest Minister Binoy Viswam told reporters. He said this in the presence of ISRO chairman G. Madhavan Nair here.

By IANS Mumbai : Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Reliance Communications, HDFC Bank and NCDEX (National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange Ltd) won the Symantec Asia South visionary awards for protecting their IT infrastructure and information with the company's anti-virus solutions and firewalls against hacking.

By IANS Kuala Lumpur : Malaysia's space hero Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor Sheikh Mustapha, sent on a space flight last year, is not averse to joining politics, media reports said Thursday, in the run-up to the general election. "If joining politics is a way of making this world a better place, then I will never hesitate to be a part of it," said Mustapha, hailed as the country's first "angkasawan," who is now pulling crowd at election rallies of the ruling coalition Barisan Nasional (BN).

By RIA Novosti, Washington : NASA astronauts Mike Fossum and Ron Garan have completed their third and final spacewalk, a mission control spokesman said on Monday. The six-and-a-half-hour walk began at 13:55 GMT Sunday, 37 minutes ahead of schedule, and concluded at 20:28 GMT, when the astronauts entered the International Space Station (ISS) and the airlock was re-pressurized. "They accomplished all of the planned tasks," the source said.

By IANS, Sydney : Scientists have for the first time discovered gold nanoparticles, setting to rest speculation about whether they existed at all. Scientists of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) said they discovered these particles in western Australia. “In the southern areas of the state, groundwater is very salty and acidic. This water dissolves primary gold and re-deposits it as pure gold crystals on fracture surfaces and in open pore spaces,” said Rob Hough, who led the search for the nanoparticles.

By Frederick Noronha, IANS, Panaji : A blog run out of Goa anonymously has claimed credit for misleading large sections of the Indian media by planting an untrue story about a "Nazi" being held along the state's border with Karnataka. By Tuesday evening, the blog, penpricks.blogspot.com, which often pillories the functioning of the media, claimed credit for unveiling "one of the most telling stories on the Goan as well as the Indian media".

By RIA Novosti, Moscow : A Lunar Exploration Neutron Detector (LEND) has had the final touches added at the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and has been sent to the US to be installed on the American Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), scheduled to be launched in early 2009. The aim of the mission is to map the Moon's surface. The task of the Russian device is to look for hydrogen and hydrogen-containing compounds, above all frozen water, in the lunar subsurface.

By Xinhua, Washington : NASA's next Mars mission, Mars Science Laboratory, will launch two years later than previously planned, in the fall of 2011. "A launch date of October 2009 no longer is feasible because of testing and hardware challenges that must be addressed to ensure mission success," NASA explained in a statement on Thursday. The window for a 2009 launch ends in late October. The relative positions of Earth and Mars are favorable for flights to Mars only a few weeks every two years. So the next launch opportunity after 2009 is in 2011.

By Nabeel A. Khan, IANS, New Delhi : Be careful when you access your computer over the Internet. Here are some safety tips: * Install file-sharing software carefully, so that you know what's being shared. * Person to person (P2P) file-sharing applications will, by default, share downloads in your "save" or "download" folder - unless you set it not to. * You should also restrict users' ability to write files to the file server. * Limit guests or anonymous accounts sharing so none can upload files.

BY DPA, Berlin : A computer virus that has already hit defence computers in Britain and France has spread to German military systems, the defence ministry in Berlin said Saturday. The Conficker computer worm has exasperated computer users right around the globe in recent weeks, but security-conscious military users had been thought to be better prepared to repel it. The spokesman said several German armed forces sites had to be disconnected from the military network after hundreds of computers were taken over by Conficker. However, no other disruptions were reported.

By IANS, Kalpakkam (Tamil Nadu): Nuclear-powered submarines with capacity to launch ballistic missiles offer the best second-strike capability for a nation, an Indian naval officer said here Sunday. "It is the only system that offers safe second-strike capability. The normal range of submarine-launched ballistic missiles will be 8,000 km. Compared to land-based missile launch pads, submarines are difficult to detect," Rear Admiral Michael Moraes, Flag Officer (submarines), told reporters at Kalpakkam, around 45 km from Chennai.

By IANS, Hyderabad : An Egyptian expert has arrived to restore a mummy from the age of the pharaohs and preserved at the State Archaeological Museum here. Tarek el Awady, director of Scientific Research in Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), arrived Wednesday night on a six-day visit to restore the mummy, dating back to 2500 BC, but which is showing signs of decay now.

By IANS, New Delhi : Indian tractor maker Sonalika group says it has developed a pollution-free three-wheeler that will run on hydrogen and emit only vapour. The engine has been developed in technical collaboration with Banaras Hindu University. Around 20 scientists and engineers of Sonalika Group and Banaras Hindu University have worked for seven years to make the project viable, the company said. "The new three-wheeler will run on hydrogen and emit only vapour," said company managing director Deepak Mittal.

By IANS, New Delhi : The successful launch of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), carrying five satellites, is proof of the country's proficiency in space science, Science and Technology Minister Prithviraj Chavan said Monday. Congratulating the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) scientists, Chavan said the launch was "textbook perfect". "It is the proof of our increasing proficiency in the space science," he said.

By IANS, London : A spaceship that was "20 times the size of a football field" was spotted hovering over Britain's Manchester airport nearly 15 years back, says a secret defence ministry file that was released Thursday. The huge spacecraft was seen by a UFO expert in 1995 and its sketch was sent to the defence ministry, The Sun reported Thursday, citing the secret files. The UFO was described as oblong with a curved front and a series of small nozzles at the rear. That's not the only UFO sighting.

By DPA, Madrid : Spanish scientists said Wednesday they have discovered the world's first humpback dinosaur.

By IANS,

By Arun Kumar, IANS, Washington: Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams is all set to return to to the International Space Station, where she spent a record six months in 2006.

By IANS,

By IANS/WAM,

Bengaluru : Union Minister of Steel and Mines Narendra Singh Tomar on Tuesday said Indian steel production reached the third highest position in the...

New Delhi : Environment, Forests and Climate Change Minister Prakash Javadekar announced on Wednesday that his ministry has allotted Rs. 5 crore for a...

Kolkata : Female train commuters in distress can now seek immediate police assistance at the touch of a button -- courtesy a mobile...

Mumbai : In an effort to cash in on India's growing Internet broadband applications sector, Citigroup-owned broadband service provider YOU Telecom has launched "webcast" or Internet broadcast, an effective, viewer and user-friendly "one-to-one" communication tool. "Webcasting as a communication tool is common in developed countries but in India it is still at a nascent stage," said YOU Telecom CEO E.V.S. Chakravarthy here.

By IANS Bangalore : Google Inc, the world's largest search engine, Monday announced the launching of a local search tool to enable Indian users find information on local businesses like restaurants, shops and hotels on the web. The India-specific search product - http://local.google.co.in - has also a facility to access information on local businesses. The Google local business centre will enable any business entity to load its information on the web. Local users can access the business information freely by logging into the search tool.

By DPA Singapore : Researchers have developed a membrane that filters impurities such as carbon dioxide from natural gas, the National University of Singapore said Wednesday. The result is a cleaner and more efficient source of energy, said Raj Rajagopalan. Up to 98 percent of impurities can be filtered out through the pores of the membrane. "The idea of membrane separation is to use molecularly engineered materials and make thin films to the structure that we want," Rajagopalan said.

By Xinhua Buenos Aires : The Moon, Mercury and Venus are going to align at 5:46 a.m. (0746 GMT) Wednesday, which can be spotted with naked eye by residents in the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires, a local astronomical club announced Monday. The planet lineup is expected to start at 5:20 a.m. Wednesday when the Moon first ascends, followed by Mercury at 5:34 a.m. and Venus at 5:46 a.m., according to the Astronomy Friends Association.

By IANS New York : Nintendo Wiimote is highly popular as a video-game, but by hooking it to a lab, computer researchers in the US have been able to extract clues about how a person performed a learning task. Although it has in the past been adapted as a tool of physical therapy for geriatrics, researchers at the University of Memphis have found another use for the game - psychological experimentation. Data from the Wiimote permitted researchers, led by Dale Rick, to demonstrate that body movements change systematically along with change in mental processing.

By IANS Washington : Researchers have identified 25 genes regulating lifespan in two organisms separated by 1.5 billion years - of which 15 are very similar to that of humans. And thanks to that similarity, it may now be possible for scientists to target the genes to help slow down aging and treat related conditions. The findings of the study have been published online in the journal Genome Research. The two organisms are the single-celled budding yeast and the roundworm C. elegans - both commonly used models for aging research.

By IANS Toronto : New research has uncovered how some squirrels, like their human counterparts, can be born with silver spoons in their mouths. Using 15 years of data from a North American red squirrel population, researchers discovered that female babies born into fortunate circumstances with more food, warmer spring weather and a lower population, experienced long-lasting positive effects on reproductive success, producing more offspring over the remainder of their lives.

By IANS, Washington : Political and business leaders from three leading world markets - China, India and Russia - got an insight into India's growth plans from Abhishek Singhvi, spokesperson of the Congress Party leading the country's ruling coalition. Participating in a conference on "China, India and Russia - Our Partners in the New Global Economy" in Boston, Massachusetts Thursday, he also dilated on India's infrastructure and its abundant labour supply.

By IANS, Washington : Admiring celebrities, even from afar, can help people with low self-esteem to see themselves in a more flattering light, according to a new study. The study, by researchers from the University at Buffalo and State University of New York, illustrates how such “parasocial” relationships can benefit people facing difficulties in interpersonal relationships. The researchers based their study on 100 undergraduates to examine the relationship between self-esteem, parasocial relationship closeness and self-discrepancies.

By IANS, Washington : Researchers have discovered a new species of fish, a grouper that grows to more than six feet and weighs almost 500 kg. These Atlantic goliaths are not the same groupers that swim in Pacific waters, though they look identical. "For more than a century, ichthyologists have thought that Pacific and Atlantic goliath grouper were the same species, and the argument was settled before the widespread use of genetic techniques.

By IANS, New York : German automobile giant Daimler and utility company RWE would launch a network of 500 charging stations for electric cars in Berlin in 2009. Under the project, called "e-mobility Germany", Daimler and its subsidiary Smart would provide 100 electric cars from its Mercedes Benz and Smart brands, as well as service for the cars while RWE would handle the development, installation and operation of the charging stations, CNET.com reported Tuesday.

By Venkatachari Jagannathan, IANS, Chennai : India can become a major player in the emerging small satellite manufacturing industry. The country's space agency has estimated a market potential of 50 satellites over the next decade, worth around $1.5 billion, says a space official. Keeping this in mind, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has already formed a special team to manufacture small satellites. ISRO will launch two such satellites in 2009 and 2010, both having overseas payloads.

By IANS, New Delhi : Leading telecom service provider Reliance Communications (RCom) Thursday launched an information service called 'Quick Search'. Powered by OnYoMo.com on Reliance Mobile World (R-World), the service includes information on banks, automated teller machines (ATMs), shopping malls, hotels, restaurants, cinema theatres, educational institutions, hospitals, blood banks, chemists and airline offices.

By IANS, Thiruvananthapuram : Singapore-based animation major Toonz Entertainment Pte Ltd has tied up with Marvel Animation to produce the second part of the popular animated television series "Wolverine and the X-Men", a top official said here Tuesday. Toonz Group chief executive P. Jayakumar said the company was thrilled to join hands with Marvel, a global leader in animated entertainment industry, to showcase "one of the most sought-after, iconic characters of all time".

By Xinhua, Beijing : China plans to launch 15 to 16 satellites this year, an official said here Monday. "Though the global financial crisis is taking a toll on the world economy, it has no impact on China's space programmes," said Zhang Jianqi, deputy chief commander of the manned space project. Zhang said China is at present "batch-producing" three spacecraft - Shenzhou-8, Shenzhou-9 and Shenzhou-10.

By IANS, Washington : Trees draw vast amounts of water from their roots up to their leaves hundreds of feet above the ground through capillary action. But now University of Rochester scientists have created a simple slab of metal that lifts liquid using the same principle, but at a much faster speed. The metal may prove invaluable in pumping microscopic amounts of liquid around a medical diagnostic chip, cooling a computer's processor, or turning almost any simple metal into an anti-bacterial surface.