Technology

By Xinhua, Washington : The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has announced that the crust and upper mantle of Mars are stiffer and colder than previously thought. The new observations from its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter suggest any liquid water that might exist below the planet's surface and any possible organisms living in that water would be located deeper than scientists had suspected. "This implies that the planet's interior is more rigid, and thus colder, than we thought before."

By IANS, Sydney : UAVs, or unmanned aerial vehicles, used with deadly precision in war-torn Iraq and Afghanistan, are likely to be adapted to civilian work within the next decade. New research indicates that robotic, or pilot-less, planes will be commonplace within five to 10 years and make manned flights seem passe. For example, Rod Walker of Queensland University of Technology (QUT) said recent trials have looked at using automated planes for fisheries and border protection in the Cape York area.

By IANS, London : Birds can detect and avoid predators by smell, an ability earlier thought to be associated with other animal species, according to latest research. Birds are not only capable of identifying enemies through chemical signals, but also alter their behaviour depending on perceived risk levels, a recent study found. The use of smell to detect chemical signals can be useful for birds say in feeding and orientation. However, it can boost their chances of survival if they can know whether the smell detected is associated with a predator, reports Sciencedaily.

Berlin, Sep 13 (DPA) Motorists should not immediately panic when the warning lamp lights up indicating that the fuel tank is empty because most cars have an adequate reserve to last for a stretch of 50 km, according to a test by the German magazine AUTO/Strassenverkehr. The magazine tested 10 different car models with some vehicles even managing to drive a distance of 150 km before coming to a standstill after the warning lamp lit up.

By IANS, London : NASA will attempt to lower a probe onto the surface of Mars for the first time as it continues its search for signs of life on the red planet, The Telegraph reported Tuesday.

Bangalore : Google, the world's largest search engine provider, Thursday unveiled a new tool to search, navigate and explore Indian cities, streets, landmarks, restaurants...

By IANS, Bangalore : The saffron-white-green of the Indian flag will adorn the moon from Friday night when the tricolour-painted moon impact probe (MIP) of Chandrayaan-1 lands on its surface to begin a two-year investigation of the earth's only natural satellite. The 375 mm x 375 mm x 470 mm MIP is a honeycomb structure housing the subsystems and three instruments - radar altimeter, video imaging system and mass spectrometer. It weighs 35 kg.

By DPA, Beijing : When Zhai Zhigang floats out of a space capsule wearing his 120-kg, $30-million pressurized suit, he is to set another landmark for China's ambitious space programme as it moves toward assembling a permanent space station by 2020. Nearly three years after China's last manned space mission, Zhai should make his spacewalk Friday, if all goes well. "The spacewalk is risky," Australian space analyst Morris Jones said. "The Chinese spacesuit has not been tested in space before." "The Shenzhou's orbital module has never been depressurized before either."

By IANS, Panama City : Extensive cultivation of biofuel crops, aimed at reducing the greenhouse gas or carbon emissions, have posed the "risk of ultimately harming the environment", experts have said. Scientists taking part in an ecology conference here said that deforestation and land-use changes for biofuel crops are harming environment as much as fossil fuels like coal and petroleum, EFE reported Sunday. The forum was organised by the Panama-based Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI).

By IANS, Sydney : High-tech cling wraps that filter out carbon dioxide (CO2) from waste gases can help save the world, says the researcher who developed the technology. The membranes can be fitted to existing chimneys where they capture CO2 for removal and storage. They are already being tested on brown coal power stations in Victoria’s La Trobe Valley, said Colin Scholes, a Melbourne University chemical engineer. "The membrane material is specifically designed to separate CO2 from other molecules," he said.

By IANS, London : A 9,550-year-old spruce, the world's oldest living tree, has been found in Dalarna province of Sweden. The tenacious specimen has survived by growing between erect trees and smaller bushes in pace with the dramatic climate changes over time. For many years the spruce tree has been regarded as a relative newcomer in the Swedish mountain region. "Our results have shown the complete opposite. The spruce is one of the oldest known trees in the mountain range," said Leif Kullman, of Umeå University.

By IANS, Washington : Youngsters are using popular networking websites like Facebook and MySpace to create flattering self-images, one that they would like to be but are not. "People can use these sites to explore who they are by posting particular images, pictures or text," said University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) psychology graduate Adriana Manago, researcher with the Children's Digital Media Center, Los Angeles (CDMCLA), and co-author of the study.

By Xinhua, Washington : Data from satellites and observatories around the globe show a jet from a powerful stellar explosion witnessed March 19 was aimed almost directly at the Earth, the US space agency NASA has reported. NASA's Swift satellite detected the explosion - formally named GRB 080319B - and pinpointed its position in the constellation Bootes. The event, called a gamma-ray burst, became bright enough for human eyes to see. Observations of the event are giving astronomers the most detailed portrait of a burst ever recorded.

By IANS, London : An orbiting NASA space telescope has captured the footage of a planet-sized object flying close to the sun, and extending a "refuelling tube" into the sun's surface.

By IANS/EFE, Lima : Peruvian archaeologists have discovered two ceremonial temples believed to be buried since more than 4,000 years.

By IANS, Washington : A powerful solar flare has triggered the largest space weather storm in four years, disrupting some ground communications on earth.

By IANS Kozhikode : Scientists have discovered a new plant species, named Miliusa Wayanaddica and belonging to the Annonaceae family, in Kerala's Wayanad district. The new plant was discovered by M.K. Ratheesh Narayanan of the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, Kalpetta, Wayanad, and P. Sujanapal of the Kerala Forest Research Institute (KFRI). It was found in the Meppadi forest range in the Western Ghats at an altitude of 1,400 metres above the sea level. "The plant is endemic to the area, but has no known local name," Narayanan said.

By DPA Berlin : People spend hours in front of countless PC monitors nowadays. Usually those monitors go dark when work ends. That could soon change in some households. Monitors have other uses apart from word processing and spreadsheets. They can also show movies and soap operas. But a few problems still remain when converting your monitor into a desktop TV.

By RIA Novosti, Washington : The launch of space shuttle Endeavour has been delayed again by 24 hours to "allow technical teams additional time to evaluate lightning strikes at Launch Pad 39A that occurred during Friday's thunderstorm," NASA said Saturday. The launch of Endeavour that was to have gone ahead Saturday will now take place Sunday. Two previous launches were postponed after hydrogen gas was found to be leaking from a vent line connected to the external tanks. NASA technicians carried out repairs realigning a fuel plate and installing new seals to rectify the problem.

By IANS, Chennai : The moon impact probe (MIP) abroad India's first lunar spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 is expected to hit the lunar surface Friday evening, said a top official of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). "Ninety-five percent of the moon mission is over successfully. I am not in a position to say when the MIP will land on the moon," ISRO Chairman G. Madhavan Nair told reporters on the sidelines of a seminar here Thursday. According to him the unmanned Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft will map the moon to get an idea about the minerals present there.

By Xinhua, Washington : U.S. Mars lander Phoenix, which touched down on Sunday at northern polar plains on Mars, successfully unstowed its robotic arm on Wednesday, according to NASA mission updates. Early Wednesday, scientists leading Phoenix mission from the University of Arizona sent commands to move the lander's robotic arm for the first time after its touchdown.

By IANS,

By IRNA, New Delhi : A project on space satellites submitted by a Indian girl school student from Rourkela, the steel city in Orissa has been selected as the best by NASA. The project by Prateeksha Das of Class XII in the Ispat English Medium School run by Rourkela Steel Plant, won a prize of $ 2,000. She has also been selected for the prestigious Bruce M-Clark Memorial award.

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, Sydney : Educationists have developed a new web-based tool that helps primary schoolchildren to concentrate better and develop literacy skills. The interactive educational software called 'Abracadabra' is designed to help struggling school students aged five to eight years learn basic literacy skills to equip them for the future. The tool has just undergone a 10-week trial that has been described as a success.

By RIA Novosti Moscow : Russia successfully put a new Express-AM33 telecommunications satellite into orbit Monday, the Federal Space Agency said. The satellite, designed by the Reshetnev Applied Mechanics Science and Production Association to provide TV and satellite communications all over Russia, was launched on board a Proton-M carrier rocket from the Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan.

By IANS, Washington : The US defence department is funding a radical helicopter design called the DiscRotor that would have a spinning disc instead of conventional spinning rotor blades at high speeds. The DiscRotor, which is being funded by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), would have a large circular saucer-like hub on top with retractable rotor blades extending from the saucer's edge.

By IANS, Washington : You would have to go back at least 15 million years to find carbon dioxide levels as high as they are today, say scientists. Then "global temperatures were five to 10 degrees Fahrenheit higher than they are today, sea level was approximately 75 to 120 feet higher than today, there was no permanent sea ice cap in the Arctic and very little ice on Antarctica and Greenland," said Aradhna Tripathi, who led the study.

By IANS, Thiruvananthapuram: The 15th Indo-US Air Force Executive Steering Group (ESG) conference will begin Monday at the Southern Air Command Headquarters here. The three-day conference allows the delegations of the two countries to discuss policies and mutual exchange programmes for bilateral defence cooperation, a defence spokesperson said Sunday. The annual conference is held alternatively in the two countries and this year the Southern Air Command has been chosen as the venue.

By IANS, Bangalore: Four co-founders of IT bellwether Infosys Technologies collectively contributed Rs.10 crore to rebuild houses for the victims of flood havoc in north Karnataka recently, a top official said. "The company has pledged Rs.20 crore while four co-founders have volunteered to contribute Rs.2.5 crore each to the effort to build 3,000 pucca (permanent) houses for the flood-affected people," Infosys chief executive S. Gopalkrishnan told reporters here.

By IANS, Bangalore : India's first unmanned spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 descended further into the lunar orbit Tuesday following the third orbit-reduction manoeuvre, a top space official said here. "The manoeuvre was carried out at 18.30 (IST) for 31 seconds to push the spacecraft into a lower orbit at 102-km periselene (nearest point to moon) and 255-km aposilene (farthest point from moon)," Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) director S. Satish told IANS. In the current lower elliptical orbit, the spacecraft will revolve around the moon once in two hours and nine minutes.

By IANS/RIA Novosti,

By Xinhua, Beijing : Hydrothermal vents similar to those found in America's Yellowstone National Park may have carried water up through the Martian soil, according to data provided by NASA's Spirit rover. The site of these proposed vents could possibly contain preserved traces of ancient Martian life, scientists say. That assumes, of course, that life might once have existed on Mars. No firm evidence for that idea has ever been found, however.

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 IANS, Beijing : China has developed a super computer that runs at more than one quadrillion (one thousand million million) calculations per second, making it the fastest one in the country, experts have said. The super computer named "Xingyun", has been developed in Tianjin, and works at double the speed of "Tianhe-1", the previous fastest machine in China. The Tianhe-1 was developed by the National University of Defence Technology in October 2009, Li Jun, president of the Dawning Information Industry Co. Ltd., was quoted as saying by Xinhua.

By DPA, Geneva : Polyester fibres covered by tiny silicone filaments can create clothing that when dunked in water will still remain completely dry, a Swiss scientist discovered. The nanotechnology structure allows the surface to be covered in chemicals which make the clothing hydrophobic to the point that water simply bounces or slides off. Stefan Seeger, a lead researcher on the project at the University of Zurich, said the technology could have many purposes, including producing improved swimsuits, making industrial clothing and even for protecting outdoor furniture.

By IANS, Washington : Rocks examined by NASA's Spirit Mars Rover hold evidence of a wet, non-acidic ancient environment that may have been favourable for life. Confirming this mineral clue took four years of analysis by several scientists. An outcrop that Spirit examined in late 2005 revealed high concentrations of carbonate, which originates in wet, near-neutral conditions, but dissolves in acid. The ancient water indicated by this find was not acidic.

By NNN-PTI, New Delhi : With the country facing increased terror threat, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh regretted that modern technology is not adequately utilised to meet the challenge and pitched for greater focus on scientific developments for securing the nation better. Pointing out that other countries have used technology for security with great effect, he favoured work in the areas of surveillance systems, cryptography, real time search and identification from distributed large databases and computer simulation exercises to enhance crisis tactics and responses.

By IANS, Sydney : Inert gases trapped inside Earth's interior provide clues into the processes responsible for its birth and the evolution of oceans and atmosphere, a new study says.

By Pupul Dutta, IANS, New Delhi : Twitterers and users of Facebook, beware! For hackers have now begun targeting popular social networking sites, and chances are that the sites' members maybe hoodwinked into revealing their identities and, worse, even credit card details, warn experts. Last week, hackers twice attacked Facebook - arguably the world's most popular social networking site - causing a host of users to reveal their personal information.

By IANS, By WAM, Abu Dhabi: The 6th information and communication technology summit of the Middle East's oil and gas sector opened in Abu Dhabi Tuesday.

By IANS, Washington : The accidental discovery of a bowl-shaped molecule that pulls carbon dioxide out of the air paves the way for exciting new possibilities to deal with global warming. These possibilities include genetically engineering microbes to manufacture those carbon dioxide "catchers", said J.A. Tossell, a Maryland University scientist who led the study. He noted that another scientist discovered the molecule while doing research unrelated to global climate change.

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, New Delhi: A total of 89 power projects seeking green clearance are pending with the ministry, Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan told the Lok Sabha Monday.

By IANS,

By DPA San Francisco : Microsoft beat off a rival bid from Google to invest $240 million in hit social networking site Facebook, in a deal that values the start-up at $15 billion. Microsoft's $240 million payment gives it just a 1.6 percent stake in the Silicon Valley start-up founded three years ago by Mark Zuckerberg, 23. He dropped out of Harvard to develop the company and his 20 percent stake now makes him worth a cool $3 billion.

By IANS, Washington : NASA will conduct a massive polar survey from Oct 15 to examine changes to Antarctica's sea ice and glaciers. The flights are part of Operation Ice Bridge, a six-year campaign that is the largest airborne survey ever made of ice at the polar regions. Researchers will work from NASA's DC-8, an airborne lab equipped with laser mapping instruments, ice-penetrating radar and gravity instruments.

By IANS, Washington : Your fingers start to burn after picking up a hot plate; should you drop the plate or save your meal? New research suggests it is your consciousness that resolves these dilemmas by serving as the brain's Wi-Fi network. "If the brain is like a set of computers that control different tasks, consciousness is the Wi-Fi network that allows different parts of the brain to talk to each other and decide which action 'wins' and is carried out," said Ezequiel Morsella. Morsella, who led the study, is professor of psychology at San Francisco State University (SFSU).

By IANS Thiruvananthapuram : Software giant Microsoft and veteran Malayalam superstar Mammootty are planning to launch an e-literacy programme in Kerala. Mammootty told IANS Tuesday that he is in discussions with Microsoft for the launch of the statewide education project. He is also the brand ambassador of the state-sponsored Akshaya IT programme. Mammootty said he wants to launch the project to help make all sections of the society IT literate.

By IANS, Shanghai: Taxis can now be called in China's business capital by just uploading the passenger's location on a smartphone app.

By IANS, Beijing: Three astronauts who completed China's first manned space docking safely returned to Earth Friday morning.

By Richa Sharma, IANS, Kochi : It is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and scientists from across the globe are thronging southern India to watch the 'Ring of Fire' during the millennium's longest annular solar eclipse Friday. The southern tips of Kerala and Tamil Nadu will offer the best view of the moon obscuring the sun.

By IANS, Kanyakumari/Rameshwaram : Thousands of people converged on beaches and at science centres in Kanyakumari, Rameshwaram and Danushkodi in Tamil Nadu and watched the 'Ring of Fire' formed during the longest annular solar eclipse of the millennium Friday. An annular solar eclipse occurs when the sun and the moon are exactly in line, but the apparent size of the moon's shadow is smaller than the visible disc of the sun. The covered sun, therefore, appears as a 'Ring of Fire', with its rays spread out from the dark outline of the moon.

By IANS, Washington : Seeing into the remotest reaches of space, way beyond the capacity of the most powerful existing (Hubble) telescope, may now be possible with MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument detectors) cameras. "The MIRI is one of four science instruments aboard the James Webb telescope that is designed to record images and spectra at the longest wavelengths that the Webb can observe," said Matt Greenhouse, NASA project scientist.

By IANS, Sydney : Climatic extremes like frequent droughts and floods, associated with global warming, can trigger epidemics that could potentially wipe out livestock or wildlife. A new study suggests that such extremes are capable of altering normal host-pathogen relationships, causing a “perfect storm” of multiple infectious outbreaks.

By IANS, Bangalore : India's top space scientist G. Madhavan Nair has been elected president of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) at its general assembly in South Korea, the Indian space agency said Monday. Nair, chairman of the state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), has been vice-president of the IAA for four years prior to taking over the prestigious post Sunday at Daejeon in South Korea.

By DPA, Washington : NASA's Cassini spacecraft has spotted what could be an ice volcano on Saturn's moon Titan, scientists said Tuesday.

By DPA, Hamburg : Google is testing a new social search function to make it easier for people find their friends' blogs and twitter feeds. The only catch is that users of the service need to have an open profile with Google that includes personal contact data. Once those conditions are met, the user can access the service at the Google Labs. Typing in "New York" will yield a list of friends in the user's social network who have posted items from the Big Apple. Settings can be altered so that only postings from close friends and acquaintances are included in the "social graph."

By Xinhua, Beijing : NASA's Phoenix lander closed in on Mars Saturday, healthy and on course for touchdown Sunday evening near the Red Panet's northern polar cap. Engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., decided to forego a course-correction rocket firing late Saturday but left open the option for a final trajectory tweak Sunday eight hours before atmospheric entry.

By Xinhua, Abu Dhabi : A senior official of the Defense Ministry of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) said that the ministry plans to launch a joint remote-sensing satellite with other member countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), local newspaper Gulf News reported on Tuesday. The plan was revealed by Brigadier Khalifa Mohammad Al Rumaithi, Chief of Military Works of the UAE Armed Forces, at the Defense Geospatial Intelligence Middle East opened on Monday in Dubai.

By IANS, New Delhi : As the sun goes down Wednesday evening, two of the brightest objects in the winter sky - Venus and Moon - will get together to bid farewell to 2008. A beautiful conjunction of Venus and the slender crescent Moon will be visible in the southwestern sky for hours after sunset on New Year's Eve. "The winter sky is very clear and you can have a spectacular vision of the celestial activity even with naked eyes," Nehru Planetarium director N. Rathnasree told IANS.

By IANS, Washington : Plasmonics may open the way to the next generation of computers that operate faster and store more information than electronically-based systems and are also smaller. "If plasmonics are realised, the future will have circuits as small as the current electronic ones with a capacity a million times better," said Tony Jun Huang, assistant professor of engineering science and mechanics at Penn State University. "Plasmonics combines the speed and capacity of photonic (light based) circuits with the small size of electronic circuits," he added.

By IANS, London : The virtues of biochar -- or “black gold” -- in the soil, which was being touted as a possible carbon sink to counteract global warming, has been disputed by scientists. A new study suggests that the supposed benefits of biochar (charcoal derived from wood) may be exaggerated. When charcoal was mixed with humus, there was a substantial increase in soil micro-organisms (bacteria and fungi), the study found.

By IANS,

By IANS/RIA Novosti, Moscow : Contact has been made with an Indonesian telecommunications satellite which went missing following a failed launch last week, a Russian rocket firm said Monday.

By RIA Novosti Washington : US space shuttle Endeavour astronauts have completed their third spacewalk, preparing a new robot designed for the maintenance of the International Space Station for activation, NASA said Tuesday. Mission specialists Rick Linnehan and Robert Behnken outfitted the Canadian-built Dextre robot with tools for its work. The two-armed robot, assembled during the previous two spacewalks, is the final element in the station's Mobile Servicing System.

By DPA New York : Key officials from US software giant Microsoft and internet company Yahoo failed to reach agreement in talks over a multi-billion takeover bid, the Wall Street Journal newspaper reported Friday. Microsoft had launched a takeover bid of originally $45 billon more than two months ago, which was rejected by Yahoo for being too low. According to the paper, officials were unable to solve their differences of opinion during the meeting, which took place this week at Yahoo's headquarters in Sunnydale, California.

By IANS Rio de Janeiro : Brazilian paleontologists have found an 85-million-year-old fossil they say is of a creature that represents the evolutionary missing link between ancient crocodiles and the present species, Spain's news agency EFE reported. The 80-percent-complete skeleton of the new species, dubbed Montealtosuchus arrudacamposi, was found at Monte Alto in Brazil's southeastern Sao Paulo state. A team from the Museum of Paleontology and the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro carried out an evaluation of the fossil.

By DPA, Washington : A US rocket is to crash into the moon Friday in an experiment scientists hope will provide data about ice hidden in the perpetually dark lunar craters. Astronomers around the world are prepared to capture the impact of the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) into the moon's Caebus crater at 1130 GMT. The rocket will deliberately crash into the moon, kicking up a plume of dust that scientists hope to analyse for traces of water that they believe are abundant in the cold, shadowy craters.

By Xinhua Beijing : China Thursday called on the US to provide relevant data on its shooting down of a defunct spy satellite. China is continuing to closely follow the possible harm caused by the US action to outer space security and relevant countries, Liu Jianchao, foreign ministry spokesman, told reporters here. "China requests that the US fulfil its international obligations and promptly provide to the international community the necessary information so that relevant countries can take precautions." Liu said.

By IANS, Panaji : Noted astrophysicist Jayant Narlikar has urged that the moon be scanned for micro-organisms in its environment, especially in areas where traces of water have been found. Speaking during a lecture on 'Searching for micro-life in the earth's atmosphere' in Goa Sunday, Narlikar said that the discovery of water on the moon called for a fresh perspective on the issue of life on the moon.

By IANS, Toronto : Scientists have stumbled upon a central processing unit (CPU) of a superbug's weaponry which will provide new options to fight back and disable the virulent bacteria. A team from the McMaster University's Institute for Infectious Disease Research has revealed that a small chemical, made by the superbug Staphylococcus aureus and its drug-resistant forms, determines this disease's strength and ability to infect.

By IANS Cienfuegos (Cuba) : Cuban scientists have developed a drug from scorpion venom, which they say could go a long way in fighting cancer, Spanish news agency Prensa Latina reported Thursday. "The researchers have been studying the breeding, handling and use of scorpion venom in their Cienfuegos breeding centre, which has 400 scorpions at present but would increase to 5,000 next year," team leader Fabio Linares of the Pharmaceutical Biological Laboratories in Havana said Wednesday. The drug can be used to treat brain tumours, pancreas and prostate cancer.

By Mohammed Abdul Jawad, O, what a blessed month is this! Yea, of course, I mean ‘Ramadan’—the month of sublime patience, repentance, forgiveness and generous spending. It carries its unique beauty, virtues and rewards. We ought to know the reality of fasting, the acts of worship, the manners of supplications, the essence of piety, the ways to achieve steadfastness and protection from deviations, the etiquettes of night prayer, the virtues of Laylatul Qadr (Night of Revelation) and the significance of charity.

Bangalore: India's fourth largest IT bellwether HCL Technologies bagged a $400-million (Rs.2,400 crore) deal to run the IT operations of DNB Bank ASA, Norway's...

By IANS, London : A life-like robot, which speaks more than a dozen languages and has a pawky sense of humour, has been bought by NASA to become a robotic tour guide.

By IANS, Washington : The burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas accounts for 80 percent of the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide since pre-industrial era. But an Indian-American researcher has identified feasible scenarios that could rein in carbon dioxide emission below levels considered dangerous for the climate. Pushker Kharecha and James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, considered a wide range of fossil fuel consumption options.

By IANS, Sydney : Scientists may have discovered the oldest ever fossils of animal bodies, primitive sponge like creatures that lived in ocean reefs about 635 million years ago. The shelly fossils, found beneath a glacial deposit in south Australia, represent the earliest evidence of animal body forms in the current record, predating other evidence by at least 70 million years.

By IANS, Toronto : Upholding patent-infringement charges by a small Toronto firm agaist Microsoft Tuesday, a US appeals court ordered the software giant to stop selling Word by Jan 11 and pay $290 million in damages. Microsoft said it will introduce the copies of Word 2007 and Office 2007 without the offending technology by the court-ordered deadline. Tuesday's ruling upholds an earlier injunction against Microsoft that banned the technology giant from selling Word.

New Delhi : Google on Thursday paid tribute to former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, with a black ribbon on its homepage. Kalam died...

By Andy Goldberg, DPA Las Vegas : Think that cellphone in your pocket is pretty neat? Think again. Spurred by the phenomenal launch of the iPhone, the prospect of a Google phone and open networks, inventors and entrepreneurs around the world are feverishly developing plans to expand what mobile phones can do. "They want to combine the computing power of the latest phones with social networks and location-tracking technologies to create a new generation of cell phones," says Simon Blitz, who runs a large cell phone wholesale company in the US.

By IANS, Bangalore : India's maiden lunar mission Chandrayaan-1 is likely to lift off in the early hours of Oct 22 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota, about 90km from Chennai, a top space agency official said Monday. "The tentative launch date is Oct 22 though the window will be kept open till Oct 26. Depending on the weather, we plan to launch the lunar spacecraft (Chandrayaan) around 6.30 a.m. IST," Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) director S. Satish told IANS here.

By DPA, San Francisco : Google's online video site YouTube now gets a billion hits a day, the site's founder Chad Hurley said in a video posted Friday. "Three years ago today (YouTube co-founder) Steve (Chen) and I stood in front of our offices and jokingly crowned ourselves the 'burger kings' of media," read the post, which was titled Y,000,000,000uTube.

By IANS, New Delhi : Commencing Tuesday, three eclipses - a lunar eclipse, a solar eclipse and another lunar - will take over the skies, a phenomenon which although experts say is not rare, will nevertheless be nature's grand spectacle. On July 7, a penumbral lunar eclipse will occur as the moon rises over Australia and sets in western north and south America in the early pre-dawn hours, said C.B. Devgun, director of Science Popularization Association of Communicators and Educators (SPACE). The eclipse, however, will not be visible over India.

By IANS, Washington : Newly released data from Semipalatinsk, the primary nuclear weapons testing site of the former Soviet Union during the Cold War, can help today's atomic sleuths fine-tune their monitoring of nuclear detonations, according to a study The data is especially important in light of the fact that only three nuclear tests - back-to-back tests in India and Pakistan in 1998 and a 2006 test in North Korea - have been conducted since the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty of 1996, said Paul Richards of Columbia University

By IANS, London : US space agency NASA has unveiled three concept designs for quieter and more energy efficient superplanes that could be ready by 2025.

Chennai, Oct 26 (IANS) India's maiden moon probe spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 has reached nearly half the distance to the lunar orbit, crossing the 150,000-km mark from the earth Sunday morning. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) completed third orbit-raising manoeuvre initiated at 7.08 a.m. Sunday firing the liquid apogee motor for about nine and a half minutes. With this, Chandrayaan spacecraft has entered a much higher elliptical orbit around the earth.

By DPA, Washington : Uneasy about ongoing tropical storms, the US space agency NASA Sunday announced a two-day delay in launching the Atlantis shuttle mission to repair the Hubble telescope. Atlantis will launch Oct 10 instead of Oct 8 from the Kennedy Space Centre on the Florida Atlantic coast, NASA said. The mission is complicated because a second shuttle must be ready on the launch pad immediately after Atlantis takes off to serve as a back-up in case of problems with the mission.

New York A new technology developed by scientists at University of California - Los Angeles (UCLA) can store solar energy for up to several...

By RIA Novasti Moscow : Russia's Progress M-61 cargo spacecraft is to be detached from the International Space Station (ISS) on December 22 and used as a platform for technical experiments, mission control said on Thursday. "Progress-M61 is to be undocked from the ISS on December 22. However, the spacecraft, which is at the end of its service life, will not be buried at the 'spacecraft cemetery' in the Pacific, but will be sent on an independent voyage," a spokesman said.

By IANS, London : The personal details of 100 million users of social networking website Facebook are now available for download after they were leaked online. Ron Bowles, an online security consultant, used a code to scan Facebook profiles, collected data not hidden by users' privacy settings, and compiled a list, which is now available as a downloadable file, containing the URL of every "searchable" Facebook user's profile, their name and unique ID, the BBC reported Thursday.

By IANS, Washington : A remote sensing technique could sniff out hidden explosives, chemical, biological agents and illegal drugs from afar. The new system, using terahertz (THz) wave technology, can also "see through" clothing and packaging materials that might conceal explosives or other dangerous materials. In the event of a chemical spill, for instance, remote sensing could identify the composition of the toxic mix. Since sensing is remote, no one will be harmed, reports Nature Photonics.

By IANS, New Delhi : The government Wednesday announced guidelines for off-grid solar applications, as well as roof top and other small solar plants. "The guidelines that we have released today are meant to tap into the diverse and enormous potential of solar energy in all applications - rural, industrial as well as urban. The guidelines are flexible, simple and market friendly," union Minister of New and Renewable Energy Farooq Abdullah said here Wednesday.

By IANS London : A giant fossilised claw of an ancient sea scorpion has been found in Germany, and scientists believe the scorpion itself was some 2.5 metres long -- much taller than the average man. The find, from rocks 390 million years old, suggests that spiders, insects, crabs and similar creatures were much larger in the past than previously thought.

By IANS, Hyderabad : A group of rationalists gathered here Wednesday morning to not just watch the longest solar eclipse of the century but also tuck into breakfast in an attempt to remove superstitious beliefs from the minds of people. While the dark clouds blocked the view of the partial eclipse, they went ahead with their meal on the banks of the picturesque Hussain Sagar Lake in the heart of the city to prove a point. The participants, including women and children, had the breakfast arranged by Jana Vignan Vedika (JVV), a group of rationalists fighting against superstition.

By Fakir Balaji Bangalore, Nov 5 (IANS) The Indian government is starting a five-year national mission to make the country a global hub for nanoscience and nanotechnology, leveraging the low-cost advantage and its vast talent pool. Spearheaded by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), the ambitious mission aims to create nano clusters in the country to conduct research in the sunrise sector and develop applications using nano materials that will have a bearing on diverse industrial sectors as well as commoners.

By IANS, Sydney : Australian scientists have successfully used an electronic 'ear' to track and control a drill operating 300 metres below the earth's surface. The successful trial has demonstrated that use of 'microseismics' can potentially cut down costs and improve drilling process for exploration and mining. The trial was carried out at a coalfield test site in Queensland as part of a programme to develop and exploit coal seam gas.

By IANS, New Delhi : Since its first launch in 1994, India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) has so far placed 41 satellites (19 Indian and 22 foreign) into orbit - making it one of the most successful launch vehicles ever worldwide. * The PSLV was originally developed and operated by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to launch its Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) satellites into orbit with the help of Russia. It was then used for launching a variety of satellites.

By DPA Washington : NASA administrators have said they could find no evidence that astronauts had flown drunk, despite accusations that had arisen in an independent report last month. An internal review by the space agency found no evidence of cases in the past 20 years when astronauts were allowed to launch despite protests from flight surgeons or other officials, NASA administrator Michael Griffin said at a press conference Wednesday.

By IANS, Washington: About 100 leading business and tech visionaries from around the world would discuss innovative ideas and market ready incubated technologies at the annual emerging technologies conference, EmTech 2010, in Bangalore next month. The two-day conference from Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT's) Technology Review is being held in India for the second year in succession, in association with CyberMedia, from March 8.

By IANS, Washington : Cyclone Nargis rendered as many as 3.2 million Burmese homeless, according to geographic risk models developed by researchers. Relying on Geographic Information Systems (GIS), researchers calculated the likely distribution of the population and developed maps of the regions at greatest risk from the storm's effects.

By IANS, Patna : All along the stretch of India's holiest river Ganga, the zooplanktons that play a critical role in its food chain are developing tumours, says a biologist. M. Omair from the University of Michigan in the US has collected zooplankton samples from Haridwar, Kanpur, Allahabad, Varanasi, Patna, and Kolkata. He found that many of the zooplanktons that are eaten by the small fish have tumours. The small fish are in turn eaten by the bigger fish and so on, so the ill zooplanktons are getting into the entire food chain, including humans who eat fish from the river.

By IANS, Washington : Scientists have identified an important fat precursor cell that may explain how changes in the numbers of fat cells might increase obesity. The finding could also have implications for understanding how fat cells affect conditions like diabetes and cardiovascular disease. "The identification of white adipocyte progenitor cells provides a means for identifying factors that regulate the proliferation and differentiation of fat cells," said co-author Jeffrey Friedman, professor at Rockefeller University and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.

By Cheng Zhiliang and Quan Xiaoshu, Xinhua, Beijing : When Microsoft noticed "misunderstandings" among the Chinese public over its "black screen" move to crack down on piracy, the country's domestic software industry saw opportunity and couldn't wait to embrace it. A Kingsoft public relations manager said there were currently up to 120,000 daily Internet downloads of "WPS Office," the "Microsoft Office"-like software developed by Kingsoft Corporation Limited, compared with 50,000 to 60,000 downloads before the controversial Microsoft move.

By IANS Visakhapatnam : New technologies and products displayed by various defence organisations in the science exposition here have been a major draw for delegates participating in the 95th Indian Science Congress. Being held as part of the five-day annual event in the sprawling Andhra University campus in this scenic port city, the exhibition, christened Bharat Expo, showcases developments and achievements made by scientific institutions, state-run organisations and private enterprises, using science and technology.

By Arun Kumar, IANS,

By IANS London : Remember the scare last year caused by some Nokia batteries that were found to be overheating while charging -- leading to their worldwide recall? Such scares will soon be a thing of the past. German researchers have developed a safer lithium-ion battery that is virtually non-inflammable, addressing concerns of mobile phones users worldwide. The new prototype is based on a polymer electrolyte, which unlike liquid electrolyte in conventional cell phone batteries is not inflammable.

By Prensa Latina, Beijing : Two large solar power plants will be built in the Chinese provinces of Qinghai and Yunnan this year, as part of a nationwide project to boost renewable energy. Qinghai's solar station will cost 146 million dollars and will be jointly built by China Technology Development Group and Qinghai New Energy Group. In the beginning, the plant will generate 30 megawatts, but after completion, it will produce one gigawatt and will be the world's largest solar power plant, investors said.

By IANS, Washington : When you look down at the grains of soil beneath your feet, all of them seem alike. But when scientists examined them very closely, at the nanoscale level, they discovered an incredible world populated by "heterogeneity of organic matter". Outwardly, composition of organic soils from North America, Panama, Brazil, Kenya or New Zealand proved similar. However, spaces separated by mere micrometres within the same sample showed up striking differences during a recent study.

By IANS Bangalore : The Indian space agency is bracing up for its first lunar exploration mission Chandrayaan-1 due April next year by setting up a deep space network (DSN) near this IT hub. The network, coming up at Byalalu, about 45 km from here, and comprising mainly two powerful dish antennas of 32-metre and 18-metre diameter, will keep track of the unmanned moon mission and provide command support during its two-year orbit around earth's only natural satellite.

By Fakir Balaji, IANS Visakhapatnam : Nobel laureate and Rockefeller University president Sir Paul M. Nurse went down memory lane at the Indian Science Congress here to kindle young Indians with insights into the fascinating world of biology and living forms. "Biology is not a mere academic stuff to cram at school or college and be done with. It is a life-long passionate subject that unfolds secrets of nature, creation, evolution and dissolution.

By IANS, Sugandha (Hooghly) : Xenitis Telecommunication, a newly floated venture of West Bengal-based conglomerate Xenitis Group, plans to invest Rs.2.5 billion for setting up a mobile handset manufacturing facility in West Bengal.

By Prashant K. Nanda, IANS New Delhi : India may never become the number one military power in the world but eminent scientist C.N.R. Rao believes that it has the potential to become number one in science and technology. "We will never become number one in economy or in military power but we can definitely become a superpower and world number one in science and, over all, in knowledge," Rao, chairman of the Science Advisory Council to the prime minister, told IANS in an interview.

By Venkata Vemuri, IANS, London : If critics are to be believed, the end of the universe will begin coming Wednesday when a Welsh miner's son launches the world's biggest scientific experiment to know how the universe was born. The well-known Welshman physicist, Lyn Evans, dubbed Evans the Atom, will this week switch on a giant particle accelerator designed to unlock the secrets of the Big Bang. On Wednesday, Evans will fire up the Large Hadron Collider, a 17-mile-long doughnut-shaped tunnel that will smash sub-atomic particles together at nearly the speed of light.

By IANS, Washington: Apple's future generation iPhone model, which was leaked after being mistakenly left at a bar in California, has been put on display by a technology news portal. The secret version of the next generation iPhone was not expected to be formally unveiled for a couple of months. But, the technology news site Gizmodo said the gadget was left by an iPhone software engineer at Gourmet Haus Staudt, a German specialty store and beer garden in Redwood City.

By RIA Novosti, Moscow : Russia is planning to set a world record by conducting a total of 39 space launches in 2009 despite the current global financial crisis, the head of the Russian Space Agency said on Monday. "We have scheduled a record number of launches for next year. We are planning to carry out 39 launches, half of them commercial and civilian satellites," Anatoly Perminov said. Russia conducted 27 space launches in 2008 and 26 launches in 2007, becoming the world's leader in this sphere.

By IANS, Tehran : Iran Sunday unveiled its plans to launch two homemade communications satellites into orbit by March next year. Mohammad Ali Forghani, head of Iran's space agency, said the satellites would be displayed to public by mid this year, Iranian Fars news agency reported. "These two satellites, which will be tasked with taking photos and sending them to the earth, will be sent to low Earth orbit," he said. The satellites were jointly developed by the Iranian Space Agency and Iranian universities.

By IANS, London : The Garden of Eden, a strip of land off Africa's southern coast, had provided shelter to a handful of humans who survived mass extinction on earth during the ice age, say scientists. Researchers believe the small patch of land at 384 km east of Cape Town was the only place that remained habitable during the devastating ice age 195,000 years ago when sudden change in earth's temperature wiped out many species. Some scientists believe the population of human race may have fallen to a few hundred who managed to survive in one location, according to Daily Mail.

By IANS, London : From cars and mobile phones to computers and furniture, most products in the market are created virtually on a computer before actual production. Under the Functional Digital Mock-Up (DMU) project, researchers from four Fraunhofer institutes are developing value additions to digital product development. An electric car window slides smoothly upward at the press of a button. While power windows are certainly convenient, they can also pose a safety risk.

By Venkata Vemuri, IANS, London : The digital doomsday is round the corner. In exactly 1,273 days there will be a web chaos in the world as we run out of internet addresses. More than 85 percent of the available addresses have already been allocated and the rest will run out by 2011, according to a prediction by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

By DPA Washington : Everyone knows the story: When Internet Explorer (IE) is first installed, it flies. The browser itself opens quickly, and pages load without incident. But after a while, things start to break down. The browser crashes, freezes, or loads slowly. Sometimes it won't load at all. Typically the blame falls on security holes in IE. But there can be other causes too - plug-ins. You could ditch IE altogether and move to Mozilla's Firefox, but most Firefox users swear by plug-ins, so there's really no escape from plug-in issues there, either.

By IANS, New Delhi : Thirty-one years back India's first satellite Aryabhatta was launched via Russian space vehicle Intercosmos. Monday India's own rocket created history by placing 10 satellites including eight from other countries in orbit around the earth. India's space odyssey started in April 1975 as an experiment. Today, it is a multipurpose commercial programme. Here are the high points of India's space programme: 1975: First Indian satellite Aryabhatta launched on April 19, 1975. It provided technological experience in building and operating a satellite system.

By Hidayath Ansari India launched its first mission to the moon – Chandrayaan-1 (Sanskrit for moon craft) – on Wednesday morning (October 22) from Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota off the Andhra Pradesh coast. It has had a flawless week travelling through space so far (orbiting at an altitude of 267,000 kms as of Wednesday), and in another 10 days, it is expected to reach the moon's orbit to conduct several long-term studies related to the moon's surface and atmosphere.

By IANS, London : Scientists triggered 52 downpours last year in Abu Dhabi's eastern Al Ain region using technology designed to control weather.

By IANS, Beijing : China's lunar probe Chang'e-2 was manoeuvered to an experimental orbit Tuesday evening for taking pictures of the moon's Sinus Iridium or Bay of Rainbows.