Technology

By Arun Kumar, IANS Washington : US space agency NASA says pictures taken by its astronauts do not prove the existence or otherwise of a manmade Ram Setu bridge as mentioned in the Hindu epic Ramayana. "I am not aware of any carbon dating either," said NASA spokesman Michael Braukus, refuting claims by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that the agency had the Adam's bridge in Palk Strait - known as Ram Setu in India - carbon dated as being 1.7 million years old.

By DPA, Washington : Two US astronauts Monday put the final vital maintenance touches on the Hubble Space Telescope, replacing old insulation and a guidance sensor on the ageing satellite before its scheduled release back into orbit Tuesday. The seven-hour-plus space walk completed a marathon five straight days of work in a risky mission by the Atlantis shuttle that entailed a stand-by shuttle on the launch pad in Florida for a rescue mission if needed.

By IANS, Chennai : India, already a leader in the remote sensing data domain, is poised to become a major collaborative space power, says an international space competitiveness index study. According to the study, conducted by the US-based Futron Corp, the space race that has witnessed major developments like the Soviet Union's Sputnik launch, the first man-made satellite to orbit and the US' successful moon mission is now a $100 billion-plus industry.

By RIA Novosti, Moscow : A Progress space freighter has successfully docked with the International Space Station (ISS) four days behind schedule because of the evacuation of Nasa's space centre in Houston in the wake of Hurricane Ike, Russia's mission control said. The Progress M-65, launched on board a Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan on Sep 10, has delivered some 2.5 tonnes of fuel, oxygen, water, food and medical supplies, as well as the latest Russian-designed space suit for use during a space walk by Russian crewmembers on board the ISS.

By IANS, Toronto : The John Molson School of Business, Montreal, shows - for the first time - how solar heat panels integrated with power technology on its top two floors will help the building light up itself. Spread over 300 square metres, the solar panels will generate power for the building and heat fresh air during the warm season. This new approach is the first in the development of futuristic buildings that not only meet it own energy needs, but provide excess power to the power grid, transforming buildings from passive consumers to energy producers.

By Venkatachari Jagannathan and Fakir Balaji, IANS, Sriharikota (Andhra Pradesh) : With a perfect liftoff, India's first spacecraft to the moon entered its scheduled orbit early Wednesday, placing the country in a select group of six. The US, former Soviet Union, European Space Agency, China and Japan have sent spacecrafts to the moon earlier.

By IANS, Washington : Bacteria common to spacecraft sent from the Earth may be able to survive the harsh environs of Mars, long enough to contaminate it with terrestrial life, research says. The search for life on Mars remains a stated goal of NASA's Mars Exploration Program and Astrobiology Institutes. To preserve the pristine environments, the bioloads on spacecraft headed to Mars are subject to sterilisation, designed to prevent the contamination of the Martian 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 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 Xinhua Beijing : Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., have obtained the first images of asteroid 2007 TU24 using high-resolution radar data, media reported Monday. The data indicate the asteroid is somewhat asymmetrical in shape, with a diameter roughly 250 meters in size.

By IANS New York : A month after checkers was solved by a supercomputer, the machines have an answer to the Rubik's Cube too. A high-speed machine at Northeastern University, Boston, has proved that any of the cubes - no matter how intangible they look - can be properly aligned within just 26 moves. Till now, the best way to crack the Rubik's Cube was in 27 moves. But Dan Kunkle and Prof Gene Cooperman at Northeastern University believe that with more work they could push the count even lower.

By Xinhua, Moscow : Russia launched on Friday a carrier rocket with three defense satellites atop, Itar-Tass reported. The rocket, also carrying the scientific Yubileyny micro-satellite took off from the Plesetsk spaceport at 7:20 p.m. (1520 GMT), Russian Space Forces spokesman Lt. Col. Alexei Zolotukhin was cited as saying. The launch was made successfully at the north Russia's launch pad, he said.

New Delhi, Nov 10 (IANS) Several Indian banks have come under more than 400 phishing attacks during the past few months with the number rising sharply in Sept-Oct, 2008, according to industry lobby National Association of Software Companies (Nasscom). Phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication in a bid to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details.

By DPA, Washington : Two astronauts from the space shuttle Atlantis ended the mission's third and last spacewalk after successfully installing an oxygen tank on the outside of the International Space Station (ISS). The spacewalk on Monday lasted five hours and 42 minutes for astronauts Robert Satcher Jr and Randy Bresnik, who also performed other maintenance upgrades. Atlantis is scheduled to begin its return journey to Earth on Wednesday, with touchdown at Cape Canaveral expected on Saturday.

By DPA Darmstadt (Germany) : A heavy-duty European spacecraft that will make its maiden flight Sunday has been hailed as a precursor to a spaceship that could one day carry robots to the planet Mars. The Jules Verne, which will haul nine tonnes of food, fuel and other supplies to the International Space Station (ISS), then depart with the station's accumulated garbage, is the first automated transfer vehicle (ATV) in a series of five.

By IANS, Amsterdam : Sea levels worldwide are expected to rise by several metres in the coming centuries if global warming continues unabated.

By Peer Meinert, DPA, Washington : Even conspiracy theories must sometimes be taken seriously. Every week Roger Launius, chief historian at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, devotes his time to debunking one of history's favourite such theories: That astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin never landed on the moon. The entire July 20, 1969, landing and the spacewalk several hours later was just a show, all lies, filmed in a Hollywood studio or in a desert, the sceptics say. Few other conspiracy theories have proven so popular or long-lived.

By IANS, New Delhi : Global software giant Microsoft Corp will launch the latest version of its popular application suite MS Office 2010 for Indian users in June, a top official said here Thursday. "The Office 2010 will be available for both businesses and consumers in June," Microsoft Corp's India chairman Ravi Venkatesan told reporters here on the sidelines of an seminar on social inclusion here.

By IANS, Kolkata : A digital mammography machine with stereo-tactic biopsy system was installed at a hospital in Kolkata Tuesday. This new technology will help in prompt and accurate detection of breast cancer that in turn may extend a patient's life by about 20 years, said doctors of the hospital. The new system - GE Senographe DS workstation - has been installed at B.P. Poddar Hospital and Medical Research Ltd, a multi-facility hospital specialising in oncology, traumatology and breast cancer, in south Kolkata.

By SPA, Tel Aviv : Israel says it has launched a new communications satellite, the Associated Press reported. According to the satellite's operator, Spacecom, the AMOS-3 lifted off Monday from Russia's main space facility, the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan. Later in the day, it is to enter orbit at an altitude of 36,000 kilometers (22,500 miles). The $170 million (¤109 million) satellite is designed to offer increased capacity, expanded coverage and improved links between the Mideast and Europe and the eastern U.S.

By Azera Rahman, IANS New Delhi : Check the scribbles in your phone scrapbook, send friend requests on the wireless, have discussions in as many as eight different languages...all on India's social networking site, BigAdda, which could give Orkut and Facebook a run for its money. With an estimated 1.24 million users so far, this five-month old networking site is fast catching up among Indian youth, especially in tier 2 cities like Guwahati, Nashik, Surat, Tuticorin, Bhilai and Amritsar.

By IRNA-AzerTAj Baku : The Institute of Radiation Problems of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences has prepared the rural hot water supply system by the use of the solar and wind alternative energy. By utilizing wind and solar energy in March-October, it is possible to ensure normal temperature conditions of the device and improve environmental sanitation and hygiene for villagers.

By IANS, Washington : A new software application meant for mobile phones can alert Muslim users to namaz timings through an image combined with audible alerts. The screen of the mobile phone shows an image of the sun lining up with a green circle when it is time to pray. "Users told us that tracking the sun was the most religiously valued method to determine prayer times," said Susan Wyche, doctoral candidate at Georgia Institute of Technology, and member of the team that developed the application.

By IANS, Washington : We could soon have safer plastic as scientists have found a way of locking in harmful additives, called plasticizers, from seeping out of one of the most widely used groups of plastics. Plasticizers increase the plasticity or fluidity of plastics. The advance could lead to a new generation of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastics that are safer than those now used in packaging, medical tubing, toys, and other products, says a new study in Spain.

By IANS, Bangalore: Leading power and automation technology major ABB Ltd bagged orders valued at Rs.310 crore from the state-run Power Grid Corporation of India...

By IANS, Bangalore : India's first lunar mission, Chandrayaan-I, had made a "path-breaking and real discovery" by establishing the presence of water on the moon in June itself, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said Friday. India's own Moon Impact Probe (MIP) on board the country's maiden lunar craft had discovered water on the moon in June, a finding confirmed by US space agency NASA's probe that was also on board Chandrayaan-1, India's top space scientist G. Madhavan Nair said here.

By IANS, Washington : A physicist is all set to design an ultra powerful microscope that can look at molecules and objects 20,000 times thinner than a human hair. The new microscope, to be built within the next year, will allow much greater precision in identifying objects, such as certain cellular proteins, by letting scientists see them individually and watch their movement in real time.

By Frederick Noronha, IANS, Panaji : Free software and open source solutions offer a huge potential to link your computer to the mobile phone and the inexpensive Skype networks -- that allows you to make international calls over the internet -- and for sending out SMSes too. This could help significantly narrow the digital divide "at the social level between rich and poor and geographical levels, between city and village", says Giovanni Maruzzelli, an Italian expert in the field currently touring India.

By Arun Kumar Washington : Indian-American CEO Satya Nadella-led Microsoft on Wednesday announced it is laying off 7,800 people primarily in the phone business...

By IANS, Kozhikode (Kerala) : All tame elephants in Kerala will soon come to be identified by a 10-digit number, thanks to an electronic tag that is expected to carry information on these gentle giants that also have their moments of fury. The close surveillance of elephants is expected to bring down incidents of elephant fury in Kerala where the animals are often used for ritualistic splendour during festivals.

By SPA Houston : Space shuttle Endeavour headed for home on Wednesday after delivering a Japanese module and a Canadian robot to the International Space Station. Its 16-day mission was scheduled to end with a landing at Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 7:05 p.m. EDT (2305 GMT), 33 minutes before sundown, Reuters reported. Weather forecasts looked favorable and the shuttle was in good shape except for a small nick in the windshield, possibly caused by space debris, said flight director Richard Jones.

By IANS, Washington : As students get older they become less likely to take intellectual risks such as sharing their tentative ideas when learning science, a new study says. The study on student willingness to take risks in the name of early scientific exploration has been done by Ronald A. Beghetto, University of Oregon professor of education studies. It looked at intellectual risk-taking of 585 students in the third- through sixth-grades in seven Oregon elementary schools. Fifty-one percent were girls.

By IANS Melbourne : Wasting water to rinse that extra lather from your clothes may be a thing of the past now. Scientists in Australia have developed a detergent that cleans clothes with less water. Normal detergents contain surfactant molecules, which are oil-friendly at one end to capture dirt and water-friendly at the other to pull it away. They also tend to form bubbles, which require extra water to rinse.

By Xinhua, Beijing : Some scientists were puzzled by the unusual quiet period of quakes before the 8.0-magnitude earthquake struck southwest China. But others believe there had been precursors, which stood as warnings for a major quake. "There were no foreshocks and the activity level of minor quakes around the epicenter was low for quite a long time before the earthquake," said Xiu Jigang, deputy director of the China Seismological Bureau (CSB).

By IANS, London : Sunlight doesn't just damage your skin, it can also ruin your eyes and increase the risk of cataract and damage to the retina. The best way of protecting eyes is always to wear quality sunglasses, reports express.co.uk. A research in Britain has, however, found that over 60 percent of Britons are influenced by fashion and price rather than whether or not the glasses are effective. Protecting children's eyes is especially important, yet nearly half of parents put cost ahead of protection.

New Delhi: Due to maintenance work ongoing on a part of a track, Delhi Metro will run single-line train services between the Mandi House...

By Arun Kumar, IANS, Washington : The American space agency NASA is sending two instruments to map the lunar surface on India's maiden moon voyage on its robotic Chandrayaan-1 mission Wednesday. The Moon Mineralogy Mapper will assess mineral resources, and the Miniature Synthetic Aperture Radar, or Mini-SAR, will map the polar regions and look for ice deposits, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA.

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By IANS, London : British researchers have developed a new coating for gun cartridges with pollen and grit to help identify criminals that use firearms. The new technique involves coating batches of cartridges with unique "nanotags" that are invisible to the naked eye and designed to attach to hands, gloves and clothing of anyone that handles such a coated cartridge. Some of the tags also remain on the spent cartridge casing.

By Xinhua Madrid : The Galactic Suite, the first hotel in space, will open for business in 2012, its Barcelona-based architects said. Reservations for the Galactic Suite will begin in 2008, company director Xavier Claramunt said here. "The Galactic suite will allow clients to travel around the world in 80 minutes," Claramunt said.

By IANS, Sriharikota (Andhra Pradesh) : Scientists were Thursday getting ready to launch an Indian-designed and built cryogenic engine to inject an advanced communication satellite into space. The filling of liquid fuel that will power the third stage of the 50-metre tall, 416-tonne Indian rocket to inject the satellite in geo-synchronous orbit is expected to start around 11.30 a.m.

By ANTARA News Washington : NASA scientists have identified the smallest black hole ever found -- less than four times the mass of our sun and about the size of a large city. But the mini-black hole, dubbed J1650, could still stretch a person into a "strand of spaghetti" with its pull, the researchers told a meeting in Los Angeles.

Mumbai : The annual ‘Khazana - A Festival of Ghazals’ concert, which will bring together renowned ghazal artists like Pankaj Udhas and Rekha Bhardwaj,...

By Devirupa Mitra, IANS New Delhi : On the icy barrenness of Antarctica, the Indian research station of Maitri has a new voice - the first ever blog by an Indian from the seventh continent. A member of the 27th Indian Scientific Antarctica Expedition, 56-year-old Sudhir Khandelwal, has typed, so far, 39 posts and nearly 15,000 words, with another one and a half months of his stay to go.

By Prensa Latina Luanda : The launching of the first pan-African telecommunications satellite system into orbit next week will allow Africa to annually save $500 million. The director of the Regional African Satellite Communication Organization (RascomStar), Fraj Lamari, told an Angolan radio station that the African continent's first pan-African telecommunications satellite system is similar to the US Intelsat and the European Eutelsat.

By IANS, Sydney : Scientists have closed in on 68 regions of the genome, tied to blood platelet formation, potentially opening the way to better diagnosis of bleeding disorders.

By DPA, Frankfurt : Dell has released two new laptops from the nascent ULV class. The 13z and 15z are members of the Inspiron series and cost $550 and $580 respectively. ULV stands for Ultra Low Voltage and refers to processors designed to work at lower voltages and use less power. In the case of the new Dell laptops, that translates into respective battery lives of 11 hours (13z with a 13.3 inch monitor) and 10 hours (15z with 15.6 inch monitor).

By IANS, London: British experts are growing human body parts like nose and ears in laboratory, Daily Mail reported Sunday.

By IANS, Washington : Students in an advanced computer security course at Rice University, Houston, are learning just how easy it is to break into software used in today's voting machines. Dan Wallach, a Rice University associate professor and director of its Computer Security Lab, tested his students through a real-life experiment. They were told to do their very best to rig an electronic voting machine (EVM) in the classroom.

Panaji : Goa may soon be one of the first states in India to have a 3D digitized mapped presence online if the state...

By NNN-WAM, Dubai : In an unprecedented breakthrough in the GCC region, Dubai-based scientists have successfully produced the first identical twin camel using the embryo splitting technology. Zahi and Baih, the two identical twins, were naturally born to two surrogate camel mothers on Feb 10 and 23 respectively after a pregnancy period of 13 moths. According to the scientists team at Dubai Camel Breading Centre, the genetically identical cubs are in a good health.

By IANS, Washington : A software being developed by the University of Illinois can tell your age fairly accurately by looking at your face. "Age-estimation software is useful in applications where you don't need to specifically identify someone but would like to know their age," said Thomas S. Huang, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Illinois.

By Xinhua London : The amount of carbon dioxide being absorbed by the world's oceans has reduced, British scientists who carried out a decade-long study said. Researchers from University of East Anglia gauged carbon dioxide absorption through more than 90,000 measurements from merchant ships equipped with automatic instruments and the results of their 10-year study in the North Atlantic show carbon dioxide uptake halved between the mid-90s and 2000 to 2005, the BBC reported Saturday.

By IANS New Delhi : Teleperformance India, a wholly owned subsidiary of US-based Teleperformance Group Inc., a leading global contact centre, said it is planning major expansion in India. "The increased penetration of telecom, financial services and consumer products as also growing competition have resulted in the need for stronger customer services to retain customers," Sanjay Mehta, managing director, Teleperformance, said in a statement Saturday.

By IANS, Washington : Hardening of arteries detected in Egyptian mummies as early as 3,500 years shows that heart attacks and strokes had ancient origins. "Atherosclerosis... despite differences in ancient and modern lifestyles... was rather common in ancient Egyptians of high socio-economic status living as much as three millennia ago," says Gregory Thomas, co-principal investigator. "The findings suggest that we may have to look beyond modern risk factors to fully understand the disease," says Thomas, University of California-Irvine (UC-I) professor of cardiology.

By IANS, London : Mammals cannot share their habitat with closely-related species because the need for the same kind of food and shelter would lead them to compete to the death, a new study has said. The finding - the best evidence so far for an old Darwinian prediction - is important because habitat destruction and climate change could inadvertently force closely-related species to live closer together than before.

By IANS, Washington : Scientists have developed a stamp-sized sensor that can sniff out some poisonous gases and toxins and can show results simply by changing colour. The sensor could be useful in detecting high exposures to toxic industrial chemicals that pose serious health risks at the workplace. While physicists have radiation badges to protect them in the workplace, chemists and workers who handle chemicals do not have equivalent devices to monitor their exposure to potentially toxic chemicals.

By IANS, London : The 3D revolution has so far been all about Hollywood blockbusters and major sporting events. But now, the cutting-edge technology is coming closer to home. Treasured moments such as a child's first steps or a university graduation can be captured in 3D with the arrival of the first camcorder - capable of filming in more than two dimensions, says the Daily Mail. Unveiled by Panasonic Wednesday, the 1,300 pound HDC-SDT750 3D model works using a sophisticated double lens.

By IANS, Toronto : A 70 million-year-old dinosaur, whose fossil was discovered in British Columbia more than 37 years ago, may have been a hitherto unknown plant-eating species, says an expert. The fossil - the most complete set of bones ever found globally and the first dinosaur discovery in Canada - had been discovered in the Sustut Basin way back in 1971. The bones were recently re-examined by a University of Alberta researcher.

By IANS, New Delhi : If you look towards the northeastern sky before sunrise June 15, the recently discovered comet McNaught will be closest to Earth and visible to the naked eye. The comet will appear as a dim and diffuse circular patch of light gliding through the constellation of Perseus in the northern sky. It has been brightening rapidly as it approaches Earth for a 100-million-mile close encounter.

By IANS, London : When watching the "Exorcist" did you scream in terror at scenes of spinning heads or did you laugh it off? Depends on which version of the anxiety gene you are born with, scientists say. A new study says there are different versions of the gene linked to feelings of anxiety which explains how different people react differently to horror films. A particular variant of what is called the 'COMT' gene affects a chemical in the brain that is linked to anxiety, they have found.

By SPA, Beijing : China has launched its first data relay satellite in preparation for the inaugural spacewalk by a Chinese astronaut scheduled for later this year, a state news agency said Saturday. The Tianlian I satellite was launched on a Long March-3C carrier rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China's Sichuan Province late Friday night, Xinhua News Agency said.

By IANS, Washington : Researchers have created an amazing, matchbook-sized atomic clock 100 times smaller than commercial versions with both military and commercial applications.

Singapore, January 11, SPA -- Singapore Airlines' A380 superjumbo jet sustained superficial damage when it rolled off a runway in the first glitch for the world's biggest passenger plane since going into service in October, AP quoted the airline as saying today. The plane was getting ready to depart from Singapore's Changi Airport to Sydney late Thursday. It was carrying 446 passengers who disembarked, and no injuries were reported, the airline said.

By IANS, Washington : In a unique venture, people across the globe are cooperating to fight cancer using a concept known as grid computing. Grid computing - as opposed to local computing -- allows Internet users worldwide to contribute to a “virtual” supercomputer to solve a difficult problem. This can be done by “donating” idle computer time to the effort. The anti-cancer project, called Cellular Environment in Living Systems @Home or CELS@Home , is the brainchild of Muhammad Zaman of Texas University and comprises more than 1,000 computer users worldwide.

By Arun Kumar, IANS, Washington : Seeking to find common ground with authors, who have complained about copyright violations through search services, Google plans later this year to begin distributing and selling e-books on behalf of its publishing partners. "We've consistently maintained that we're committed to helping our partners find more ways to make their books accessible and available for purchase," Google spokesman Gabriel Stricker said Monday confirming the move first reported by the New York Times.

By IANS London : Venus, considered earth's 'prodigal twin', has a climate that is vastly different. And experts say it is because of the pace of evolution on the two planets. According to Fred Taylor of Oxford University, Venus evolved very rapidly compared to the earth in the initial years - a crucial difference. The new information is being beamed to us from the European Venus Express spacecraft now orbiting Venus.

By IANS, Washington : Biologists and biochemists can access 3D images of biomacromolecules underlying biological functions and disease, thanks to a collaborative website called Proteopedia. The web resource displays protein structures and other biomacromolecules in interactive format. These interactive images are surrounded by descriptive text containing hyperlinks that change the appearance (such as view, representations, colors or labels) of the adjacent 3D structure to reflect the concept explained in the text.

By DPA Hamburg : Scientists in Germany are putting the finishing touches on an Indian Ocean tsunami early-warning system. The German-Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System for the Indian Ocean (GITEWS) is on schedule, according to project coordinator Joern Lauterjung of the GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam (GFZ), Germany's National Lab for Geosciences.

By Xinhua Beijing : The world's most powerful optical telescope is now operating on southeastern Arizona's Mount Graham, capturing striking images of objects millions of light years away. The Large Binocular Telescope -- featuring two 27.6-foot-diameter mirrors that together gather more light and have 10 times the resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope -- took its first images using both mirrors last year. The first images were released to the public on Thursday.

By Sid Astbury, DPA, Sydney : It's easy to poke fun at Earth Hour, an Australian initiative now into its third year in which people around the world are asked to switch off their lights for 60 minutes to show their concern about global warming. The poster boy for this year's switch-off is British business tycoon and space tourism pioneer Richard Branson, a powerboat racer and sponsor of a fuel-hungry Formula One team and an individual with a giant-sized environmental footprint.

By Prensa Latina, Caracas : Venezuela has joined the space club nations by launching its first satellite, built with Chinese technology, into orbit successfully earlier this week. Named after Simon Bolivar, the hero of South American independence, the communications satellite Venesat-1 was launched from China Wednesday. Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, who monitored the launch along with his fellow leftist Bolivian President Evo Morales from the eastern town of Luepa, described it as a "construction of socialism" and a "symbol of Latin American integration".

By DPA, Washington : NASA late Friday sent the Kepler satellite into Earth's orbit with instructions to search for extraterrestrial life on Earth-type planets orbiting other stars. The launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida on board a Delta-II-rocket was reported on a live blog operated by the Kepler project on the internet. The Kepler mission, named after the 17th century German astronomer, is targetting about 100,000 stars in the Milky Way galaxy that scientists believe could have planets orbiting in a "habitable" zone.

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, Washington : Plastic sheets arrayed with billions of nanoantennas will help collect abundant heat energy generated by the sun and other sources cheaply. The technology, developed at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), is the first step toward a solar energy collector that could be mass-produced on flexible materials.

By IANS/RIA Novosti, Moscow : Russian amateur astronomer Artyom Novichonok, a student of Petrozavodsk university, has discovered a new comet, website Astronet said.

By DPA, Washington: Astronauts Saturday opened the hatch to the space station's newest room - the Italian-built Tranquility node that will eventually offer a six-sided picture window on space. NASA television showed the space station and Endeavour shuttle astronauts moving around the opened hatch, through which they installed an airflow system and exercise equipment into the new room. They were also taking dust samples from Tranquility.

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 Frederick Noronha, IANS, Bangalore : Searching the net might become quite a different experience thanks to an experiment from Yahoo! India called Glue that yields results with visual information. Search in.glue.yahoo.com for the term 'India', for example, and what you find is news, images, links, maps, and even sponsored ads -- all related to the second-most populous country on the planet. "Glue Pages unite your classic search results with visual information from the best sites anywhere on the Web," said Yahoo! India, while recently unveiling this way of finding information.

By DPA, Washington : For nearly 20 years the Hubble Space Telescope has kept its orbiting eye trained on the universe, and with the launch of space shuttle Atlantis to repair the ageing instrument, scientists hope it will continue to provide important discoveries. The fifth and last mission to repair Hubble is to launch at 1801 GMT Monday from the Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The Atlantis crew will undertake five spacewalks, adding two new instruments, repairing two others and replacing other hardware in frequently delicate operations.

By RIA Novosti Washington : The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour has docked with the International Space Station, NASA's mission control center in Houston said. The shuttle has delivered the first part of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) huge Kibo space laboratory, as well as Dextre, a Canadian-built robotic system. During their 16-day voyage, crew members will carry out a total of five spacewalks. The first spacewalk will be made by U.S. astronauts Rick Linneham and Garrett Reisman.

By IANS, Washington : Researchers led by an Indian American are "reverse engineering" the brain to design the first working model of the complex interplay between the mind and body. For example, when you puick up an ice-cold drink out of the fridge this summer, how do your brain, eyes and hands interact? "It is still a mystery, really," said University of British Columbia computer scientist Dinesh Pai. "No one has ever completely mapped out the processes at the level of specific neurons, muscles and tendons."

By RIA Novosti, Moscow : Russia's last space freighter with an analogue control system will reenter the Earth's atmosphere Sunday before plunging into a "spaceship cemetery" in the southern Pacific, the Russian Mission Control said. The Progress M-67 cargo spaceship, which arrived at the International Space Station July 29, bringing 2.5 tonnes of supplies, including fuel, water and various equipment, successfully undocked from the world's sole orbiter Sep 21.

By DPA Washington : Astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour spent their first full day in space inspecting the craft for any damage sustained during take-off. They used a robotic arm Thursday to examine the outside of the shuttle. The spacecraft with seven astronauts on board is on an 11-day mission to install a 2.5-ton solar panel on the International Space Station (ISS), conduct repairs on the orbiting station and deliver of supplies. Endeavour is set to dock with the ISS on Friday at 17.53 GMT.

By Sanjeeb Baruah, IANS, New Delhi : Indian scientists will try to distinguish individual whale sharks off the Gujarat coast, using a technique employed by NASA to identify galaxies. Just as each tiger is distinguished by its stripes, whale sharks too can be identified through a unique pattern of spots that form points of numerous triangles on their bodies, say experts. As the whale shark grows, the distance between these spots increases, but angles of these triangles remain the same, thus identifying the whale shark. The method is also used by NASA to identify galaxies.

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By IANS, New Delhi : Leading specialty media house CyberMedia has tied up with Netcore Solutions of Mumbai to offer technology news on mobile phones, a Netcore statement said here Thursday. MyToday Dailies, which offers a news-based short messaging service (SMS), will offer the news service free of charge. With this service, CyberMedia has for the first time entered the rapidly emerging mobile news medium. To sign up for the free updates, all that a mobile phone user has to do is to SMS START TECH to 09845298452, for instance, START TECH MUMBAI, the statement said.

By IANS, New Delhi : India Tuesday launched a satellite-based navigation system to aid air traffic in the region and joined a select club of nations which have similar capabilities. Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel launched the Global Position System Aided Geo Augmented Navigation (GAGAN) based on a constellation of 24 satellites positioned in six earth-centred orbital planes.

By IANS, Washington : An Indian American is helping develop a surveillance software that will tell whether a person on the street is acting suspiciously or appears to be lost. Intelligent video cameras, large video screens and geo-referencing software are among the technologies that will soon be available to law enforcement and security agencies.

By IANS, Chennai : The nascent electric two-wheeler segment, currently estimated at Rs.4.5 billion, is set to grow this fiscal, say manufacturers. But while all are now stepping on the gas to boost sales, their marketing planks differ: while some say their sales pitch would revolve round "convenience", for others, it's "economy" at a time of spiralling fuel price. Ultra Motor India, the New Delhi-based subsidiary of UK's Ultra Motor Co., estimates the Indian market this year to grow to around 240,000 units, up from 170,000 units sold in 2007-2008.

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 IANS, Washington : Eco-friendly gains derived from the use of nano materials may be offset partly by their manufacturing process, according to research. Hatice Sengül and colleagues of Illinois University, Chicago, said strict material purity requirements and lower yields may lead to greater ecological burdens than those associated with conventional manufacturing. In a separate study, Ohio State University researchers found, for example, that the life-cycle environmental impacts may be as much as 100 times greater per unit of weight than those of traditional materials.

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

By IANS, New York : After a failed take-over bid by Microsoft and a partial technical collaboration with competitor Google, a former AOL chief, Jonathan Miller, is now eyeing to take over Yahoo Inc, which runs the popular internet search engine and website by the same name.

By Xinhua Beijing : NASA on Tuesday rescinded a directive that would have forced 4 million U.S. dollar budget cut in its popular Mars rover program and a temporary shutdown of one of its twin Mars rovers, according to media reports Wednesday.

By Xinhua, Washington : US space agency NASA said it has successfully tested the first deep space communications network modelled on the Internet. NASA engineers used a special software called Disruption-Tolerant Networking or DTN to transmit dozens of images to and from a NASA science spacecraft located about 30 million km from the Earth.

By IANS, Sydney : A new species of iguana, found by Australian and US researchers in central Fiji, takes the number of such existing Pacific species to three. Scientists named the new iguana species Brachylophus bulabula. Bulabula is a doubling of bula, the Fijian word for 'hello,' thus signifying an even more enthusiastic greeting.

By RIA Novosti Madrid : Two thousand years after a certain carpenter from Galilea pulled it off, a Spanish company has developed a somewhat less miraculous, if still impressive, way to walk on water. As described in the web news journal Diariodeibiza, the company Vehiculos con Ingenio or Transportation with Imagination began selling its new contraption a month ago that allows people using it literally to walk on water.

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 TwoCircles.net news desk New York: The United Nations has teamed up with technology leaders Google and Cisco to launch a new online site to track global progress toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – the set of ambitious targets the world has set itself for slashing poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy and other social ills by 2015. MDG Monitor is a web application that tracks real-time progress toward the Goals in a number of categories in nearly every country in the world.

By Sinikka Tarvainen, DPA, Madrid : Thousands of years ago, the original inhabitants of Spain's Canary Islands are thought to have worshipped the Roque de los Muchachos mountain as having magical powers. On Friday, the mountain will officially become home to a telescope billed as the world's biggest time machine. The instrument will allow scientists to seek new answers to the origin of the universe. The Grantecan or GTC, which are abbreviations for "large telescope of the Canary Islands", is the biggest among only about a dozen comparable telescopes in the world.

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, Beijing : The number of Chinese internet users has reached a staggering 420 million, authorities said. Website sina.com.cn citing a report published by China Internet Network Information Center (CINIC) reported that 277 million people access the internet via cell phones. The population of China's internet users climbed to 420 million as of June 2010, 36 million more than at the end of 2009. China Daily Wednesday reported that broadband was the most popular way to access the internet, instead of a wired connection.

By IANS, London : Rise in temperature is already causing the sea ice in the Arctic to melt. If Arctic tundra also follows suit, it will tumble vast organic wastes into rivers heading for the Arctic Ocean, upping carbon dioxide emissions, fear scientists. "Large amounts of organic carbon are currently stored within the permafrost. If released, they will result in an increased release of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere," says Sofia Hjalmarsson, who submitted her doctoral thesis at Gothenburg University.

By DPA, Washington : US President Barack Obama Saturday named Charles Bolden, a black ex-astronaut, to lead the US space agency into its next chapter that could take it back to the moon. The retired Marine Corps general, 62, flew four times in the space shuttle in the '80s and '90s - two times as mission commander. His nomination must be approved by the Senate. Former NASA head Michael Griffin stepped down in January as Obama was entering office.

By IANS, Washington : Buildings may be capable of repairing themselves in the future. It sounds like science fiction, but scientists are developing self-repairing polymer materials whereby cracks can be sealed automatically. The technology being developed has been inspired by the human body's ability to repair minor cuts without any external intervention.

By Yu Maofeng, Nie Yunpeng, Xinhua, Moscow : The collision between a Russian satellite and a U.S. satellite highlights the growing importance of making international laws to monitor human activities in space,a Russian military expert told Xinhua in an interview on Friday. The root cause of the Russia-U.S. satellite collision is the lack of international rules on space activities, said Leonid Ivashov, the president of Russia's Academy on Geopolitical Affairs.

By IANS, London : Religious organizations can now place anti-abortion advertisements on Google after a lawsuit by a British pro-life charity forced it to lift the ban. Google settled out of court Wednesday with The Christian Institute, a UK-based charity, and will now allow religious groups to place factual and campaigning ads about abortion. The new policy will apply world-wide with immediate effect. The Institute lost no time in placing its first advertisement on the website.

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By Saurabh Yadav, IANS, New Delhi : After the much-awaited launch of Apple's 3G iPhone Friday and announcements by Vodafone and Airtel regarding its introduction in India in September, the Indian customer is waiting eagerly for what is currently the world's most wanted gizmo. So what does Apple's new baby have that its peers don't? An important thing about the iPhone is that it stands out in comparison with other smartphones not for what it does, but how it does it.

Beijing, Dec 22 (Prensa Latina) China announced on Saturday its first 186-mph bullet train, wholly designed and built in this Asian country. China thus joins Japan, France and Germany as the fourth country worldwide in position to build state-of-the-art high-speed trains, a spokesman for the Railway Ministry said.

By Xinhua, Beijing : Stephen Hawking said there may be alients, but they may not be intelligent as others had thought, or just primitive life. The 66-year-old famed British cosmologist Hawking's comments were part of a lecture at George Washington University on Monday in honor of NASA's 50th anniversary. He theorized that there are possible answers to whether there is extraterrestrial life. "Primitive life is very common and intelligent life is fairly rare," said Hawking "Some would say it has yet to occur on earth."

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.

New Delhi: India is projected to have 236 million mobile internet users by 2016, with the figure reaching 314 million by 2017, a report...

Washington, Oct 2 (IANS) Search engine giant Google has unveiled a $4.4 trillion plan dubbed Clean Power by 2030 that calls for all energy in the US to come from renewable sources. The web giant in a release posted on its site said: "While this plan will cost $4.4 trillion (in undiscounted 2008 dollars), it will ultimately save $5.4 trillion, delivering a net savings of $1 trillion over the life of the plan".

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By IANS, Washington : Ice core and ocean deposit comparisons show complex links between carbon dioxide levels, ocean currents and climate and may help explain past, present and future climate trends. Researchers presented new data from their analysis of ice core samples and ocean deposits dating as far back as 90,000 years ago and suggest that warming, carbon dioxide (CO2) levels and ocean currents are tightly interrelated.

By Xinhua, Washington : NASA announced on Thursday that new observations from its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter indicate that the crust and upper mantle of Mars are stiffer and colder than previously thought. The findings 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.

By Gurmukh Singh, IANS, Toronto : Canada's famous McMaster University at Hamilton near here is set to become the world leader in nanotechnology with the installation of the world's most advanced and powerful electron microscope. The Titan 80-300 Cubed, installed last summer, has turned the world famous university into a global nanotechnology research. Built by the world nanotech leader FEI Company in the Netherlands at a cost of $15 million, the Titan can examine at the nano level hundreds of everyday products in order to understand, manipulate and improve their efficiency.

By IANS London : Beauty indeed lies in the eye of the beholder - but does the beholder have to be human? Apparently not. According to a paper in the journal Vision Research, Indo-Israeli Amit Kagian successfully "taught" a computer to recognise attractiveness in women. "The computer produced impressive results. Its rankings were very similar to the rankings people gave," said Kagian of Tel Aviv University.

By Xinhua, Lhasa : Tibet's Cona county was one of the first places in China to view the solar eclipse, which occurred at 8:01 a.m Wednesday, according to an observatory under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). However, the solar view from Cona was blocked by overcast, according to sources from the CAS Purple Mountain Observatory based in Nanjing, eastern Jiangsu province. The sun sunshine was blocked behind clouds in Lhasa, Tibet's capital.

By IANS, New Delhi : India is exploring commercial opportunities by providing facility of satellite launch to other countries at viable rates, the Lok Sabha was informed Wednesday. "Our space programme's commercial wing Antrix is looking at opportunities to launch satellites for other countries. India is one of the foremost countries in space technology," said Prithviraj Chavan, Minister of State in Prime Minister's Office.