Technology

By IANS, New Delhi: Mahindra Racing will team up with former Grand Prix rider Eskil Suter's company to produce an all new bike for the 2013 Moto3 season.

By IANS, London : A massive asteroid might crash into Earth in 2182, scientists have warned. The asteroid, called 1999 RQ36, has a one-in-thousand chance of actually hitting the Earth at some point before the year 2200, but is most likely to hit on Sep 24, 2182. The asteroid was first discovered in the year 1999 and is more than 1,800 feet across. If an asteroid of this size hits the Earth it would cause widespread devastation and possible mass extinction, reports the Daily Mail.

By IANS, Sydney : The magnetic field at the core of the Milky Way is at least 10 times stronger than the rest of our galaxy, according to a finding that can affect diverse fields from star formation theory to cosmology. The evidence is significant because it gives astronomers a lower limit on the magnetic field, an important factor in calculating a whole range of astronomical data.

By IANS,

By DPA, Washington : Two crew members aboard the International Space Station (ISS) began a space walk late Monday to collect science experiments attached to the outside of their orbiting home. US Commander Mike Fincke and Russian flight engineer Yury Lonchakov used the Pirs airlock to leave the space station and begin a six-hour retrieval mission.

By Xinhua Los Angeles : The Cassini spacecraft on Wednesday will skirt the edges of Yellowstone-like geysers erupting at the south pole of Enceladus during a flyby that will bring the craft to within 30 miles (about 48 km) of the Saturnian moon, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) said Tuesday.

By IANS, Washington : A new array of cheap, high-performance tiny gyroscopes would help airplanes, submarines and automobiles navigate better in the near future. They are being developed by a team of Panos Datskos, Slo Rajic and Nickolay Lavrik of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. They are radically different from existing ones, which are both big and costly. These consists of multiple, highly sensitive and accurate silicon chip-scale gyroscopes.

By K.S. Jayaraman, IANS,

Washington : India and the US have committed to robust cooperation on cyber issues to increase global cyber security and promote the digital economy. They...

By IANS London : Volcanic clay may have the capability to kill deadly bacteria or super bugs, which are resistant to antibiotics, researchers have found. Lynda Williams of Arizona State University and her colleague Shelley Haydel found that agricur - the volcano clay found in the Massif Central mountain range in France - also kills other deadly bacteria, including salmonella and a flesh-eating disease called buruli, similar to leprosy.

By DPA, Washington : A solar flare can release the destructive equivalent of a 100 million hydrogen bombs, obliterating everything in its neighbourhood, including every single atom, according to scientists. "We've detected a stream of perfectly intact hydrogen atoms shooting out of an X-class solar flare," said Richard Mewaldt of the California Institute of Technology. "If we can understand how these atoms were produced, we'll be that much closer to understanding solar flares," he added.

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

By IANS, Sydney : Researchers have unveiled the first hydrogen-powered racing car that demonstrates the incredible possibilities of hydrogen as the clean, renewable fuel of the future. The car will be bidding for the title of world's fastest hydrogen-powered racer when it attempts in early 2009 in Germany to break the Guinness World Records' mark for speed by a vehicle of its class.

By IANS, New Delhi: As many as 79,924 panchayats (village councils) in India had broadband connectivity by February this year, says the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). Data on the DoT website shows the numbers have been achieved against the target of providing all 242,279 panchayats with broadband connectivity by May 2012. With 182.88 million rural subscribers in January, the rural tele-density stood at 22.18 percent. As many as 564,225 villages had public telephones by January and the number for rural broadband connections stood at 462,168 in February.

By Fakir Balaji, IANS, Mumbai/Bangalore : Convergence of technologies, domain expertise and falling bandwidth tariffs are making India a hot data hosting and remote infrastructure management (RIM) site for global enterprises, says a top industry player. For the next wave of outsourcing in back office operations, top Indian players such as Reliance Infocomm, Tata Telecommunications, Sify and Netmagic Solutions are bracing up to provide a range of IT managed services, including data hosting, mission critical applications, networking and RIM to domestic and overseas enterprises.

By Charlotte Horn, DPA, Washington : Yuri Gagarin and Neil Armstrong are names printed in bold in the history books. But two smaller, unknown space pioneers who helped make their advances possible had their first flight 50 years ago. Two monkeys were shot into space by the US space agency NASA on May 28, 1959 - paving the way for humans, like the Russian who became the first man to orbit the Earth and the US astronaut who was the first to set foot on the moon.

By IANS, Washington : A team led by Indian-origin biochemist C.S. Raman will soon fine tune enzymes that impart specific flavours to fruits and vegetables. This could also lead to eco-friendly pest control. Texas University Medical School's Raman and his colleagues genetically manipulated flavour enzymes found in a popular plant model, Arabidopsis thaliana.

By IANS, Washington : A machine that took 20 years to build could either shake the foundations of particle physics or entrench it more firmly, besides addressing some of the most fundamental questions facing science now. CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a historic multi-billion dollar project involving over 8,000 scientists from 85 countries. CERN is the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, located in Geneva, Switzerland.

By IANS, New Delhi : France, chair of the 27-nation European Union, Saturday lauded India on the successful lunar exploration mission, which, it stressed, confirmed “India's eminent position among the world-class scientific and technological powers”. “France, on behalf of the European Union, warmly congratulates India for the successful landing of the Moon Impact Probe and the launch of the lunar exploration programme,” the French embassy said in a statement here.

By IANS, London : A new generation of service robots will soon be able to relieve us of heavy, dirty, monotonous or irksome tasks at home, according to scientists. They would work long hours, efficiently, tirelessly and without ever complaining and virtually for free after an initial investment. Named Care-O-bot 3, the one-armed wonder can even pick up an apple juice bottle and placed it next to the glasses on the tray and serve them to guests.

By Richa Sharma, IANS, New Delhi : They gave up plush jobs to jump into politics two years ago - something not too many Indian professionals do. The party that 20 alumni of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) floated has now fielded two candidates in the Nov 29 Delhi assembly polls. After all, both techies and politicians are harbingers of change, say the founder members of Bharat Punarnirman Dal, or India Rejuvenation Force.

By IANS, New York : Some insects that live above and below the ground communicate with each other by using plants as "green telephone lines", a new study has found. Subterranean insects issue chemical warning signals via the leaves of the plant. This way, insects above the ground are alerted that the plant is already "occupied", according to the study by Dutch scientists. This messaging enables spatially-separated insects to avoid each other, so that they do not unintentionally compete for the same plant, ScienceDaily reported.

By IANS Noida : India's leading IT hardware and systems integration firm HCL Infosystems Ltd Monday announced net profit of Rs.814.1 million ($20.69 million) for the quarter ending Dec 2007, an increase of seven percent from the same period last year. The company reported consolidated revenues of Rs.33.06 billion ($840 million) during the period, an increase of 11 percent from Rs.29.68 billion in the third quarter of 2006-07.

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

By IANS, Washington : Scientists have identified a gene that seems to be a master regulator of human brain development. The human brain is a marvel of nature with more than 100 billion neurons and billions of other specialised cells. A team of scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UWM) have identified a gene - known as Pax6 - which guides undifferentiated stem cells to tightly defined pathways in becoming different types of cells in the brain.

By IANS, Bangalore : The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has successfully conducted a test of its indigenous cryogenic (supercooled fuel) engine to be used in the next geosynchronous launch vehicle (GSLV-D3) mission, the space agency said here Saturday. "The flight acceptance hot test of the Cryogenic engine was carried out at the liquid propulsion systems centre at Mahendragiri in Tamil Nadu Thursday. This engine will be used in the next GSLV launch in April 2009 for carrying the 2.3-tonne geo-stationary experimental satellite (GSAT)," ISRO said in a statement.

By IANS New York : The secret of why a plant withers or thrives in salty condition has been found in the cellular mechanism of arabidopsis, a plant species, according to a study. The findings could have enormous implications for salt-affected croplands, which form half the world's cultivated area. Salty soil means plants don't grow as well and therefore yield less. Researchers have discovered that a complex carbohydrate called N-glycan, which is linked to protein in the plant, may be responsible for its ability to contend with salt water.

By Badri Paudyal, IANS Kathmandu : Five years ago, landslides on highways made frequent headlines in Nepal. Today the worry in people's minds as they travel by road has changed to relief, reports science site Scidev.net. This is a result of bioengineering technology, which, along with conventional civil engineering, has helped combat landslides in Nepal. When landslides occurred in Krishnabhir, some 80 km from here, they were a nightmare for those travelling on the Prithvi highway, the main transport artery of the nation.

By DPA Washington : Space Shuttle Discovery astronauts discovered what appeared to be a tear in a solar array wing installed during a spacewalk aboard the orbiting International Space Station, halting an operation to reposition and activate the 17.5-tonne solar array and truss. US astronauts Scott Parazynski and Douglas Wheelock spent more than seven hours outside in an operation with other crewmembers inside the station Tuesday.

By IANS Bangalore : After pioneering IT and biotechnology in the country, the Karnataka government is embarking on an ambitious programme to promote nano-technology and nano-science in a big way in the state. To unleash the nano revolution, the state department of IT, biotechnology and science and technology is organising a two-day 'Bangalore Nano 2007' convention Dec 6-7.

By Madhusree Chatterjee, IANS, New Delhi : Indian travellers are still not confident of planning their holidays online. Call it the fear of the intangible or the chip of technology on their shoulder, Internet travel portals are yet to instil confidence in the Indian globe trotter, who prefers to fall back on offline support networks - the travel agents, says Himanshu Singh, managing director of Travelocity. The use of e-portals is still restricted to a niche segment, the young and the Internet-savvy.

By Xinhua Beijing : Japanese astronaut Takao Doi is looking forward to his country's entry into human spaceflight next week when he helps deliver a small storage room for Japan's massive Kibo lab at the international space station. Doi and six crewmates are set to launch toward the station aboard the space shuttle Endeavour on March 11 during a predawn liftoff from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.

By IANS, Washington : Once upon a time, shiny surfaces and mirrors were credited with magical powers that could look into the future. Now two centuries later, NASA is relying on them to look into the past. The agency is developing a primary mirror 21.3 feet across, for use on the James Webb Space Telescope, to tell us about our beginning in the universe. The primary mirror will serve as the telescope's eye and peer through dusty clouds to see stars forming planetary systems, connecting the Milky Way to our own solar system.

By IANS, London : Indian and other minority groups are on the forefront of digital communications in Britain, with high levels of mobile phone, internet and multichannel television take-up, new research shows. Research by Ofcom, the independent regulator and competition authority for the British communications industries, found that under-45s tend to be more engaged with digital media. However, all four ethnic minority groups are also less likely than the British population as a whole to shop or bank online (19-29 percent compared to 41 percent), the research shows.

By IANS New Delhi : The Indian railway system, in a bid to become more people-friendly, will be implementing modern communications systems such as the global information system (GIS), global positioning system (GPS) and radio frequency identification (RFID), Railway Minister Lalu Prasad said while presenting the Railway Budget 2008-09 in the Lok Sabha Tuesday. Several measures like these were announced as part of the Information Technology Vision 2012 for the railways.

By Xinhua, Washington : NASA said Thursday it will release three new versions of the "classic images" taken by Chandra X-Ray Observatory to commemorate the telescope's 10th anniversary. One of the images was released Thursday, while the remaining two, would be released in the next three months. The Chandra X-Ray Observatory was launched aboard the space shuttle, Columbia, and deployed into orbit 10 years ago. It was named in honour of Indian-American physicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar.

Hyderabad: The government of Andhra Pradesh on Saturday signed an MoU with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) to increase employability of students...

By IANS, Dubai : Leading American chip maker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has spun off its manufacturing facilities to a United Arab Emirates (UAE)-based company to create a new semiconductor manufacturing firm. Advanced Technology Investment Co (ATIC) of Abu Dhabi and AMD Tuesday announced the creation of a new US-headquartered company, temporarily named The Foundry Co (TFC), to meet demand for independent and leading-edge foundry production capabilities.

By Richa Sharma, IANS, New Delhi : The night sky will be streaked with light in a celestial spectacle put up by the Perseids meteor showers Aug 12. Sky gazers can look out for it before dawn when over 100 meteors will sparkle in the night sky. "Perseids are the most famous and beautiful of all meteor showers that approach from the horizon. They are long, slow and colourful," Nehru Planetaruim director N. Rathnashree told IANS.

By Xinhua, Washington : A contender for the title of the brightest star in our Milky Way has been unearthed in the dusty metropolis of the galaxy's center, according to a new study in an upcoming issue of the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. Nicknamed the "Peony nebula star," the bright stellar bulb was revealed by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and other ground-based telescopes. It blazes with the light of an estimated 3.2 million suns, reported a team of German astronomers.

By IANS, Chandigarh : Enthused by the success of Chandrayaan-I mission, the aero scientists of India are all geared up to discuss advances in aerospace technologies at the two-day national level seminar, 'Aero Tech 2008' that will start here Friday. APJ Abdul Kalam, former president of India, will inaugurate the Aero Tech 2008 Nov 14.

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

By Prasanto K. Roy, IANS, The year that went by set the foundation for those technologies that are expected to take off in 2009, with focus on energy efficiency and mobility - a bit greener and a lot more faster. Here are 10 of them to watch out for this year: Mobile Applications: With the India's mobile telecom network expected to grow from over 300 million subscribers now to over 400 million by the end of 2009, mobile applications (m-apps) will become central to entertainment, information, banking and other services - and, of course, revenues for telecom companies.

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, Washington : Over the last decade the e-mail has grown from a novelty into a necessity. But how do people respond to e-mails? Do they respond to the most important first, making sure the process is efficient? Or do they send e-mails randomly, when they are at their computers or when they have time, without any regard to efficiency? These are questions that Luís Amaral, associate professor of chemical and biological engineering in the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern University, and his associates set out to answer.

By IANS/RIA Novosti,

By Rahul Dass, IANS, Helsinki : Want to know from your mobile phone where to hangout in Delhi or eat out in Beijing? Three teens in Finland, including one from India, are giving final touches to a system that integrates social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. They are part of a team of 30 brainy teens who have come to Finland from 16 countries to take part in the week-long Millennium Youth Camp being held in a forested area, abutting a lake, about an hour's drive from capital Helsinki.

By Prashant K. Nanda, IANS New Delhi : Even as the rape and murder of a Pune call centre employee by her cab driver is fresh on everyone's mind, a software analyst has developed a mobile phone-based system that may provide better protection to BPO staff in transit. "After two cases of rape and murder of female call centre employees, BPO firms have an uphill task so far as security is concerned. And here comes our system - simple and effective," said Chennai-based V.M. Sankaran Nampoothiri.

By DPA Hamburg : Humans aren't the only "big apes" who use songs to impress one another. German researchers have found that gibbons in Thailand have developed an unusual way of scaring off predators - by singing to them. Literally singing for survival, the gibbons appear to use the song not just to warn their own group members but those in neighbouring areas.

By IANS,

By RIA Novosti Voronezh (Russia) : A cockroach called Nadezhda (Hope) has given birth to the first creatures ever conceived in space, Russian scientists said. Nadezhda conceived during the Foton-M bio-satellite Sep 14-26 flight. "We recently received the first batch of 33 cockroaches conceived in micro-gravity," Dmitry Atyakshin said in Voronezh Tuesday. Though the newborn creatures already eat and drink, micro-gravity conditions may have had an impact on the natural darkening of their chitinous carapace, a part of a cockroach's exoskeleton.

By IANS,

By RIA Novosti, Moscow : Russia is looking into the possibility of building its own particle collider for research and other projects, a Russian scientist has said. Viktor Matveev said Thursday that scientists around the world are currently considering a proposal by their Russian colleagues to build a new collider. The idea was put forward by scientists from the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, who suggested that a new device be built in the Moscow region.

By IANS, Chennai : Private lender Axis Bank has implemented Polaris Software's solution for trade finance, cards and cheque truncation processes, the city-based banking software company said Monday. The solution, "Intellect Business Process Studio", will enable Axis Bank to eliminate the paper-based cheque clearing activity, Polaris said in a statement.

By IANS, Moscow : Iran has plans to launch three satellites in the near future, according to the Iranian embassy in Moscow.

Chennai : India is expected to have its own satellite navigation system by the first quarter of 2015 with four of its satellites in...

By IANS, London : A British scientist may have fathered up to 600 children at a controversial London fertility clinic which he set up in the 1940s with his wife.

By IANS, Chennai : India's second largest commercial vehicle manufacturer Ashok Leyland is looking to spin off its design engineering unit Defiance Technologies into a group company, Defiance Tech Ltd, an official has said. Defiance Technologies offers virtual engineering services, ranging from basic design to high-end predictive analysis for auto makers.

By DPA Washington : These days, with energy costs skyrocketing, it pays to practise green computing. A typical computer uses anywhere from 65 to 400 watts of energy. While that may not put the computer in the same energy-sucking league as an air conditioner, the energy draw is not insignificant, especially when you consider that many computers are left on for a long time - if not all day and night - and that some households have multiple computers.

By IANS, Washington : A maths model developed by researchers can outwit terrorists by predicting the likelihood of attacks, their timing and strength. The model was developed by researchers at the University of Miami (UM). Their finding supports the belief that insurgent wars represent "fourth generation warfare" with different dynamics from conventional wars. UM researchers and collaborators analysed the size and timing of 54,679 violent events reported in Afghanistan, Colombia, Indonesia, Iraq, Israel, Northern Ireland, Peru, Senegal and Sierra Leone.

By DPA, Hanoi : A large unidentified flying object exploded over an island off southern Vietnam, and local officials said Wednesday they suspected it had been a military or civilian aircraft. The explosion occurred Tuesday morning above Cua Can commune on Phu Quoc, a large island belonging to Vietnam off the coast of Cambodia, according to Ngang Van Truyen, chairman of the commune. "It was a huge explosion, and we thought at first that it was thunder," Truyen said. "But then we saw a 100-metre-long smoke trail in the sky and knew that it was the explosion of a flying object."

By IANS, London : Oasis lead singer Liam Gallagher was photographed by Google's new mapping service as he was having a beer. The 36-year-old Gallagher was having a drink at Street View, reported thesun.co.uk. He spotted the Google camera car taking his pictures and pointed at it. But his face was blurred since it is Google's policy to not reveal anyone's identity. A source said: "If there's one man you'd recognise having a pint, it's Liam Gallagher. He's often in The Queens. He must be the most high-profile celeb to be caught on Google Street View."

By IANS New Delhi : A mere 0.8 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is spent on research and development in science and technology, the Lok Sabha was informed Tuesday. Minister of Science and Technology Kapil Sibal said the government had taken several measures to increase spending on science and technology. "These measures include higher allocation for scientific research for setting up new institutions for science, education and research," he said.

By NNN-PTI, New Delhi : A team of Indian scientists have discovered genetic evidence that tribal villagers living in Tamil Nadu were among the first migrants from Africa to settle down in India. Geneticists led by Prof Ramaswamy Pitchappan of Madurai Kamaraj University have found out that the marker gene in the group of people from a small village Jyothimanickam near Madurai matched those of the first settlers in India. The findings point to the fact that the villagers are among the direct descendants of the first settlers.

By IANS, New Delhi : The power sector accounts for around 60 percent of the conuntry's carbon dioxide emissions, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said Wednesday. "The power sector approximately accounts for 60 percent of the total carbon dioxide emissions generated in the country," Ramesh told the Lok Sabha in a written reply. He said thermal power generation accounts for around 64 percent of the total power generation in the country. Coal, gas and diesel-based power generation contribute approximately 82 percent, 17 percent and one percent of the thermal power generation.

By DPA, San Francisco : Google unveiled new features for its signature search tools Monday, including an ability to search by sight, a mobile translator and a real-time search of more than 1 billion new social media pages created every day. Google executives showed off the upgrades at an annual company event called Searchology.

By IANS, Washington : A new technique combining a fast-moving laser beam with a special microscope to look at tissues in different optical planes will enable scientists to get a 3-D view of neurons or nerve cells as they interact, "Most microscopes can only study cell function in two dimensions," said Gaddum Duemani Reddy, clinician at Rice University and co-author of the study. "To look at different planes, you have to move your preparation (of cells) or the objective lens. That takes time, and we are looking at processes that happen in milliseconds."

By Xinhua Beijing : NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft on Monday flew within 200 kilometers above the surface of Mercury, making the first pass of the planet since 1975, media reported. The car-sized probe traveled at about 25,800 kilometers miles per hour as it passed over Mercury on a mission designed to resolve some of the mysteries about the solar system's innermost planet, officials said.

By IANS London : Microscopic marine plankton increase their carbon intake in response to increased concentrations of dissolved carbon dioxide and thus contribute to curbing the greenhouse effect on a global scale, a new study has found. Researchers led by scientists at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Kiel, Germany, have documented this biological mechanism in a natural plankton community for the first time, Sciencedaily.com reported.

By DPA Tokyo : Tired of smelly public toilets? Check out a prototype Japanese bio-toilet that emits no foul smell and helps the environment at the same time. A bio-toilet developed by a Japanese non-profit organisation is designed to activate microorganisms living in cider chips and decompose excrement. In the decomposition process, only nitrogen gas and water are left. The water can be reused for toilet flushing.

By DPA, Hong Kong : The sighting of two rarely seen tropical birds in Hong Kong could be due to climate change, bird experts here have said. The birds - a great frigate and the white-tailed tropic-bird - were both spotted around Po Toi, Hong Kong's southern most island, over the last month. It was the first time the white-tailed tropic has ever been spotted in Hong Kong and only the fourth sighting of the frigate. Both birds are usually seen in more tropical climates such as the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

By IANS, Sydney : Scientists from New Zealand are developing a new system to alert pilots on flights via e-mails about volcanic eruptions by detecting the lightning their ash clouds trigger.

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 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.

By IANS, Sydney : Computer animation students have designed an online game to help children understand ways they can reduce their impact on climate change. Programme coordinator of multimedia at Swinburne University of Technology, Peter Ciszewski, said the University's student designers have incorporated educative elements into animation and game play techniques to produce the game.

By IANS, New Delhi : "It was a breathtaking experience," said 70-year-old Deepak Bhimani, one of the 35 passengers onboard the special flight to watch the century's longest total solar eclipse from 41,000 feet above the ground. "It was very exciting and I really have no words to describe it. It was like the Sun was so near to me and we had a very pristine image. We could even see Mercury and Venus as the sky darkened and the whole phenomenon was breathtaking," Bhimani, who was the oldest passenger on the flight, told IANS.

By IANS, Kolkata: A US-based Indian engineer has designed and patented three waste disposal units that "match architecture and road systems" of India.

New Delhi, May 16 (IANS) Indian voluntary groups are being offered solutions in free software - with training and support thrown in - to give them options to using illegally copied software for their work and campaigns. A series of workshops are being held across India over the next two years, and each participant organisation will enjoy free software support until 2009. The first workshop was held in Lonavala, Maharashtra, and drew participants working on a diverse range of issues from HIV/AIDS to water resource management.

By IANS, London : The cow is considered sacred in India. Now scientists know it is also a dependable, navigational compass. Scientists watched thousands of Google images of the humble quadruped in India, Britain, Ireland, USA to conclude cows automatically point to the north because they have their own inbuilt compasses aligning with the earth's magnetic field. Although, in many cases, the images were not clear enough to determine which way the cattle were facing they were aligned on a north/south axis.

By IANS/EFE,

Tel Aviv : Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said his country was "ready and willing" to share with India technology in areas such...

By IANS Washington : Insights derived from how rats sense objects could enable a better understanding of hearing and touch in all mammals, including humans. A high-speed video of rats using their whiskers to explore different surfaces has provided researchers with a window into the subtle mechanics of their tactile sensory system. The information is significant because the rat's tactile machinery is a widely used lab model for studying how energy from sound or touch is translated into neural activity.

By Xinhua Washington : NASA will launch a new mission that will peer deep inside the moon to reveal its anatomy and history, announced Alan Stern, the agency's Associate Administrator for Science, in a press release on Tuesday. The name of the new moon mission is "Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory," or GRAIL. It will cost 375 million U.S. dollars and is scheduled to launch in 2011, according to the announcement.

By DPA, Washington : the best digital camera on the block, but that won't matter if your prints are no good. The fact is that to get the most out of digital photography, you need to devote as much time to learning about photo printers as you do about digital cameras. Part of the challenge lies in knowing which photo printer will best suit your needs. Another part is understanding which features that are commonly touted by printer manufacturers really matter.

By IANS, Hyderabad: The work on Tata Advanced Systems' facility on the outskirts of Hyderabad to manufacture Sikorsky helicopter cabins formally began Thursday as Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy unveiled a plaque for the project. The facility to assemble fuselages of Sikorsky S-92 helicopters is coming up at the Aerospace Special Economic Zone (SEZ) being developed by the Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC) in Adibatla.

By IANS,

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, London : A new software which can identify unnamed faces and then collate photographs of that individual on the net will go public soon. The software works by scanning a person's configuration of eyes, nose and mouth and claims to be 90 percent accurate. It can then comb the net for more photographs of the same person and, in tests, locate untagged picture which had not previously been seen by some of the people in them, reports the Telegraph. The managers of Face.com, which created the software, told the Sunday Times that 5,000 developers were already using it.

By Prensa Latina, Washington : Scientist James Hansen will warn US lawmakers on Monday about the need to stop global warming, 20 years after he first spoke about the issue in Congress. Although in 1988 he found a very unreceptive audience, Hansen will appeal to the awareness of the members of the House of Representative to promote the idea that it is still possible to defuse "the global warming time bomb".

By DPA, Washington : NASA launched its dual moon mission Thursday that will pave the way for humans to return to the moon. The Atlas V rocket launch lifted off at 05:32 p.m., just 20 minutes after planned, from NASA's Cape Canaveral in Florida. A scheduling conflict with the Endeavour shuttle delayed the launch by a day.

By IANS, Toronto : Sprinters in lane eight may well be at a disadvantage, says a new study that suggests the reaction time of those close to the source of a loud sound - such as a starter's pistol - is faster. Researchers at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, who analysed the reaction time of the 100 and 110 metres athletics events at the 2004 Olympics, found that runners closest to the starter reacted much faster than those farther away.

Kochi, Sep 25 (IANS) Indian space agency ISRO Tuesday sought to be impleaded in a public interest litigation (PIL) - relating to its alleged purchase of forestland - that is to be taken up by the high court here Wednesday. The PIL has been filed by D.B. Binu requesting the court to intervene and initiate a full-fledged inquiry into purchase of land by ISRO for a space education institute in Ponmudi near Thiruvananthapuram from high profile businessman Savy Mano Mathew.

By IANS, Tokyo: Social networking games installed on smartphones are the rage at a game show in Tokyo.

By IANS London : Food produced organically have up to 40 percent more disease-fighting properties than non-organically grown produce, researchers have found. Scientists at Newcastle University in Britain raised cattle and grew fruits and vegetables on 725 acres of organic and non-organic farms situated next to each other over a period of four years.

By IANS, Sydney : Queensland University researchers have traced the evolution of nerves to one of the unlikeliest objects in existence - the marine sponge. "Sponges have one of the most ancient lineages and don't have nerve cells," informed Bernie Degnan of Queensland University School of Integrative Biology. "So we are pretty confident it was after the sponges split from trunk of the tree of life and sponges went one way and animals developed from the other, that nerves started to form.

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, Beijing : Chinese web portal Goojje has said it "will not change" its logo despite US search giant Google's threat to sue it over copyright infringement, according to a media report Wednesday. Goojje's logo resembles the logo of Google Inc and also bears a paw print sign like that of Baidu Inc, the biggest Internet search engine in China and Google Inc's arch rival in the country.

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

By IANS London : Unusual rock formations, long suspected to be an outcome of volcanic activity in the British Isles, were caused by a massive meteorite hit 1.2 billion years ago, spewing debris over a 50 square km area near Scottish town of Ullapool. A research team from the universities of Oxford and Aberdeen found the evidence buried in a layer of rock they now believe is the material thrown out during the formation of a meteorite crater.

By IANS, New Delhi : Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal Monday asked state governments to set up scientific innovation councils within a month and promised to set up seven top-class research institutes in states that did not have them. “The states should take the initiative in promoting science, and we appeal to all states to set up scientific innovation councils modelled after the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR),” Sibal said after a science minister's conference here.

By IANS, Los Angeles : A newly established US company, Deep Space Industries, Tuesday announced a plan to harvest near-earth asteroids.

By IANS, Bangalore, Nov 8 (IANS) Chandrayaan-1, India's first unmanned mission to moon, has travelled more than 380,000 km in 12 days after its launch from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh Oct 22 to enter the lunar orbit Saturday. Soon after the launch at 6.22 a.m. on Oct 22, the spacecraft carrying 11 scientific payloads was put in an orbit of 22,860 km apogee (farthest point to the earth) and 225 km perigee (nearest point to the earth). This is how Chandrayaan reached the lunar orbit:

By Xinhua, Beijing : The only toilet at the international space station was fixed on Wednesday by Russian astronaut Oleg Kononenko, said U.S. media reports. Kononenko finished his job by installing a new gas-separator pump, ending two weeks of troubles with the commode.

By IANS, New Delhi : Terming India's maiden moon mission as “fantastic” and “great”, renowned American astronaut Jerry M. Linenger Friday said bringing back the probe to earth will be “very difficult”. “Moon Mission is a great achievement for India and for me as well. It's fantastic to see India's growing role in space,” Linenger told IANS on the sideline of Hindustan Times Leadership Summit here. “I am not underplaying the achievement, but let me tell you that bringing back the mission to earth will be very difficult,” he said.

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 Arul Louis United Nations : India has called for transparency and accountability in internet security surveillance and for striking balance between human rights and...

By Xinhua Beijing : China's first lunar probing satellite, Chang'e-1, will be put to test Thursday morning when the Earth eclipses the Sun and blocks the supply of solar energy. From about 10 a.m., the satellite will be hidden from the solar rays and lost the contact from the Earth for two and a half hours, said Ye Peijian, chief commander and designer in charge of the satellite system.

By IANS, London : It was the breathtaking solar event that sparked spectacular displays of Northern Lights across much of the northern hemisphere.

By IANS, Washington : How does your brain recall that you brush your teeth before you took a shower, and not the other way around? A study has now identified groups of neurons in the primate brain that code time with extreme precision. Keeping track of time and remembering past events is one of the brain's most important tasks, amid the welter of sights and sounds that it processes.

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

By RIA Novosti Moscow : Russia plans to deploy an orbiting base for manned and unmanned missions to the Moon and Mars after 2020, the head of the space agency said Tuesday. "After 2020, Russia plans to create and put into orbit a near-Earth experimental manned complex to ensure transport operations to the Moon and Mars," Anatoly Perminov said. He also said Russia has tentative plans for manned missions to Mars, but since substantial technical and financial resources would be needed, a Mars expedition should be international.

By IANS London : Extreme cold conditions enable electronics to work better and with less thermal noise, according to Srinivas Vanapalli, a Dutch researcher of Indian origin. Vanapalli has explored the possibilities of cooling components at the chip level, to temperatures 150 degrees Celsius below zero, which also boosts its speed and reliability, ScienceDaily reported. Vanapalli, of the University of Twente, has constructed a proof-of-principle cooler, which cools more effectively than conventional ones and holds promising commercial applications.

By Arun Kumar, IANS, Washington : Executives from leading US clean energy and environmental companies will visit India next month to identify commercial opportunities for clean and green US technologies in India. The role of the upcoming mission and how the private sector can help India develop and deploy low-carbon technologies to combat climate change was discussed at a meeting with Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh.

Washington : "Strong indications" showed that Iran's test of a new precision-guided ballistic missile on Sunday violated a UN Security Council resolution, the White...

By IANS, Chandigarh : The union territory of Chandigarh is all set to become a "solar city" and reduce its dependence on conventional and non-renewable energy resources, officials said here Wednesday. The administration here has nearly finalised the draft plan for extensively utilising solar energy in collaboration with The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). To finalise the modalities of this project, a meeting was held between officials of the union territory and TERI Tuesday evening.

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

By Xinhua Beijing : China will set up an umbrella company to integrate the technical and marketing aspects of rocket building, an official with the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology said Monday. The planned share-holding company is expected to integrate a number of institutions involved in rocket research, development, manufacturing and testing, and would be listed in the share market, said Liang Xiaohong, the academy's vice-president.

By SPA, Los Angeles : NASA's Phoenix Mars spacecraft regained contact with Earth more than a day after falling silent, but its days operating on the red planet are still numbered, mission managers said, according to AP. Waning sunlight and a dust storm this week drained the lander's power, forcing it to go into safe mode. It failed to respond to two wake-up calls from Earth but sent a signal late Thursday when the orbiting Odyssey spacecraft passed overhead.

Beijing: A new Chinese-language online search engine --Chinaso.com -- was launched Friday, marking China's first search service set up by the country's major news...

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

By IANS New York : The world's most powerful laser, more dazzling than sunlight on the sun's surface, has been unveiled. Its output is 2,000 times the combined energy generated by all US power plants. Known as Texas Petawatt laser, it will enable University of Texas researchers to create and study matter at some of the most extreme conditions, including gases at temperatures greater than those in the sun and solids at pressures of many billions of atmospheres.

By Bernama, Bangkok : The discovery of three unidentified new species of snout beetles in Thailand's tropical forests', is an indication of the biodiversity still to be discovered in the country's woodlands, a group of Thai entomologists announced. New to the world's record of beetle species, the three newly discovered were named Articerodes thailandicus, Articerodes ohmumoi and Articerodes jariyae.

By IANS New York : Though moons are common enough in the universe, ours is rather uncommon, according to a new study by US astronomers. The Earth's moon, the subject of much art, myth and poetry, was formed out of a tremendous collision, a rare event seen in less than 10 percent of moon formations, Sciencedaily.com reported. The study, based on new observations by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, was undertaken by researchers at the University of Florida and appears in the latest edition of the Astrophysical Journal.

By IANS London : Huge boulders could enable scientists to predict the contribution of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) to sea level rise, according to the latest issue of Geology. These boulders - deposited by three glaciers in the Amundsen Sea region - are currently being studied by scientists from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), Durham University and Germany's Alfred Wegener Institute.

By DPA, Washington : The solar wind is at a 50-year low, potentially opening up the solar system to more dangerous rays from outer space, researchers have said. Data from the joint NASA and European Space Agency Ulysses solar mission show the cyclical wind - as the plasma and magnetic fields sent out by the sun are called - are at their lowest level since scientists first gathered information on the matter.

By IANS, New Delhi : This year's total solar eclipse on Sunday will be missed by sky gazers in India as the celestial phenomenon will not be visible in Asia. The eclipse will be visible from parts of the South Pacific Ocean area and South American countries like Argentina and Chile. A total solar eclipse occurs every 18 months. A solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the sun and the earth, and the moon fully or partially covers the sun as viewed from the earth.