Technology

By Papri Sri Raman, IANS, Chennai : Even as Chandrayaan-1, India's first unmanned spacecraft to the moon, enters the lunar orbit Saturday, one Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) scientist says the moon is well on its way to becoming the best international space station. "It will be better than any artificial space station", said P. Sreekumar, head of the space astronomy and instrumentation division at the ISRO satellite centre. "The moon has resources,"Sreekumar told IANS in an interview. "To any man-made space station, everything has to be carted from Earth," he said.

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By DPA, Washington : Computers hate heat. So this summer, be sure to think about keeping your computer cool. Computer components themselves run hot, and yet they're not designed to operate above a certain temperature. When the temperature outside gets uncomfortable for humans, you can be sure that your computer isn't liking the situation any better. So for a trouble-free summer of computing, take steps now to ensure that your PC stays cool.

By DPA Hamburg (Germany) : Scientists on NASA's Cassini mission are counting on the probe's next fly-by to provide them with possible clues to alien life following discovery of water vapour plumes on a moon of Saturn. The spacecraft will zoom in on the moon Enceladus in March. Its closest approach will be at a mere 50 km from the surface and the altitude will increase to about 200 kilometres as the spacecraft passes through the plumes. Cassini will sample the plumes directly and find out more about their composition, said German scientists who are monitoring the data.

By IANS, New Delhi : The Indian cabinet Thursday approved the launch of six geo-synchronous satellite launch vehicle (GSLV) flights at an estimated cost of Rs.12.80 billion, with a foreign exchange component of Rs.2.72 billion. "With this, end-to-end capability to launch communication satellites will be available during the Eleventh Five Year Plan (2007-12)," Finance Minister P. Chidambaram told reporters after a cabinet meeting presided over by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The six flights will be undertaken during 2010-12, he added.

By IANS, New Delhi : “The successful launch of the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, India's first unmanned scientific mission to the moon, marks the first step in what we hope will be a historic milestone in India's space programme," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Wednesday.

By IANS, New Delhi : While the government is conducting nationwide public consultations on whether genetically modified brinjal should be commercially released, the science ministry Tuesday endorsed the product, calling it "safe for all". "As science and technology ministry, we support the clearance of the expert group. It is safe for all," Science and Technology Minister P. Chavan said at the social editors' conference here.

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.

TwoCircles.net presents “Agenda for India”. Series editor is Charu Bahri. Challenges & Solutions “I would cite the issue of spectrum allocation and management as one of the foremost challenges of India’s telecom sector,” says Yusuf Motiwala, Founder & CEO, TringMe. “The government must wake up to the losses accumulating on account of under-utilization of spectrum and due to the delay in rolling out 3G services.”

By RIA Novosti Washington : NASA plans to carry out up to six space shuttle launches in 2008, including a flight to service the Hubble Space Telescope, a space agency official has said. NASA Deputy Administrator Shana Dale said the agency is also making progress in developing the Orion spacecraft and Ares launch vehicles to replace the aging shuttle fleet and prepare for journeys to the moon and beyond.

New York(IANS) : Global leaders need to reach a compromise that outlaws reproductive cloning or be prepared to protect the rights of human clones from potential abuse, prejudice and discrimination. A report by the United Nations University's Institute of Advanced Studies (UNU-IAS) says a ban on human cloning, coupled with freedom for nations to permit controlled therapeutic research, is the global community's best option. The report, titled "Is Human Reproductive Cloning Inevitable: Future Options for UN Governance" has been authored by UNU-IAS director A.H. Zakri.

By Bernama, Tokyo : The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency will launch a satellite in 2013 jointly with the European Space Agency, to study the effects of clouds in trying to accurately forecast the progress of global warming, Japanese agency officials said Tuesday. The launch of EarthCARE is expected to increase the accuracy of global warming predictions, such as average temperature rises at the end of the century, a move that would help craft measures to address climate change, said Kyodo News quoted the Japanese agency, JAXA as saying.

By DPA Hanoi : Scientists have discovered 11 plant and animal species in tropical forests in central Vietnam and believe that more species remain unknown here, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said. The new species were a snake, five orchids, two butterflies and three other plants new to science and exclusive to the Annamites Mountain Range, the conservation group said.

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By IANS, Sydney : Like humans, little fish also diet - not to look more presentable, but out of dire necessity. They don't want to get on the wrong side of more dominant fish and risk being gobbled up. A new study, by researchers at James Cook University, has also found that bigger fish use the threat of punishment to keep competitors in line.

By RIA Novosti Hanoi : Vietnam's first communications satellite, the Vinasat-1, is to be launched on April 12, a Vietnamese government official said on Wednesday. Nguyen Ba Thuoc, deputy director of the Vietnamese Post and Telecommunications Corporation, the satellite project's investor, said the satellite would be launched by an Ariane carrier rocket by the French company Ariane Space from the Kourou space center in French Guiana.

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By Fakir Balaji, IANS, Thiruvananthapauram : India's premier science congress beginning here Sunday will draw a road map to address the technological challenges and the direction in which the country should move to find innovative solutions to its myriad problems. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will set the agenda for the scientific community in his inaugural address and the tone of proceedings during the 97th edition of the Indian Science Congress (ISC 2010) at the sprawling Kerala University campus over the next five days.

By IANS Mumbai : Software major Infosys Technologies Ltd has partnered with ACDI/VOCA, a non-profit international development organisation, to develop an information and communication technology (ICT)-enabled application to improve the agro supply chain in India. ACDI/VOCA promotes broad-based economic growth, and develops applications, which fall under growth oriented micro enterprise development (GMED) programme, which is a $6.3 million a USAID-funded initiative.

By Xinhua, Washington : NASA said images received on Thursday confirmed that its Phoenix Mars lander has sprinkled a spoonful of Martian soil onto the sample wheel of the spacecraft's robotic microscope station.

By IANS New York : Using a mobile phone while driving could be as dangerous as being under the influence of alcohol, according to a new study. In fact, the study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University found that drivers under the influence of alcohol and those speaking on cell phones tend to commit the same errors. Using brain imaging, the study has documented how mobile phone use alone reduces 37 percent of brain activity engaged in driving. For instance, drivers using a simulator while on the phone were found to zigzag out of their lanes.

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.

By Syed Azwan Syed Ali, NNN-Bernama, Darwin, Australia : Thirty-two solar- powered cars including Solar Ranger1 from Universiti Tenaga Nasional (Uniten) on Sunday start long the trek across Australia in the World Solar Challenge 2009. The solar cars representing teams from 15 countries were flagged off at Darwin parliament house at 8.30am watched by hundreds of spectators and world media representatives who gathered as early as 7am. The Netherlands Nuon Solar team with the car Nuna5 was the race favourite.

By IANS, Sydney : Australia has acquired the dubious distinction of being the fattest on earth - with four million people classified as obese and another 5.4 million as overweight. New research by Victoria University's Erin Pearson shows that when it comes to changing people's exercise behaviour, having the right messenger is as important as having the right message. "What we have found is that the person delivering the message needs to be someone the audience identifies with and respects in order to bring about a desired change in behaviour," Pearson said.

By IANS, New Delhi : There was exultation, a feeling that India had arrived, when the national tricolour was placed on the lunar surface Friday night. With India's moon mission Chandrayaan already a reality, people are now wondering if the next step could be a holiday on the moon! The Indian flag was planted on the lunar surface when the 35-kg box-shaped Moon Impact Probe (MIP) landed on the moon at 8.31 p.m. Friday night after being ejected from Chandrayaan-1, India's first unmanned spacecraft.

By Sahana Ghosh Kolkata : Hollywood's latest animation offering "Inside Out" has struck a chord with parents globally. Parallels with modern parenting...

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 DPA Washington : For kids these days, schools mean computer use. Increasingly, schools expect - and in some cases require - projects and homework to be completed using a computer, and most kids are only too happy to comply, since computers are also an endless source of entertainment. For parents, though, the challenge becomes determining how much computer time is appropriate for kids - and then figuring out how to administer the rules effectively. Read on for some ideas.

By IANS, Thiruvananthapuram: It is now official -- software and hardware systems company Oracle would be the next IT major to set up shop in Kerala, a top IT official said here Friday.

By IANS, Sydney : Scientists have stumbled on the first ever dinosaur footprints in New Zealand, going back some 70 million years. Geologist Greg Browne of GNS Science said the footprints shed considerable light on how fast dinos moved, how big they were as well as how soft the sediment was when they moved through the area. Browne made the discovery while investigating the properties of the rock and sediment formations in the northwest Nelson region of the country.

By IANS, La Paz : Seventy-four Bolivians will get training from Chinese scientists on how to operate communication satellites, Bolivia's vice-minister for telecommunications Roy Mendez said. The trainees will learn the techniques of construction, pre-launch testing and gathering data from the satellites from the space. He said a newly formed Bolivian Space Agency will also give training to professionals, especially young Bolivians, on how to operate and administrate Tupac Katari satellites, Prensa Latina reported.

By Xinhua Beijing : China will make its own lunar globe soon, using pictures and data collected by its own moon orbiter, said an official in charge of the country's moon exploration mission on Tuesday. "I believe that China will soon come up with a full map of the moon," said Hu Hao, head of the lunar exploration center under the Commission of Science Technology and Industry of National Defense (COSTIND).

By IANS, Agartala: The electronic voting machines (EVM) are secure for the purpose they serve as they cannot be manipulated, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) V.S. Sampath said here Saturday.

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By DPA Los Angeles : Apple has released a new operating system for its ever more popular Mac computers. The upgraded OS 10.5, nicknamed Leopard, was released Friday and includes some 300 improvements including a 'time machine' that tracks and resurrects lost data, and improved video-conferencing abilities. The eagerly awaited system was delayed by several months while the company's engineers worked on developing the iPhone. Rival Microsoft, whose software powers 90 percent of the world's computers, released its newest operating system, Vista, in January.

By DPA, Wellington : Humans first settled in New Zealand around the late 13th century and not more than 2,000 years ago as had been thought, according to research published Tuesday that used radiocarbon dating on rat bones. The research in the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences rejected earlier radiocarbon dating suggesting the first migrants arrived about 200 BC.

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

By IANS, Chennai : For Nobel laureate microbiologist Sidney Altman, biofuels and clones are "no, no" but genetically modified (GM) food is a big "yes". The renowned professor at Yale University thinks biofuels "cannot be the solution" the mankind is looking for. "There is no indication that biofuels can ever substitute fossil fuels," Altman said in the keynote address at a Confederation of Indian Industry (CII)-organised interaction on "what business and society can learn from basic research" here Saturday.

By IANS, London : A pedestrian chasing a pet dog suddenly steps in the path of your speeding car 15 metres away. There is no way you can avoid hitting him. The string of cars following you crash behind one another. In future, a new software programme will mitigate or even eliminate such an eventuality.

By IANS, London : How much spam you get depends on the first letter in your e-mail address, a Cambridge study reveals. Analysis of more than 500 million junk messages has found that addresses that began with more common letters were likely to receive 40 per cent of their mail from spammers. Those starting with less common letters, by contrast, would receive less than a fifth of their mail as spam.

By IANS, Prague : US President Barack Obama has said that North Korea violated international rules when it tested a rocket capable of sending weapons at long range, and called on the UN Security Council to take action, a media report said. "This provocation underscores the need for action, not just this (Sunday) afternoon at the Security Council but in our determination to prevent the spread of these weapons," Obama said. "Rules must be binding. Violations must be punished. Words must mean something," the New York Times quoted Obama as saying Sunday.

By IANS, Beijing : China's solar-powered lunar probe satellite Chang'e-2 has successfully stood the test of a lunar eclipse and hours of flying in complete darkness.

By DPA Washington : Odd as it may seem, one of the biggest problems many computer users face is knowing where their documents are - and how to move or save them. Without this fundamental knowledge, it can be tough to locate important documents when you need them - or to feel like you're in control of your own computer. The good news is that becoming a master of the My Documents folder is not as tough as it seems.

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

By IANS, Washington : Laptops and personal computers of the future will be cooled by tiny fridges sitting snugly inside them, according to an Indian American computer scientist. Unlike conventional fan-based systems, these miniatures would ensure the removal of a greater volume of heat and also improve the performance of the machines, said Indian American Suresh Garimella, of Purdue University, in West Lafayette, Indiana.

By IANS, London : A perfectly preserved 5,500-year-old leather shoe has been found by a team of international archaeologists in a cave in Armenia. The cow-hide shoe dates back to 3,500 BC (the Chalcolithic period) and is in perfect condition. It was made of a single piece of leather and was shaped to fit the wearer's foot.

By IANS, Washington : A gas used in fumigation can potentially contribute to future global warming, but because its production has not yet reached high levels there is still time to nip this potential contributor in the bud. Scientists at MIT, Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego and others have measured the levels of sulphuryl fluoride in the air and determined its emissions and lifetime to help gauge its potential future effects on climate.

By IANS, Beijing : Google Inc has cut commercial ties with two of its Chinese advertising agents, raising concerns that the internet giant's recent standoff with the government may scare away more domestic advertisers. The search engine ended partnerships Monday with the Universal Internet Media and the Xi'an Weihua Network, major advertising agents for Google in east and northwest China, Marsha Wang, spokesperson for Google China, was quoted as saying by China Daily Tuesday. The two are among 25 of Google's authorised advertising agents in the country.

By IANS, New Delhi: India's telecom density rose to 52.74 percent in March this year as the country added 20.3 million subscribers during the month, the telecom regulator said here Monday. "The number of telephone subscribers in India increased to 621.28 million at the end of March 2010 from 600.98 Million in February 2010, thereby registering a growth rate of 3.38 percent. With this, the overall teledensity in India reaches 52.74 percent," the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said in a statement. In February, the teledensity stood at 51.05 percent.

By RIA Novosti Moscow : Russia will need an additional $5 billion to complete construction of its segment of the International Space Station (ISS) by 2015, the head of Russia's rocket and space corporation Energia said. The ISS is a joint project of space agencies from the US, Russia, Europe, Canada and Japan. The orbital station is likely to remain operational until 2020.

By IANS, London : Google Earth has helped spot a meteor crater in Egypt that lay undiscovered, which could help scientists size up risks of potentially catastrophic impacts.

By Xinhua

Beijing : China's State Nuclear Power Technology Co. (SNPTC), officially inaugurated Tuesday, is set to introduce third-generation nuclear power technologies from the Westinghouse Electric Co.