Russia to set world record with 39 space launches in 2009
By RIA Novosti,
Moscow : Russia is planning to set a world record by conducting a total of 39 space launches in 2009 despite the current global financial crisis, the head of the Russian Space Agency said on Monday.
"We have scheduled a record number of launches for next year. We are planning to carry out 39 launches, half of them commercial and civilian satellites," Anatoly Perminov said.
Russia conducted 27 space launches in 2008 and 26 launches in 2007, becoming the world's leader in this sphere.
Researchers uncover music’s secret structure
By IANS,
Washington : More than 200 years after Pythagoras discovered the orderliness of music, three professors have devised a way of analysing music that takes advantage of the deep, complex mathematics seemingly enmeshed in its very fabric.
Writing in the April 18 issue of Science, they have outlined a method called "geometrical music theory" that translates the language of musical theory into that of contemporary geometry.
Malaysia’s space hero not averse to politics
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).
Obama outlines new US space exploration plan
By IANS,
Washington : US President Barack Obama has outlined his administration's new space exploration plan, vowing to increase NASA's budget by $6 billion over the next five years.
Speaking at the Kennedy Space Centre Thursday, where America's moon missions originated decades ago, Obama said he was "100 percent committed to the mission of NASA and its future".
Obama said he wants to accelerate the development of a large, heavy-lift rocket to carry astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit. He called for a decision on the new rocket design in 2015.
India plans to launch 10 satellites every year
By Fakir Balaji, IANS,
Bangalore : Indian space scientists and engineers are bracing up to launch an average of 10 satellites per year to meet the rising demand for various space applications, including communications and remote sensing, a top space scientist said.
"We are planning to launch 10 satellites per year, beginning fiscal 2010-11. We have a series of satellites and launch vehicles at various stages of preparation," Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman K. Radhakrishnan told IANS.
Cars still drive China’s development-first strategy
By DPA
Beijing : Giant power plants belching out clouds of filthy coal smoke often spring to mind when people mention China's worsening air quality. But the exponential growth of the car industry over the past 10 years has also added enormously to the noxious mix of pollutants swirling across urban centres.
As hundreds of new vehicles take to China's roads every day, the government is left in something of a bind between enforcing new environmental policies and its long-term development of the economically vital auto industry.
Indian satellite data can be helpful for UAE, Gulf: Kasturirangan
By Aroonim Bhuyan, IANS,
Dubai : Data received from Indian satellites can prove to be very useful to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in its infrastructure development work, according to K. Kasturirangan, former chairman of Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) K. Kasturirangan.
"The data received from our constellation of satellites have a lot of relevance for the UAE and also for this region as a whole," Kasturirangan, who was here to attend a conference on e-governance in the emirate of Ras Al Khaimah (RAK), told IANS in an interview here.
Jupiter moon lander project to get first funding in 2014
By IANS/RIA Novosti,
Moscow : Russia's Jupiter research project, which includes a lander mission to its moon Ganymede, will receive its first funding next year, a space agency official said.
First synthetic tree may facilitate heat transfer, soil technologies
By IANS,
Washington : The world's first 'synthetic tree,' created by Abraham Stroock's lab, mimics the process of transpiration that helps move moisture to the highest branches.
The researchers' work bolsters the long-standing theory that transpiration in trees and plants through capilliary action, is a purely physical process, requiring no biological energy.
It also may lead to new passive heat transfer technologies for cars or buildings, better methods for remediating soil and more effective ways to draw water out of partially dry ground.
Space taxis: Bold new era or death of manned exploration?
By Anne K. Walters, DPA,
Cape Canaveral (Florida) : The massive cement expanses that dot the flat Florida landscape have been launching pads for history: the first US astronauts blasted into orbit, the Apollo missions to the moon and nearly 30 years of space shuttle flights. But human space travel from Kennedy Space Centre will soon come to a halt.
After nearly three decades, the space shuttle programme is set to come to a close in September.
Botanist on mission to save rare Indian herbal remedies
By Shudip Talukdar, IANS,
Lucknow : Ethno-botanist Deepak Acharya has spent eight years in the Satpura mountains in Madhya Pradesh, parts of which lie cut off from civilisation, driven by a single goal -- documenting and salvaging India's traditional herbal remedies before they are lost to the world.
Trying to lose hair? Measure the loss with new software
By IANS,
Sydney : Researchers have developed maths-based imaging technology to measure hair on different parts of the human body.
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation's (CSIRO) Biotech Imaging team, which specialises in developing software to analyse images automatically, worked with a British company to find a way to test how well their hair removal products work.
‘No fresh evidence to indicate Bay of Bengal tsunami’
By Avijit Chatterjee, IANS
Kolkata : The Geological Survey of India has allayed fears of a tsunami hitting the Bay of Bengal soon - though the findings of an Australian geologist suggest that a giant undersea earthquake could inundate India, Bangladesh and Myanmar.
Kudankulam n-plant a step closer to going on stream
By IANS,
Chennai: The first unit of the protest-hit nuclear power project at Kudankulam is about to be commissioned. Officials have initiated the process to remove its dummy fuel.
Infrared eye in sky to probe remotest reaches of space
By IANS,
Washington : Seeing into the remotest reaches of space, way beyond the capacity of the most powerful existing (Hubble) telescope, may now be possible with MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument detectors) cameras.
"The MIRI is one of four science instruments aboard the James Webb telescope that is designed to record images and spectra at the longest wavelengths that the Webb can observe," said Matt Greenhouse, NASA project scientist.
Microsoft announces reworked Windows
By DPA,
Washington : Microsoft has announced an overhaul of its Internet-based Windows Live communications platform.
Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Hotmail in particular have been equipped with a new user interface and added functionality, Microsoft reports.
Among the new functions is the ability to create Windows Live Groups. These let friends, colleagues or family members gather in groups for easier communication.
Intel unveils high-efficiency quad-core processors
By IANS
Hyderabad : Intel Corporation Thursday launched the industry's first quad-core processors designed for multi-processor servers and high-end desktops to give higher performance at lesser power.
The six new processors in the quad-core Xeon 7300 series, deployed to run multiple applications in data centres, businesses and small and medium enterprises (SMEs), perform two times faster than dual cores with three times more output per watt.
Twitter reaches another milestone with 20 billionth tweet
By IANS,
New York : Online social networking website Twitter set yet another milestone Sunday with a message posted by a Japanese user becoming the 20 billionth tweet of the four-year-old website.
User "GGGGGGo_Lets_Go" from Tokyo tweeted something hard to translate. The graphic designer said it was part of a conversation between him and someone else about a third party.
But moments later he was inundated with congratulations from Twitter users across the world soon after the website announced it surpassed the 20 billionth tweet, New York Daily News reported citing PC Magazine.
Indian American developing infrared super computers
By IANS,
Washington : A computer that is a thousand-fold faster than the fastest current supercomputers is being developed by an Indian American scientist.
The machine of the future being developed by Ashok Nahata of the University of Utah relies on infrared wavelengths rather than electrical wires.
Nahata and his team made the equivalent of wires that carried and bent this form of infrared light, or terahertz radiation, the least exploited segment of electromagnetic spectrum.
Tsunami early warning system by month end
By IANS
New Delhi : Minister of Science and Technology Kapil Sibal said Friday that a national tsunami warning system would be operational by September end.
"The government is setting up a National Early Warning System for Tsunami and Storm Surges in the Indian Ocean and the system is scheduled to be operational by the end of September 2007," Sibal said.
"An interim warning centre is already working at Indian National Centre for Ocean information Services, Hyderabad, on a 24x7 basis," the minister informed the Lok Sabha.
Microsoft’s Bing search engine aims to rival Google
By DPA,
San Francisco : Microsoft stepped up its efforts to cut into the search dominance of Google, launching a public preview version of its widely praised Bing search site Monday.
The site offers several features that are not automatically available on Google such as instant excerpts that allow users to see the contents of a page without actually clicking on it and a sidebar detailing related searches.
Physicists create circuit for new generation computer
By IANS,
Washington: Quantum computing - a new paradigm in information processing that may complement classical computers, could soon become a reality with physicists successfully creating a circuit using neutral atoms.
Physicists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison created the circuit by exerting delicate control over a pair of atoms within a mere seven-millionths-of-a-second window of opportunity.
Why child-bearing women ‘loathe’ beautiful women?
By IANS,
London : We appreciate beautiful women, but they tend to trigger envy and dislike in other women of childbearing age.
A survey of 97 middle-aged women rated such beauties way below their menopausal counterparts, looks-wise, which Aberdeen University psychologist Benedict Jones said was like putting them down.
Researchers turned their attention to examining how fertility triggered competition within sexes for potential partners, informed Jones, who led the study.
Microsoft warns of Excel security flaw
By Xinhua
Beijing : Microsoft Corp. has issued a security advisory warning of a vulnerability that lies within older versions of the Excel spreadsheet program, media reports said Thursday.
The affected versions include Microsoft Office Excel 2003 Service Pack 2, Microsoft Office Excel Viewer 2003, Microsoft Office Excel 2002, Microsoft Office Excel 2000, and Microsoft Excel 2004 for Mac.
Microsoft said Tuesday that it is investigating reports of such attacks, but has not yet determined whether it will patch the hole, or when.
Russian Proton-M rocket with Japanese satellite crashes
By RIA Novosti
Moscow : A Russian Proton-M booster rocket carrying a Japanese communications satellite exploded shortly after lift-off early Thursday, a space agency spokesman said.
The rocket, which was launched from the Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan at 2.43 a.m. Moscow time, experienced an engine malfunction and second-stage separation failure 139 seconds into its flight. It came down in the central Kazakh steppe, 50 km southeast of the town of Dzhezkazgan, the spokesman said.
Now, an alarm clock that creates dawn
By IANS,
London: For people who experience "winter blues" when waking up early morning, a cure has been found. A British firm has invented an alarm clock that creates an artificial dawn.
Don’t allow MP3 headphones to get too close to pacemakers
By IANS,
Washington : Don't allow MP3 headphones to get too close to pacemakers and implantable defibrillators; they could be potentially dangerous.
Researchers investigated the effects of MP3 headphones, most of which contain the magnetic substance neodymium, on the operation of implanted cardiac devices.
An MP3 player is a popular digital music player. Earlier this year a US government report concluded that interactions between MP3 players, such as the popular iPod, and implanted cardiac devices are unlikely to occur.
Breakthrough in battle to curb greenhouse gases
By IANS,
London : A team of scientists has developed a highly energy-efficient method of converting waste carbon dioxide into chemical compounds, marking a breakthrough in the fight to cut greenhouse gases.
The team from Newcastle University estimates that the technology has the potential to use up to 48 million tonnes of waste carbon dioxide per year, reducing Britain's emissions by about four percent, ScienceDaily reported.
The method developed by the team led by Michael North, a professor of organic chemistry, converts waste carbon dioxide into cyclic carbonates.
Yahoo! lays off 45 people in India
By IANS,
Bangalore : Global search engine and web services provider Yahoo! laid off 45 people from its India operations as part of its worldwide firing policy due to global meltdown, a company spokesman confirmed here Thursday.
"Around three percent (45 people) of our India headcount, which is 1,500, has been asked to go Wednesday as per the directive from our headquarters at Sunnyvale in the US," a spokesman of Yahoo! India subsidiary told IANS here.
Iran launches its first satellite carrier rocket
By DPA,
Tehran : Iran launched its first domestically produced satellite carrier Sunday morning, official news agency IRNA reported.
An Iranian Army statement, carried by IRNA, said that the new rocket Safir Omid (Hope Envoy) was successfully test-fired overnight to mark the anniversary of birth of the 12th Shia Imam al-Mahdi.
The statement further said that it was the second test-launch and successfully prepared the ground for the launch of the main satellite in the future.
Japanese brewery claims to have the world’s first ‘space beer’
By DPA,
Tokyo : A Japanese brewery claimed Tuesday it has produced the world's first space beer using barley grown in space.
The grain was grown in a Russian laboratory on board the International Space Station, Sapporo brewery said.
The company has brewed only 100 litres of the extraterrestrial brew, which it says is not meant for sale.
Thirty people will be chosen in a lottery to sample a few millilitres each of the beer in January; the rest will be used for research.
Tests showed the beer was safe, the company said, and it tastes normal.
Science Express chugs along to promote scientific temper
By IANS
New Delhi : From Aryabhatta's mathematical milestone of working out the value of pi some 1,500 years ago to India's yet-to-be-launched moon mission - India's major scientific developments were proudly displayed aboard the Science Express train that will visit 57 towns across the country over the next seven months.
Flagged off by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel from the Safdurjung Railway Station here Tuesday, the white-coloured train aims to kindle scientific curiosity among the Indian youth.
India’s probe first to sniff water on moon
By IANS,
Bangalore : India's Moon Impact Probe (MIP) was the first instrument to detect water on the moon - way back in November last year when the spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 entered lunar orbit, space agency chief G. Madhavan Nair said here Friday.
"I am happy to share for the first time with all of you that the MIP, while it was descending from Chandrayaan to the moon Nov 14, 2008, picked up strong signals of water particles on the lunar surface," the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman told reporters here.
India to log 236 mn mobile internet users by 2016: Report
New Delhi: India is projected to have 236 million mobile internet users by 2016, with the figure reaching 314 million by 2017, a report...
Astronomy fair at Jantar Mantar Sunday
By IANS,
New Delhi : The Nehru Planetarium is organising a fair at Jantar Mantar here Sunday to educate people on the astronomical instruments at the 17th century heritage site.
The fair is a part of several activities planned during the International Year of Astronomy, being observed globally this year.
"The fair will highlight and spread awareness about the usage of Jantar Mantar observatory instruments among people in the country," Nehru Planetarium Director N. Rathnasree said.
The fair will start at 11 a.m. Sunday and will go on till sunset.
NASA satellite pins down timer in ‘stellar bomb’
By IANS,
Washington : A NASA satellite helped astronomers pin down the timing mechanism in a ticking “stellar bomb” some 20,000 light years away.
The twin-neutron star, designated as 4U 1636-53, produces between seven and 10 bursts daily, releasing more energy in 10 to 100 seconds than the sun radiates in an entire week.
The astronomers said they were equivalent to 100 hydrogen bombs detonating simultaneously on a city-sized surface.
‘Iran n-deal done, yet not a time to celebrate’
Beijing: The Tehran nuclear deal has finally been done, yet this is "not a time to celebrate as Iran and the international community should...
NASA postpones Endeavour launch
By IANS,
Washington : US space agency NASA Sunday postponed the launch of its space shuttle Endeavour by at least one day due to a low cloud ceiling over Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.
Launch managers initially plan for a 24-hour turnaround, but will evaluate Monday's weather before making a final decision. Next possible launch attempt is 0914 GMT Monday, Xinhua reported.
Aliens exist on Saturn’s moon: NASA
By IANS,
London : Scientists at US space agency NASA have found vital clues that primitive aliens could be living on Titan, one of Saturn's biggest moons.
On the basis of chemical composition found on Titan's surface, the experts believe that life forms have been breathing in the planet's atmosphere and also feeding on its surface's fuel.
The research based on the analysis of data sent from NASA's Cassini probe has been detailed in two separate studies.
Indian lunar probe starts remote sensing of Moon
By RIA Novosti,
New Delhi : India's first lunar probe entered its final polar orbit around the Moon late on Wednesday and has now begun remote sensing of the surface, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) said on Thursday.
Chandrayaan-1, meaning "Moon Craft" in ancient Sanskrit, was launched on an Indian-built PSLV-C11 rocket on October 22.
Videocon launches nine more mobile handsets
By IANS,
New Delhi: Electronics major Videocon Wednesday launched nine more handsets, including a triple SIM CDMA phone, thus enhancing its current offering from 12 handsets to 21.
Other key highlights of the new range are a QWERTY keypad dual SIM with optical track pad, attractive touch screen devices and dual SIM multimedia, camera and music phones, a company statement said.
Household robots? Sooner than you think
By Saurabh Yadav, IANS,
New Delhi : As tech companies around the world - and in India - develop smarter robots, it is only a matter of time before the big three of housework - vacuuming/cleaning, dishwashing and cooking - are done successfully by robots, thus liberating urban households from dependence on the almighty housemaid.
Japanese auto giant Toyota has announced that it intends to start selling next-generation household robots by 2010 and the South Korean government has said that it aims at having a robot in each home by 2013.
Scientists invent bionic eyeball to cure blindness
By DPA,
Hamburg : German scientists have invented a wireless bionic eyeball that can restore vision to patients who have become blind due to retina damage or disease.
The new prosthetic device caps 12 years of research to help these patients. This work has resulted in a unique system - a fully implantable visual prosthesis.
The scientists from the Fraunhofer Institute for Microelectronic Circuits and Systems in Duisburg, Germany, say that the bionic eye can bypass the damaged retina.
The system comprises an implant and an external transmitter integrated in an eyeglasses-frame.
Huge asteroid flies past Earth
By Xinhua,
Washington : An asteroid as big as a 10-storeyed building flew past Earth Tuesday, the US space website has said.
The space rock was perhaps a bit larger than one thought to have created a colossal explosion in the air above Siberia in 1908 that flattened 500,000 acres (2,000 square km) of forest.
Asteroid 2009 DD45 was closest to Earth Tuesday at about 8.40 a.m. It was some 72,000 km away, which is twice the height of a geostationary communications satellite.
Partial solar eclipse in Taiwan
By DPA,
Taipei : Tens of thousands of people in Taiwan watched Wednesday's partial solar eclipse, but few said they still believe in superstitions that the eclipse could spell disaster.
In Taipei, clusters of people gathered in squares, parks and on rooftops to try to catch a glimpse of the phenomenon, which appeared as a total eclipse in parts of India, Nepal, China and Japan and a partial eclipse in other areas of Asia.
New technique allows 3-D peek at neurons
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."
Black buck gives birth after artificial insemination
By IANS
Hyderabad : For the first time in the world, scientists here have succeeded in artificial insemination of a black buck by non-invasive method, leading to the birth of a live fawn.
Scientists at the Laboratory for Conservation of Endangered Species (LaCONES) of the prestigious Centre for Cellular Molecular Biology (CCMB) here are excited about their success.
Beetle ancestors 70 mln years older than dinosaurs
By Xinhua
Beijing : Researchers have discovered that when it comes to longevity dinosaurs can't hold a candle when compared to beetles.
Prior to the latest study, beetle species were thought to have begun scurrying around some 140 millions years ago, about the same time as the rise of flowering plants.
Prior to the latest study, beetle species were thought to have begun scurrying around some 140 millions years ago, about the same time as the rise of flowering plants.
Understanding Vista’s Windows experience index
By DPA
Washington : In the past, it was difficult to measure exactly how fast one computer ran Windows versus another computer. Now, thanks to Windows Vista's new experience index, the guesswork has been taken out of evaluating performance.
Understand the experience index and you'll be ahead of the game when it comes to judging the performance of a new PC or determining how best to upgrade your existing box.
Snip of hair can nail criminal now
By IANS,
Sydney : A snip of human hair, recovered from a crime site, would now be enough to nail its perpetrator, thanks to a new technique developed by researchers.
Called Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS), the portable tool has the advantage of being readily available and could be used for forensic analysis.
Sarina Brandes, a chemistry masters researcher at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) who adapted this technique, said it was independent of analysis of DNA, which could break down quite quickly, especially during disasters.
Research team to explore hydrothermal vent in deep seas
By IANS,
Washington : A research team has embarked on deep sea exploration to study hydrothermal vents.
The team, which will be conducting research on scalding heat, high pressure, toxic chemicals and total darkness, is part of the National Science Foundation-funded "Extreme 2008: A Deep-Sea Adventure."
The scientists are being joined by students from around the world who have signed up for an exciting virtual field trip.
More than 20,000 students from 350 schools in the United States, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, Great Britain and New Zealand are participating.
Mars probe fit to peek under Earth’s ice sheets
By Xinhua,
Beijing : A space-based radar aboard a European Mars probe could not only peer under the frozen extraterrestrial seas of moons such as Europa and Titan, but also see beneath the surface of ice sheets on Earth.
The space radar would take its cue from the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding (MARSIS) instrument, which has probed the Red Planet's underground for evidence of water from the European Space Agency's (ESA) Mars Express spacecraft.
New imaging pinpoints 5 mn atoms in protective coat of virus
By IANS,
Washington : A new image of a virus' protective coat, which took more than three years to create, contains some five million atoms in exact configuration which could help scientists find better ways to fight viral infections.
The stunning image reveals the structure of a type of protein coat shared by hundreds of known viruses containing double-stranded RNA genomes.
The image was painstakingly created from hundreds of high-energy X-ray diffraction images and paints the clearest picture yet of the viruses' genome-encasing shell called a capsid.
Space shuttle undocks from station, heads home
By RIA Novosti
Washington : The US shuttle Endeavour has undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) ending its 12-day mission, which saw a record breaking five space walks, a NASA spokesperson said.
Endeavour, which delivered the first part of the Kibo Japanese laboratory and the Dextre Canadian-made robot, is due to land at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida Wednesday.
The second and main part of the Japanese laboratory is due to be delivered by space shuttle Discovery in late May.
China sends up 1st data relay satellite
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.
Scientists weigh elusive gold atom with nanoscale
By IANS,
Washington : Weighing a single golden atom is now possible, thanks to a nanoscale devised by Berkeley Lab and California University researchers.
Alex Zettl, a physicist with Berkeley Lab, who led the team, said “for the past 15 years... the holy grail of nanoelectromechanical system (NEMS) has been to push them to a small enough size with high enough sensitivity so that they might resolve the mass of a single molecule or even single atom.”
New technology to bring down cost of fuel
By Jatindra Dash, IANS,
Bhubaneswar : It may now be possible to bring down the cost of emulsified fuel and also reduce India's dependence on crude imports, thanks to a new technology invented and tested by the Chennai-based Hydrodrive Systems and Controls.
"The technology we have developed does not use any additives or surfactant," Hydrodrive managing director and inventor Srinivasan Gopalakrishnan said.
190 mn-year-old dinosaur fossils found in Argentina
By IANS/EFE,
Buenos Aires : A species of dinosaur that lived 190 million years ago has been found in Argentina, a researcher said.
"No discoveries with these characteristics had ever been made in the region. It's an important discovery because it helps us understand the environmental diversity of the period," researcher Santiago Bessone of the Museum Egidio Feruglio, an institution based in the Argentine Patagonian city of Trelew that was responsible for the expedition, told EFE.
Big and thin: PC monitors better than ever
By DPA
Berlin : Chunky, heavy tube monitors appear to have reached the end of their long run as the king of the computer workspace. A hefty competition is under way among flat monitors. The goal: bigger, broader and more handsome.
"Seventeen-inch monitors are already becoming extinct, and 19 inch has become the standard," says Dirk Lorenz from the German consumer-testing organisation Stiftung Warentest in Berlin.
As monitors get bigger, more of them come in wide screen format. That means a 16:10 size ratio instead of the old fashioned 4:3 ratio.
ISRO to launch man mission in seven years
By NNN-PTI,
Thiruvananthapuram, India : India's space agency ISRO is confident of carrying out a man mission to outer space within six to seven years, its Chairman Dr G Madhavan Nair said here Saturday.
A detailed report on this had already been submitted to the Union Government by ISRO, Nair said at the 'Space Salute' programme organised by Asianet television channel jointly with ISRO to felicitate the scientists associated with the PSLV-C9 mission here.
Star attacks planet with radiation
By IANS,
Washington : A nearby star is bombarding its companion planet with a barrage of X-rays, hundred thousand times more intense than the earth receives from the Sun, a NASA discovery says.
Scientists find solar system similar to ours
By Xinhua
Beijing : An international team of astronomers has discovered a miniature version of our own solar system nearly 5,000 light years away, according to a report published Friday in the journal Science.
"We found a solar system that looks like a scaled-down analog of our solar system," Scott Gaudi of Ohio State University, who led the study, told reporters.
Beijing : An international team of astronomers has discovered a miniature version of our own solar system nearly 5,000 light years away, according to a report published Friday in the journal Science.
"We found a solar system that looks like a scaled-down analog of our solar system," Scott Gaudi of Ohio State University, who led the study, told reporters.
US plans world’s largest biometric database
By DPA
Washington : The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is planning the world's largest databank of biometric information allowing it access to the physical characteristics of thousands of people, the Washington Post reported.
The $1-billion project of the FBI will give the federal police unprecedented access to information about people in the US and abroad in a massive computer database located in Clarksburg, West Virginia.
Russian astronauts to Moon by 2025: official
By Xinhua
Moscow : Russia will send astronauts to the Moon by 2025 and establish a permanent station there between 2028 and 2032, a senior official said here Friday.
Russia, which sent the first cosmonaut to the space in 1961, has forged a long-range blueprint for its space industry up to 2040, said Anatoly Perminov, head of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos).
China launches orbiter for global navigation system
By IANS,
Beijing : China Sunday launched an orbiter into space for its satellite navigation and positioning network.
It was the third orbiter that China has launched for its independent satellite navigation and positioning network, also known as Beidou or Compass system.
Xinhua news agency reported that the new satellite was launched from the Xichang satellite launch centre in southwestern Sichuan province by a Long-March-III carrier rocket.
Rise of Google Chrome threatens Internet Explorer, Mozilla
By IANS,
London : Web browser Google Chrome, which emerged in mid-2008, has hit Internet Explorer hard and stalled the rise of Mozilla Firefox.
India has only 130,000 scientific researchers: minister
By IANS
New Delhi : India has a mere 130,000 scientific researchers against seven times that number in China, and the government is taking steps to address the imbalance, parliament was told Wednesday.
"We have just 130,000 researchers against some 700,000 to 800,000 in China," Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibil said during question hour in the Rajya Sabha.
"The Scandinavian countries have 7,000 researchers per million of population. In India, the figure is 156," he added.
Tiny device can help build more powerful computers
By IANS,
Washington : Engineers have fabricated a tiny positioning device that will help build more compact, powerful computer hard drives and practically double the effectiveness of biological sensors.
Called monolithic comb drive (MCD), it can be potentially used as a "nanoscale manipulator" for use in watery environments to probe biological molecules, said Jason Vaughn Clark, an assistant professor of electrical, computer and mechanical engineering at Purdue University, who created the design.
Underground ocean may exist on Saturn moon: NASA
By DPA
Washington : New evidence has surfaced of an underground ocean on Saturn's moon Titan, based on data sent back to Earth by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, the US space agency said.
"Titan has one of the most varied, active and Earth-like surfaces in the solar system," Ralph Lorenz, Cassini radar scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, said in a statement Thursday.
Are there any extra terrestrials out there?
By IANS,
London : Is there anybody out there? The odds of finding life on other planets are low, given the time it has taken for earthlings to evolve and the ebbing lifespan of our planet.
Complex life is separated from the simplest forms by several very unlikely steps and therefore will be much less common. Intelligence is one step further, so it is still much less common," Andrew Watson of University of Anglia said Saturday.
No solution yet to BlackBerry security issue
By IANS,
New Delhi : A solution to the security concerns over BlackBerry services in India has still to be hammered out as its licensor Research-in-Motion (RIM) has sought more time from the Indian government to reach an agreement.
Executives from the Canada-based firm, senior government officials, representatives from security agencies and services met Tuesday here for the second time after India raised concerns that BlackBerry services may be used by terrorist outfits as the e-mails between these cannot be intercepted.
Solar powered rickshaws? India and UK set up energy hub
By IANS,
London : Rickshaws powered by solar energy could be your next mode of transport, courtesy of a Commonwealth initiative.
The Commonwealth Business Council (CBC) has set up an incubation hub in partnership with the Indian government to develop cutting edge energy-saving technologies, it announced Tuesday.
The hub, which also involves the Indian Institute of Management - Ahmedabad, the UK Carbon Trust and British Petroleum's Alternative Energy Group, will work on technologies that will be designed for Indian city and rural living, as well as transport.
ISRO designed avionics to guide rockets in 2008
By IANS
Chennai : Rocket navigation systems developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) are all set to guide the geo-synchronous launch vehicle (GSLV) slated for launch next year.
ISRO tested its new avionics on board the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) that was launched in April. The vehicle had a second equipment bay - apart from the primary one - housing the navigation and telemetry systems.
Nuclear art sleuths analyse cultural heritage
By DPA
Vienna : Fake or real? This is one of the questions that has been bugging art experts all over the globe for centuries. Help for art detectives comes from an unexpected quarter: the UN nuclear watchdog, usually better known for investigating a country's nuclear programme or weapons aspirations.
Total solar eclipse viewed in Bangladesh
By Xinhua,
Dhaka : The long-awaited total solar eclipse was observed Wednesday morning in northwestern Bangladesh that lasted for little more than three minutes.
Despite the cloudy weather, tens of thousands of astronomy enthusiasts gathered in the South Asian country's northwestern Panchagarh district, about 440 km from here, observed the greatest celestial spectacle of the century.
Panchagarh district, the nearest town to the central line of the Umbra was earlier declared as the Capital of the Total Solar Eclipse 2009 in Bangladesh.
Endeavour docks with ISS
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.
World’s oldest submerged town dates back 5,000 years
By IANS,
London : Archaeologists surveying the world's oldest submerged town have found ceramics dating back to the end of the Neolithic era.
Their discovery suggests that Pavlopetri, off the southern Laconia coast of Greece, was occupied some 5,000 years ago - at least 1,200 years earlier than originally thought.
These remarkable findings have been made public by the Greek government after the start of a five-year collaborative project involving the Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and The University of Nottingham.
US, Russian astronauts arrive at space station
By DPA,
Washington : A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying two US astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut arrived Thursday at the orbiting International Space Station (ISS).
The Soyuz lifted off Tuesday from the Baikonur launch site in Kazakhstan with Americans Doug Wheelock, Shannon Walker and Russian Fyodor Yurchikhin aboard.
The 2221 GMT docking occurred over Argentina. It was the combined 100th flight to the ISS by US space shuttles and Russian Soyuz capsules.
China counting down to launch of its first lunar probe
By Xinhua
Xichang, Sichuan : Chinese press and thousands of tourists have gathered at China's Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwestern Sichuan Province to witness the launch of the nation's first moon orbiter, which is scheduled to take place at 6:05 p.m. on Wednesday.
Nano materials likely to impact environment negatively
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.
US Malayalees launch alliance to make Kerala an IT hub
By IANS
New York : The Kerala Information Technology Alliance (KITA) has been launched here to make Kerala a premier global technology hub.
Ommen Chandy, a former chief minister of Kerala, inaugurated KITA at the Kerala Centre in the presence of over 150 IT professionals and community leaders.
Kerala Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan said in a message: "I hope KITA will provide a platform for IT professionals of Kerala origin to share best practices, ideas and thereby influence and accelerate the growth of Kerala in key industries."
ISRO scientists to meet Sunday to discuss cryo failure
By IANS,
Chennai : Indian space scientists will meet in Thiruvananthapuram on Sunday to discuss the reasons for the failure of Thursday's rocket mission, which was for the first time powered by an Indian-built cryogenic engine.
Meanwhile, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is collecting data on the rocket launch to arrive at the reason for the failure.
The scientists will start reviewing the data at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre in Thiruvananthapuram Saturday.
Scientists said they have to "work overtime" to arrive at a conclusion on why the mission failed.
‘Northeast space centre not getting data from central agencies’
Shillong : The North East Space Application Centre (NE-SAC), set up by the Centre to develop high-tech infrastructure support for the northeastern states, is...
TERI to set up 15 biotech labs in northeast India
By IANS
New Delhi : Environmental watchdog and research organisation The Energy and Resource Institute (TERI) will set up 15 laboratories in northeastern India to help students with environmental and biotechnological experiments.
The 15 laboratories would be set up in the states of Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura with facilities to provide computer education, taxonomic studies, microbiological and biotechnological experiments among schoolchildren.
Indian-American researchers develop system to ease e-mail overload
By IANS,
Washington : Indian-American researchers are taking the help of a computer model called SIMONE to ease e-mail overload in busy organisations and companies.
Ashish Gupta and Ramesh Sharda of Minnesota and Oklahoma State Universities, respectively, described how SIMONE (Simulator for Interruptions and Message Overload in Network Environments) can produce a model of how e-mail flows within a network of knowledge workers.
Remote sensing agency comes under ISRO
By IANS,
Bangalore : The autonomous National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA) has become a state-run body and brought under the Indian Space Research Organsiation (ISRO), the space agency said Monday.
Renamed the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), the Hyderabad-based entity will be integrated with other ISRO centres for the development and operations of the ground segment under India's remote sensing programme.
“The society has been merged with ISRO in view of the allied activities carried out in aerial and satellite remote sensing,” ISRO said in a statement.
India’s moon mission rides on basketballer turned rocket scientist
By Venkatachari Jagannathan, IANS,
Chennai : As a Kerala state player, George Koshy used to shoot the ball into the basket during his college days. Today, as a rocket scientist with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the tall, 58-year-old M.Tech from IIT-Bombay is the project director for Chandrayaan-1, India's maiden unmanned moon mission, and on his broad shoulders rests the venture's success.
International Space Station’s orbit raised 3 miles
By RIA Novosti
Moscow : The orbital altitude of the International Space Station (ISS) has been increased by 5 kilometers (3 miles), a spokesman for the Russian Mission Control Center said on Thursday.
"The correction of the orbit of the ISS started at 8:16 a.m. Moscow time [5:16 a.m. GMT] by using thrusters on the Russian module Zvezda," the spokesman said, adding that the procedure had lasted 123 seconds.
He said the correction was made without the participation of the space station's crew.
India places latest communications satellite into orbit
By V. Jagannathan, IANS
Sriharikota : Trailing a plume of orange flame, a rocket lifted off from this launch pad in Andhra Pradesh Sunday evening to place into orbit India's latest communications satellite that will boost direct-to-home (DTH) TV services.
The geosynchronous satellite launch vehicle GSLV-F04 lifted off at 6.20 p.m. on a cloudy Sunday evening after a series of delays caused by a technical glitch delayed the launch by 120 minutes.
Yahoo’s Flickr to provide online video service
By Xinhua
Beijing : Yahoo's online photo-sharing site Flickr will release online video service which represents the latest example of Yahoo trying to catch up with Google in a crucial battleground, media reported Wednesday.
Flickr's new technology is aimed at amateurs and hobbyists looking for a better way to share short video clips with family and friends.
Cuba raps Facebook, YouTube
By IANS,
Havana : Cuba has denounced online social network Facebook and Google-owned video sharing network YouTube for closing its account and censoring video links from the two websites.
Space qualified ‘moon’ trees thriving in US
By IANS,
Washington : Space travellers are living out their lives away from the limelight, after having orbited the moon 34 times on board Apollo 14.
Middle East ministers to attend water technologies forum
By DPA,
Singapore : Ministers from six Gulf countries plan to meet providers of water management solutions from South-East Asia, India, China, Japan, Australia and Europe, organizers in Singapore said Thursday.
The forum on June 25 is part of the city-state's International Water Week, a global platform from June 23 to June 27.
Ministers from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Oman and Bahrain are scheduled to attend.
India test fires Akash missile
Bhubaneswar: India Wednesday test fired its Akash surface-to-air missile from a defence base in Odisha, an official said.
The indigenously developed missile, with a 27-km...
Computer virus targets Russian opposition
By IANS,
Washington : Opponents of Russian president-elect Vladimir Putin are being targeted through a computer virus sent by email, CNN reported.
Microsoft launches on-demand e-mail solutions in India
By IANS,
New Delhi : In order to enable easy access to its cost-effective business productivity software, Microsoft Thursday launched its online services in India.
Starting at $2 (about Rs.100) a month, the service will allow small and medium business and enterprise customers to access Microsoft's e-mail, collaboration, conferencing and productivity capabilities online.
Customers can access the suite directly from www.microsoft.com/india/onlineservices and pay a use-based monthly subscription fee.
India, US to enhance cyber security cooperation
Washington : India and the US have committed to robust cooperation on cyber issues to increase global cyber security and promote the digital economy.
They...
Reliance Communications wins top CDMA operator award
By IANS
New Delhi : Anil Ambani-promoted Reliance Communications has been adjudged the world's top mobile service provider based on code division multiple access (CDMA) technology.
The award was conferred upon the company by the CDMA Development Group (CDG), a trade body aimed at fostering worldwide development, implementation and use of CDMA technologies.
Infosys to develop IT-enabled application for agriculture
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.
Hyderabad IT Summit to replace GITEX India
Hyderabad, Sep 13 (IANS) The Andhra Pradesh government has decided to hold a Hyderabad IT Summit in March 2008. This event will replace the Global Information Technology Exhibition (GITEX India), held annually in the city since 2002.
The state government is scouting for a partner for the event, where many global and national IT companies are expected to participate. A key feature of the three-day event will be an India-US software conference, which is likely to be attended by software giants from both countries.
Khushboo Mirza, member of Chandrayaan-1 team, talks to TCN
By Md. Ali, TwoCircles.net,
Patna: When the whole India was basking in the glory of launching of Chandrayaan-1 it was also the turn of Chaugori Mohalla, a tiny, traditional Muslim neighborhood in UP's Amroha district to take pride in the successful launching of the satellite. A daughter of the village was part of the mission Chandrayaan.
The villagers are very proud of her so much so that they have started calling it Khushboo Mirza’s village.
‘Block the sun, control global warming’
By IANS,
Toronto : Canadian and US scientists want to block the sun to cool the earth and limit global warming.
Research and field-testing on what they call "geo-engineering" of the earth's atmosphere to limit risk of climate change must begin quickly, say scientists from the University of Calgary in Canada, and the University of Michigan and Carnegie Mellon University in the US.
Studies on geo-engineering or solar radiation management (SRM) should be undertaken collectively with government funding, rather that unilaterally by nations, argue the scientists.
Using AI to track visual bugs in 3-D games
By IANS,
Sydney : Artificial intelligence will soon replace the tedious and time-consuming -- but highly complex -- process of testing how good or bad 3-D computer games are.
Alfredo Nantes of Queensland University of Technology is building intelligent tools that will detect “visual anomalies” in a 3-D computer game.
“Visual anomalies are things like incorrect shadowing or lighting, texturing problems and all artefacts that corrupt the realism of the game scene,” Nantes said.
Internet shapes global Tibet protests
By IANS,
New Delhi : The emergence of social networking sites has come as a boon for cyber-dissidents who use these internet tools not just to create a buzz on the web but also as a platform to organise protests and flash strikes.
On Facebook, there are nearly 15 groups that come up on a word search for 'tibet'. But, the largest by far is that of "Free Tibet", which had a membership count of 88,460. When accessed on Thursday afternoon, it had over 8,700 posts, 1,727 photos, 360 discussions topics and 51 videos.
Cosmic lenses allow far-away view of universe
By Xinhua
Beijing : A technology that nature invented is one of the best tools astronomers have to view the distant universe. Cosmic magnifying glasses called gravitational lenses help scientists zoom in on far-away scenes they could never spot otherwise.
In a recent survey of a section of the universe, researchers counted 67 new gravitational lenses, leading them to believe there are nearly half a million similar lenses in the rest of the universe.
Rain or shine, India’s moon mission will keep its Oct 22 date
By IANS,
Sriharikota (Andhra Pradesh) : Come rain or shine, India's maiden moon mission will be launched from here Oct 22 as scheduled, officials said.
Except for a a severe cyclone, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) C11 will blast off from the second launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) here as scheduled.
‘Big mistake’ if US blocks overseas skilled workers: Bill Gates
By IANS,
New Delhi : Microsoft founder Bill Gates Friday said it would be a "big mistake" if the US curbs the entry of skilled workers from abroad, rallying behind the "smart people" from countries like India that has a globally recognised outsourcing industry.
He also said Microsoft will like to partner the Indian government in its ambitious plan to give a unique identity number and a biometric card to each of its 1.17 billion people.
TCS bags $100 mn deal with NXP
By IANS,
Mumbai : India's leading IT firm Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. (TCS) has signed a five-year contract worth $100 million with Dutch chip maker NXP Semiconductors B.V., founded by Philips.
TCS will provide consultancy services as well as application management, development and support services across NXP's supply chain operations.
TCS chief operating officer and executive director N. Chandrasekaran said, "The engagement with NXP is a perfect demonstration of our business credentials in a specialist sector and enables TCS to develop a deep relationship with NXP."
Railway plans hi-tech security gadgets in Orissa
By IANS,
Bhubaneswar : East Coast Railway authorities have decided to install high tech security gadgets at leading stations of Orissa in view of the recent terror attacks in different places of Mumbai, a railway official said Monday.
A high level meeting was conducted by East Coast Railway authorities Monday to review the security situation at railway stations, especially in Bhubaneswar, Puri and Cuttack.
The meeting took stock of the security scenario at these stations and additional measures required to be taken were discussed, an East Coast Railway press release said.
India marks ‘Ring of Fire’ spectacle with faith and science
By IANS,
New Delhi : Millions of Hindus bathed in holy rivers and tanks across India after a four-hour celestial spectacle that turned the sun into a 'Ring of Fire', bringing out science enthusiasts to view and record the rare event.
Hundreds of thousands of temples all over the country closed their doors and covered their deities with muslin shrouds during the period when traffic on roads in many cities thinned as people kept indoors.
Astronauts enter space station’s new European lab
By Xinhua
Washington : Astronauts aboard the orbiting International Space Station opened the newly-installed European Columbus laboratory and conducted some outfitting tasks on Tuesday.
European-built Columbus lab was delivered to the station by U.S. space shuttle Atlantis, which lift off on Feb. 7 after a series of delays.
Washington : Astronauts aboard the orbiting International Space Station opened the newly-installed European Columbus laboratory and conducted some outfitting tasks on Tuesday.
European-built Columbus lab was delivered to the station by U.S. space shuttle Atlantis, which lift off on Feb. 7 after a series of delays.
Iranian Scientists produce mouse using stem cells
By NNN-IRNA
Scientists of Iran’s Royan Research Center have successfully produced a mouse using embryonic stem cells.
Director of the center's stem cells group, Hossein Baharvand, said that in the next phase, the experts are expected to produce mice with specific characteristics by genetically changing the mouse embryonic stem cells.
"The mechanism could be used in studying the performance of a specific gene in a living body," Baharvand said.
US explorer traces asteroid near Tadpole Nebula
By IANS,
Los Angeles : NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) has sent images of an asteroid marching across Tadpole Nebula.
As WISE scanned the sky on a recent mission, it caught the asteroid passing by in our solar system, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) said Thursday.
The asteroid, 1719 Jens, left tracks across the image, seen as a line of yellow-green dots around the Tadpole Nebula, a star-forming region at 12,000 light years from the earth, Xinhua reported.
New virus test technology experimented
By Xinhua
Hangzhou (China) : A new diagnostic technology to detect epidemic diseases has entered the phase of clinical experiments, claimed a Chinese scientist.
Different from traditional methods that rely on antigen or antibody test, the new technology is based on genetic substances of the viruses, namely DNA or RNA, to confirm epidemic diseases such as hepatitis or AIDS, said Charlie Xiang, chief scientist of the Microarray Centre of US National Institutes of Health (NIH).
ABB wins orders for power transformers
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...
Indian American challenges gene cure based on Nobel winning work
By Parveen Chopra, IANS
New York : A research team led by an Indian American scientist has challenged the validity of a prototype gene treatment based on Nobel prize winning work that has attracted billions of dollars in investment for developing cures for cancer, diabetes and other diseases.
Kerala IT firm’s Arabic video sharing portal a hit
By IANS,
Thiruvananthapuram : Rain Concert Technologies Pvt Ltd, a leading IT company in Kerala, has developed a new Arabic video sharing portal that has become a hit in Saudi Arabia, a company official said Thursday.
M.S. Vinod, the managing director of the company, said their new video sharing portal www.ma8ta3ee.com, is hugely popular in Saudi Arabia.
"This is similar to Youtube but more advanced. In our programme anyone can upload from their mobile and it first goes into an administrator who checks if it is fit for display. Then it is put up on the portal," said Vinod.
Microsoft sees record revenue through Windows 7
By DPA,
Seattle : The launch of Windows 7 propelled Microsoft to record third-quarter revenue of $14.5 billion, a 6-percent increase from a year ago, the world's largest software company said Thursday.
Microsoft earned $4 billion in net income, a rise of 35 percent compared to the same quarter a year ago.
Russian ‘internet blacklist’ site faces attack
By IANS/RIA Novosti,
Moscow: A Russian website with a special register of "blacklisted" sites came under attack shortly after it went online Thursday, said the federal agency which runs it.
Fangs evolving from teeth helped snakes spread worldwide
By IANS,
Sydney : Fangs which had evolved from early teeth enabled snakes to expand across all continents except Antarctica nearly 60 million years ago, according to a new study.
"Understanding the evolution of fangs sheds light on how snakes colonised new environments or adapted to feed on new prey," said Bryan Fry of the department of biochemistry and molecular biology in Bio21 Institute, University of Melbourne. Fry worked on the study with a team from the Netherlands, US, Israel and Australia.
Bangalore goes hi-tech to tackle traffic snarls
By IANS
Bangalore : Electronic billboards, SMSs and handheld devices are among the new technologies that will now be used to check traffic jams on the narrow and potholed roads of India's IT capital.
Chandrayaan sends photos of total lunar eclipse
By Fakir Balaji, IANS,
Bangalore : India's first lunar mission Chandrayaan-1 has captured the shadow of the moon on the earth's surface during the July 22 total solar eclipse, an Indian space agency official said Tuesday.
The images were captured by the special terrain mapping camera (TMC) on board the spacecraft.
India and China can burn the planet: Clinton
By NNN-PTI,
Washington : Talking tough on the climate change issue, Former US President Bill Clinton has said countries like India and China can "burn up" the planet, if they do not limit green house emissions.
"... If India and China and the other emerging economies don't join in some sort of limitation, then they can burn up the planet," Clinton said in an interview to ABC News.
Tiny refrigerators to cool future computers
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.
China Announces 186-mph Bullet Train
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.
PM gives excellence awards to scientists, technologists
By IANS,
New Delhi : Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Saturday gave away the prestigious Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Awards to 21 scientists, institutions and to Mahindra and Mahindra for their flagship vehicle Scorpio.
The Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Awards for 2007 went to 11 scientists, including Narayanaswamy Srinivasan of Bangalore-based Indian Institute of Science for his contributions in the area of computational genomics.
Teenage suicides: Study advocates greater family support
By IANS,
London : Rising teen suicides have prompted demands for improved prevention strategies, in which the family physician or the general practitioner is expected to play a pivotal part.
Researchers from Umeå University have identified the phenomenon of cluster suicides where one suicide appears to trigger similar acts among other teenagers in a community.
‘Missing link’ between Big Bang, creation of stars uncovered
By IANS,
London : Astronomers have uncovered the 'missing link' in the evolution of the universe following the Big Bang.
Scientists develop brightest ever x-ray source
By IANS,
Washington : The x-ray has just got 100 million times brighter, thanks to next-generation light sources like free electron laser oscillator - or the X-FELO.
X-FELO will open up breakthrough scientific opportunities in various research fields. Its characteristics are ideally suited for bulk-sensitive, hard x-ray photo-emission spectroscopy.
Existing technology uses undulators to create bright x-ray beams of spontaneous emission at the Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne.
The computer will look at you and say how old you are
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.
Arianespace Sends Its First Mission To International Space Station.
By Bernama
Kuala Lumpur : Arianespace, the launcher of Malaysia's Measat-I & -II, successfully launched the European Space Agencys first ATV (Automated Transfer Vehicle), dubbed Jules Verne ATV to the international space station on Sunday, March 9.
In a statement today, Arianespace said the mission marked Arianespaces first mission to the International Space Station (ISS).
The Guiana Space Center from where the mission was launched has now joined the select club of launch sites serving the ISS, along with Baikonur and the Kennedy Space Center (Cape Canaveral).
Recovery tools: emergency helpers for data crashes
By DPA
Hanover : It can happen very quickly: you empty the Windows Recycle Bin just a bit too quickly, or format a thumb drive unintentionally - and important data is suddenly gone.
Yet hope is not lost, because in most cases the operating system has not actually deleted the file but just released it for overwriting.
"It's similar to a thick book that's had part of the table of contents ripped out. Then you can't find specific pages without a bit of help," says Boi Feddern, an editor at German computing magazine c't.
Moon mission is not expensive, says ISRO
By NNN-PTI,
Bangalore, India : Dismissing suggestions that Chandrayaan-1 was an expensive mission, ISRO today said the moon odyssey will enable India to upgrade technological expertise for exploration of outer space and ultimately help in setting up a base on the earth's natural satellite.
"Moon mission cost is less than Rs 400 crore, which is just ten per cent of annual budget of ISRO spread over many years," ISRO spokesperson S Satish said, countering critics who questioned the need for such a venture when other countries have already explored the moon.
Arabsat launches its BADR-6
By NNN-KUNA,
Riyadh : The Arab Satellite Communications Organisation (Arabsat) has announced that it will launch its BADR-6 satellite on July 4.
The BADR-6, manufactured by Astrium of France, will be launched by an Ariane 5 Rocket. It will take place in French Cayanne in South America.
Khalid Balkhyour, Arabsat president and CEO, disclosed Monday that the BADR-6 satellite is an Astrium Eurostar E2000 model and is a multipurpose communications satellite designed to serve the Arab world and neighbouring regions and countries.
Former African-American astronaut to head NASA
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.
Mission moon: the young are gung ho
By Maitreyee Boruah, IANS,
Bangalore : The student community in India's tech capital is quite busy these days, not just with preparations for the mid-term exams but with newfound interest to know more about the moon.
The credit for generating interest about the moon among the school and college-goers goes to India's lunar explorer, Chandrayaan-1 which is all set to be launched Oct 22 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh.
NASA camera yields most accurate Mars map
By IANS,
Washington : A camera on board NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft has helped develop the most accurate global Martian map ever.
Researchers and the public can access the map via several websites and explore and survey the entire surface of the Red Planet.
The map was constructed using nearly 21,000 images from the Thermal Emission Imaging System, or THEMIS, a multi-band infrared camera on Odyssey, says a NASA release.
Indian students ensure robot’s walk to global contest
By Azera Rahman, IANS
New Delhi : Two students from the premier engineering institute BITS at Pilani have developed for the first time in India a humanoid robot that will be shown at the world's biggest robot contest in San Francisco.
Samay Kohli, 21, and Arpit Mohan, 19, are all set to leave for the US despite funding problems.
"Although non-resident Indians (NRI) have developed humanoids before, we are the first Indians here to have developed one," Kohli beamed.
Astronauts install ammonia tank on space station
By DPA,
Washington : Two astronauts from the space shuttle Discovery completed a more than six-hour-long spacewalk outside the International Space Station (ISS) Friday, installing a new ammonia tank used in the cooling system, NASA said.
US astronaut John "Danny" Olivas and Swede Christer Fuglesang ended their mission successfully at 0451 GMT. They got started nearly an hour later than planned because of problems with a communications device in Olivas' spacesuit.
Chinese software industry sees opportunity in Microsoft’s anti-piracy move
By Cheng Zhiliang and Quan Xiaoshu, Xinhua,
Beijing : When Microsoft noticed "misunderstandings" among the Chinese public over its "black screen" move to crack down on piracy, the country's domestic software industry saw opportunity and couldn't wait to embrace it.
A Kingsoft public relations manager said there were currently up to 120,000 daily Internet downloads of "WPS Office," the "Microsoft Office"-like software developed by Kingsoft Corporation Limited, compared with 50,000 to 60,000 downloads before the controversial Microsoft move.
Russian cargo spacecraft will fly to space station
By RIA Novosti
Moscow : The Russian Progress M-62 cargo spacecraft will fly to the International Space Station (ISS) from the Baikonur launch centre in Kazakhstan Dec 23, Russia's space agency said.
"The spacecraft will deliver food and water for the crew, as well as fuel to maintain the ISS's orbit and other cargo and research equipment," the Federal Space Agency said Monday.
CERN’s large hadron collider set in motion
By Xinhua,
Beijing : Scientists at the CERN laboratory outside Geneva successfully activated the Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest, most powerful particle collider, in an attempt to understand the makeup of the universe.
On Wednesday morning, scientists shot the first protons into an about 27-km-long tunnel below the Swiss-French border in the world's most powerful particle accelerator -- the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
On Wednesday morning, scientists shot the first protons into an about 27-km-long tunnel below the Swiss-French border in the world's most powerful particle accelerator -- the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
ISRO institute land deal shady: Kerala minister
By IANS
Thiruvananthapuram : It is now uncertain whether a space institute of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will actually come up on a plot in the Ponmudi hill station of Kerala, with a minister Thursday calling the land deal shady.
"It is now clear that the individual who sold the land to ISRO was shady, but the Kerala government is clear that it will go ahead with the proposed institute, clearing all the issues that have cropped up," Forest Minister Binoy Viswam told reporters.
He said this in the presence of ISRO chairman G. Madhavan Nair here.