Washington, Nov 07: Contrary to popular belief, the Internet and mobile phones are not isolating people but enhancing their social worlds, according to a U.S. survey.
The survey was sparked by a 2006 study by U.S. sociologists who argued technology is advancing a trend seen since 1985 — Americans becoming more socially isolated, their social networks shrinking, and the diversity of their contacts decreasing.
Seoni (MP), November 06: To revive the big cat population in the Panna Tiger Reserve, a tiger was today translocated to the forest to provide company to two tigresses already shifted there.
The tiger was taken to the Panna reserve in a cage van via Jabalpur after an expert team, comprising doctors and forest officials tranquilised it at Gumtara range in Pench, a state forest official said.
Panna Reserve, once home to a considerable tiger population, was devoid of its pride due to rampant poaching.
London, November 05: Some of the most violent earthquakes that have occurred unexpectedly in places with no recent record of tremors may be the aftershocks of previous earthquakes that took place decades or even centuries ago, scientists have discovered.
Barcelona, November 04: The Barcelona-based Galactic Suite Ltd. says it will be ready to serve space tourists in the first space hotel by the year 2012.
It would cost $4.4 million for a three-night stay at the Galactic Suite Space Resort, including an eight-week training course on a tropical island.
Guests would be able to see the sunrise 15 times a day and travel around the Earth every 80 minutes, Reuters reported.
It would take a day and a half for travelers to arrive at the pod where they would be able to move by using velcro suits and sticking to the walls.
Lucknow, November 04: About 50,000 pirated DVDs of Microsoft Windows 7 are estimated to have been sold here since the official launch on Oct 22, generating unaccounted business of around Rs.50 lakh (nearly $100,000).
The reason for the allure of the pirated versions: These cost Rs.40-Rs.250 in Naza Market in Hazratganj here, drawing buyers from not only the rest of Uttar Pradesh and neighbouring states like Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Uttarakhand but also Nepal and Bangladesh.
Beijing, November 03: Google has admitted to having scanned more than 20,000 books under Chinese copyright protection, a media report said Tuesday.
The world’s largest internet search engine has been in negotiations with China’s copyright watchdog for scanning works for its online library without permission, the China Daily reported.
The US company emphasised the Chinese books they scanned were from US libraries and some of them were available for public use.
Jaipur, November 03: A public hearing on ‘Climate Change: Voices from rain fed region’ aimed at informing global players about the impact that poors are the worst affected of the climate change will be organised here tomorrow.
“Over 300 people representatives and NGOs from 11 rainfed and drought affected states of the country will participate in the hearing organised by organisation ‘Oxfam India’ at HCM-RIPA camps in the city,” Convener, Vijay Pratap told reporters here today.
Johannesburg, October 31: Fishermen are asking if this is the massive great white shark that has been stealing their catch, breaching repeatedly within metres of one terrified man’s surf ski.
These photographs of the 4.3m monster have been circulating on the internet, but reports from the South African fishing town of Mossel Bay confirm they are no hoax.
Frighteningly, scientists who dissected the female shark say it was adolescent and not yet fully grown, The Daily Telegraph reports.
Beijing, October 31: China’s space scientist Qian Xuesen, widely known as the father of the country’s space technology, died here Saturday morning at the age of 98, Xinhua news agency reported.
Qian was born in Hangzhou, the capital city of the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang. He led many of China’s key missile and space programmes.
A member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, he graduated from Jiao Tong University, Shanghai in 1934, the report said.
San Francisco, October 30: The 40th anniversary of the birth of the Internet was celebrated in the US with events being organised at the University of California and the Computer History Museum in Los Angeles to mark the occasion.
Industry leaders, researchers and analysts, among others, attended the function at the California University Thursday, Xinhua reported.
Computer science professor of the university, Leonard Kleinrock, who on Oct 29, 1969 headed a team to send the first message over the ARPANET, which later came to be known as Internet, also attended the event.
Washington, October 30: A US court has denied bail to the NASA scientist who was arrested by the FBI on espionage charges and allegedly tried to sell classified defence documents to an Israeli agent for USD 2 million.
Stewart David Nozette (52), who was one of the principal investigators for the Chandrayan-I mission of ISRO and played a key role in finding water on the Moon, pleaded not guilty when he was produced before a court here yesterday.
Washington, October 30: Scientists at the Stanford University in California have inched closer to producing artificial sperm and eggs, a development that promises new treatments for infertility.
The research, which is published in the journal Nature, offers the strongest evidence yet that it is possible to grow human reproductive tissue from embryonic stem cells, and even to make eggs and sperm.
“Our goal is to understand how you make eggs and sperm,” said Renee Reijo Pera, who led the research.
Bangalore, October 30: He was the “face” of Indian Space Research Organisation for the past six years and G Madhavan Nair is a highly satisfied man, but says two flop missions under his stewardship have “hurt” him.
“I will say that I am a highly satisfied man,” the ISRO Chairman said a day before he retires from the space agency with the acme of his 42-year long career being the successful launch of India’s maiden moon mission Chandrayaan-I.
Nair rates realisation of the lunar mission as the high-point of his career.
Los Angeles, October 30: Technology and media stars, pundits and entrepreneurs joined the Internet’s father to celebrate the 40th anniversary of his culture-changing child.
“It’s the 40th year since the infant Internet first spoke,” said University of California, Los Angeles, professor Leonard Kleinrock, who headed the team that first linked computers online in 1969.
Kleinrock led an anniversary event at the UCLA campus that blended reminiscence of the Internet’s past with debate about its future.
California, October 30: Technology stars, pundits, and entrepreneurs have joined the Internet’s father to celebrate the 40th anniversary of his culture-changing child.
“It’s the 40th year since the infant Internet first spoke,” said Professor Leonard Kleinrock of the University of California, Los Angeles.
On October 29, 1969 Kleinrock led a team that got a computer at UCLA to “talk” to one at a research institute.
Kleinrock was driven by a certainty that computers were destined to speak to each other and that the resulting network should be as simple to use as telephones.
Florida, October 29: NASA successfully launched the prototype for a new generation of space rocket, advancing its plans to return man to the Moon by 2020.
The Ares I-X, the tallest rocket ever built, blasted off at 11:30am (02:30 AEDT) from Cape Canaveral in Florida, carrying with it the US space agency’s lofty ambitions for human space flight.
The rocket is the prototype of the Ares I, designed to carry a new capsule-shaped crew module called the Orion into low Earth orbit for missions to the International Space Station, the Moon, and beyond.
London, October 29: The most distant object ever observed in space has provided scientists with an unprecedented insight into the “cosmic dark ages” following the birth of the Universe some 13.7 billion years ago.
A gigantic explosion on the edge of the known Universe has been confirmed as the furthermost object in the cosmos. It occurred nearly 700 million years after the Big Bang and its radiation has taken some 13 billion years to reach Earth – making it 13 billion light years away.
Washington, October 29: A giant next generation space rocket Wednesday shot off its launchpad at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida in the US for its very first test flight.
The 100-metre tall Ares I-X rocket sped into the sky over the Florida coast trailing a plume of flames and steam in a trial that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) hoped would provide crucial information about technology that is to replace the ageing space shuttle fleet.
Cape Canaveral, October 28: NASA’s newest rocket is stuck on the launch pad because of clouds and high wind.
Launch controllers tried repeatedly on Tuesday to get the Ares I-X rocket flying. They got to within two-and-a-half minutes of launching the rocket, but the weather interfered. Minor problems stalled the countdown earlier in the morning.
Officials are deciding whether to try again Wednesday morning.
This is the first step in NASA’s effort to return astronauts to the moon.
London, October 27: A French court convicted the Church of Scientology and one of its leaders of fraud today, but stopped short of banning the group’s activities in France.
The Celebrity Centre and a book shop – the two branches of Scientology’s French operations – were ordered to pay a E600,000 ($974,026) fine for preying financially on vulnerable followers.
Scientology’s leader in France Alain Rosenberg was handed a two-year suspended jail sentence and fined E30,000 ($48,701) on the same charge.
A lawyer for Scientology’s French operations said he would appeal.
New Delhi, October 26: An advocate Monday moved the Supreme Court for its direction to the CBI to probe the incriminating information the laptop of convicted fake stamp paper scam kingpin Abdul Karim Telgi contains reportedly against several top Maharashtra politicians.
The lawsuit was filed by Delhi-based advocate Ajay Kumar Agrawal. On his public interest lawsuit in 2004 the apex court had assigned the probe into the circulation of fake stamp papers and securities instruments worth millions of rupees all over India.
Vienna, October 26: An Austrian coachman says he has developed the world’s first hybrid horse carriage with an electrical motor – not to save carbon emissions, but to make the animals’ lives easier, Austrian broadcaster ORF reported.
While carmakers are racing to bring hybrid vehicles on the market, Mario Steiner thought about how he could improve the real horsepower on his vehicle that carries tourists through the Tyrolean mountains around his hometown of Matrei, according to the report Sunday.
Sydney, October 25: A 3,000-kilometre solar car race across Australia’s desert heartland began in the northern city of Darwin on Sunday, organisers said.
The cars left Darwin in hot and humid weather at about 8:30 am (2300 GMT Saturday) on the journey that is expected to end mid-week in the South Australian city of Adelaide.
“We had 32 vehicles start this morning,” Mike Drewer, a spokesman for the World Solar Challenge, told AFP, adding that weather conditions were good for solar cars.
Washington, October 25: The White House highlighted a new multi-million-dollar technology fund for Muslim nations, following a pledge made by President Barack
Obama in his landmark speech to the Islamic world.
The White House said the US Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) had issued a call for proposals for the fund, which will provide financing of between 25 and 150 million dollars for selected projects and funds.
London, October 24: In a good news to the women suffering from cervical cancer, scientists said they can transplant a womb with a regular blood supply within two years.
We have worked out how to transplant a womb with a regular blood supply so it will last long enough to carry a pregnancy and the first successful human womb transplant could take place within two years, British scientists said.