As saffron flowers bloom and farmers begin harvesting the royal spice, the fields in this south Kashmir town are a riot of colour and fragrance these days.
Grown in the well-drained rich soil of the Pampore Highlands and some other places in the Valley, saffron is one of the costliest spices in the world at around Rs.1,500 ($24) per 10 grams.
The first of the six orbit raising activity for the Mars Orbiter was successfully completed Thursday morning, Indian space agency said.
According to Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the first orbit raising manouevre that started 1.17 a.m. Thursday has been successfully completed.
On Wednesday, ISRO officials told IANS the on-board motors of Mars Orbiter will be fired for around 200 seconds to raise its orbit by around 4,120 km to 28,785 km.
The final orbit raising activity will take place Nov 30 so as to push the Orbiter towards the red planet and out of earth orbit.
Television will still be the most popular telecommunication means of the digital space in the next five years, according to experts.
Pay TV will remain as the biggest income generator service, dominating other conventional services and will continue to be the top trend in the digital space, Xinhua quoted Gary Woolf, a specialist at SVP Digital and Business Development, as saying Wednesday.
The first of the six orbit raising manouevres for the Mars Orbiter was successfully completed early Thursday morning, the Indian space agency said.
According to Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the first orbit raising manouevre that started 1.17 a.m. Thursday has been successfully completed.
The on-board motor of Mars Orbiter was fired for 416 seconds with the commands issued from Spacecraft Control Centre (SCC) at ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) in Bangalore, a statement from the Indian space agency said.
Researchers in the Netherlands will next year test a GPS navigation system aimed at preventing the international curse of motorway traffic jams by telling drivers which lane to move to.
Tests will be carried out as early as April on a 75-kilometre (around 50 mile) stretch of motorway passing through the Netherlands, from Germany to Belgium, which is popular with freight lorries.
“Traffic jams can be caused by a line of trucks,” Paul van Koningsbruggen from Dutch IT firm Technolution said.
Two leopards were found dead today in and around the Gir forest and its surrounding areas.
Forest officials said their deaths were “not natural”.
A five-year-old leopardess was found dead on the outskirts of Sarasiya village near Dhari town today, officials said, adding that she was injured and died due to injuries.
An inquiry has begun on how the leopardess got injured, they said.
In another incident, one leopard was killed after a fight with a lion in the Dhalkhania range of the Gir forest today, forest officials said.
Apple has reportedly patented a technology that would allow users to track certain events in their home while they are commuting back home or away for a holiday.
The tech giant describes the technology as one that uses a device’s location to trigger certain events in the home, which means the iPhone or iPad could be used to turn on the lights in the living room, switch on the air conditioner in the bedroom or open the garage door while one is commuting.
Indian space agency officials are gearing up to raise the orbit of Mars Orbiter launched into the earth parking orbit Tuesday afternoon, said a senior official.
“Early tomorrow (Thursday) at 1.17 a.m. the on-board motors of Mars Orbiter will be fired for around 200 seconds to raise its orbit by around 4,120 km to 28,785 km,” S. Arunan, project director, Mars Orbiter Mission told IANS over phone from Bangalore Wednesday.
“Today morning (Wednesday) we carried out the rehearsal for the orbit raising activities without switching on the motor,” he added.
A day after its successful launch, India’s Mars Orbiter spacecraft was functioning smoothly in the Earth’s orbit and ready for orbit raising operations tomorrow.
“Since its injection into Earth’s orbit yesterday, it has been functioning smoothly on the orbit. We are planning to perform orbit raising manoeuvres in the early hours of tomorrow,” an ISRO spokesman told PTI over phone.
Right now, the Mars Orbiter Mission is on its first round around the Earth, ISRO sources said.
Computer-aided image analysis could offer a “second opinion” in breast tumour diagnosis, scientists say.
Researchers at the University of Chicago are developing computer-aided diagnosis (CADx) and quantitative image analysis (QIA) methods for mammograms, ultrasounds and magnetic resonance images (MRIs) to identify specific tumour characteristics, including size, shape and sharpness.
Currently, computer-aided detection provides a “second opinion” to a radiologist in locating suspicious regions within mammograms.
Encouraged by public response to its Passport Sewa mobile app for Android phones, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has now launched the application for Windows and Apple iOS platforms.
The app provides passport-related information on the smartphones. The MEA had released the android version of the app in March this year.
This is an extended service of the Passport Seva Project, executed in Public-Private-Partnership mode with IT services major Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).
Nokia is reportedly developing an 8-inch Windows-based Lumia tablet for its next year release.
The tablet, codenamed Illusionist, will include Windows RT 8.1 and a Qualcomm processor.
According to The Verge, sources familiar with the matter also indicate that the Finnish mobile maker will also be launching a smaller tablet around the same time its 6-inch Lumia 1320 debuts in certain markets next year.
Nokia’s Illusionist tablet will include a similar look and feel to the company’s recently announced Lumia 2520.
A giant extinct species of the platypus with powerful teeth has been discovered in Australia, with a scientist on Tuesday describing the duck-billed water animal as a “Godzilla” like monster.
The new species, named Obdurodon tharalkooschild, was identified by a single but highly distinctive tooth found in Riversleigh in the northeastern Australian state of Queensland — a World Heritage site rich in fossil deposits.
Google Inc is launching a service that lets consumers pay for live video chats with experts who can provide everything from step-by-step turkey cooking instructions to marriage counseling.
The Google Helpouts service, introduced on Monday, features roughly 1,000 partners in fashion, fitness, computers and other topics, available for live, one-on-one video consultations. The video sessions can be as short as a few minutes or can last several hours, depending on the topic, with pricing set by each individual provider.
Emphasising on the role of biotechnology in improving farm yields, Union Minister of State for Agriculture Tariq Anwar Tuesday said there is a need for “robust” regulatory system to address the safety concerns.
“What is needed is robust regulatory system which has scientifically established mechanism for evaluation of genetically modified (GM) crops so that all the issues raised on this matter can be put to rest,” Anwar said at the inauguration of the World Agriculture Congress.
Since the report about stored passwords just a URL away on its Chrome web browser, Google has reportedly decided to hide users’ credentials in a bid to increase secure browsing.
The search giant has built Chrominium for OS X, which includes an option that requires users to authenticate with their computer’s system password before it will allow access to the list of stored passwords.
According to The Verge, the site earlier allowed access to the passwords by navigating to chrome://settings/ passwords in the browser and showed up all of the login / password data a user saved on Chrome.
Asserting that its Rs 450- crore mission to Mars was not a wrong priority, Indian Space Research Organisation Tuesday said all the country’s space programmes are “people-centric” and every rupee has been accounted for.
Replying to a query by a foreign media whether ISRO was in a race with neighbouring China, ISRO Chairman K Radhakrishnan said “we are not in race with anyone. We are in race with ourselves.
“ISRO’s satellites are people-centric and application-centric.. I can proudly say space has brought many services to the country”, he said.
Ahead of a number of key meetings on climate change, China Tuesday asked developed nations to pay their committed amounts to finance efforts to combat global warming.
Developed nations should promise to inject funds of no less than the fast-start funding between 2013 and 2015, Xie Zhenhua, China’s top climate change official and deputy head of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) told a media conference here Tuesday.
Despite criticism about the mission, the successful launch of ‘Mangalyaan’ Tuesday saw the scientific community in the country hailing the milestone achieved by ISRO.
Lauding the successful launch, experts said India now needed to take a “broader” view of space science.
Information can now be encrypted and then decrypted with complete security using the combined power of quantum theory and relativity, according to a new study in quantum cryptography. Researchers from the Cambridge”s Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics found that the system, which they described as a mathematical version of a securely sealed envelope, allows the sender to dictate the unveiling of coded information without any possibility of intrusion or manipulation.
A new app, which is presently available free of cost on iPhone, can help motorists navigate their way around by reflecting driving directions on the windscreen in low-visibility conditions.
According to Cnet, the app, called Hudway, was released by Garmin, developer of consumer, aviation, and marine technologies for the GPS.
The developers have specified that the app can only be properly used during low-visibility conditions like heavy rain, snow, fog or just a dark night and not in bright light. (ANI)
A team of researchers has developed a translator that is able to convert signs into spoken and written language – and vice versa.
The translator features a computer and a Kinect camera which is capable of recognizing signing gestures, then gives a spoken and written translation of English and Mandarin for the non-deaf, Discovery News reported.
The system can also work conversely.
Researchers have touted the device as a cost-effective, efficient prototype that works in real time. (ANI)
Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania have identified a molecule that plays a significant role in the changes in the composition or diversity of bacterial populations in the gut.
David Artis PhD, associate professor of Microbiology, and colleagues report that the enzyme HDAC3 is a key mediator in maintaining proper intestinal integrity and function in the presence of friendly bacteria.
HDAC3 and the genetic pathways are also critical in maintaining a healthy balance between intestinal microbes and their host.
Top climate scientists have claimed that the development of safer nuclear power can help in decelerating the effects of global warming by cutting down on fossil fuel pollution.
To promote their belief, four scientists, including Tom Wigley from the University of Adelaide, have written to environmentalists and politicians urging them to support nuclear power, News.com.au reported.
Scientists have discovered that photo acoustic therapy might be the long-awaited cure for brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease or the mad cow disease.
Researchers from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden and the Polish Wroclaw University of Technology found that it is possible to distinguish aggregations of the proteins, believed to cause the diseases, from the well-functioning proteins in the body by using multi-photon laser technique.