Science

Mexico City, April 03: Mexico has carried out the country’s first flight using fuel made from plants in an Airbus A320 plane.

Domestic carrier Interjet and Airbus carried out the demo flight Saturday, said Gilberto Lopez Meyer, Mexico’s director of airports and auxiliary services.

One of the two engines powering the aircraft used 30 percent bio-fuel as the A320 plane flew from Mexico City International airport to Angel Albino Corzo of Tuxtla Gutierrez airport in southern Chiapas state, RIA Novosti reported.

The fuel was made from a locally grown oil-producing plant, jatropha.

More than one million website pages have been hit by a sophisticated hacking attack that injects code into sites that redirect users to a fraudulent software sales operation.

The so-called “mass-injection” attack, which experts say is the largest of its kind ever seen, has managed to insert malicious code into websites by gaining access to the servers running the databases behind the Internet, according to the technology security company that discovered it.

New photos from the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury show the tiny inner planet has far more impressive battle scars from regular high-speed peltings by space rocks.

NASA’s Messenger spacecraft, which began orbiting the planet less than two weeks ago, reveals a pock-marked planet full of craters from pieces of asteroids and comets.

“Mercury has had an exposed surface for at least 3.5 to 4 billion years and some of those surfaces are extremely cratered to the point where there are so many craters they start to obscure one another,” said mission chief scientist Sean Solomon.

Mumbai, March 31: Intex has launched its second projector phone, the V.Show Mini Theater IN 8809 that is similar to its predecessor the Intex V.Show IN 8810 which was launched in November last year. Unlike its predecessor, the IN 8809 doesn not have a touch screen and unlike the Spice’s Popkorn projector phone it doesn’t offer analog TV.

The IN 8809 is a dual-SIM (GSM+GSM) quad-band phone with EDGE and GPRS connectivity and shows-off a candy bar form factor with a 2.4-inch QVGA display (320x240pixels). A 2 MP camera rests at the back.

London, March 31: Microsoft’s webOS luvvin’ partner HP is among the PC manufacturers getting copies of early Windows 8 code, according to reports.

HP and other Windows PC OEMs are reported to be getting builds of Microsoft’s next desktop operating system known as milestone 3 seriously pre-beta stuff.

They’re sucking down the code through Microsoft’s Connect external testing system.

Doing some back-of-envelope numbers based on earlier reports, Microsoft was due to start coding milestone 3 at the end of February, it seems this tranche of Windows 8 code is a month old.

Washington, March 31: NASA scientists pored over stunning new images of Mercury as their MESSENGER probe began a year-long mission to map the surface of the solar system’s least-understood planet.

After a 4.9-billion-mile (7.9-billion-kilometer) journey that took six-and-a-half years, the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging spacecraft finally entered the planet’s orbit on March 17.

Washington, March 30: Internet and smartphones are changing the way college students eat, with the computer replacing the kitchen table as the focal point of meals.

People are more likely to have meals sitting at the computer than at the kitchen table, and they use social media as the main avenue to obtain recipe and nutritional information.

Sacramento, March 30: Scientists from the University of California has given the all clear as far as safety of the full body scanners is concerned. Passengers have been worried that walking through the body scanners could cause health problems due to the risk of radiation exposure.

Moscow, March 30: NASA’s Messenger spacecraft, the first ever to enter the orbit of Mercury, has fetched its first photo, the project’s website said.

The image, the first ever obtained from a spacecraft in orbit around Mercury, was taken as the spacecraft sailed high above the planet’s south pole. It features portions of Mercury’s surface not previously seen by spacecraft.

Hyderabad, March 29: The fallout of conflicts in parts of the Middle East and the earthquake in Japan will impact global IT business, a top official of India’s largest software exporter Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) said Tuesday.

He, however, considered the overall environment as positive.

N. Chandrasekaran, TCS chief executive officer and managing director, told reporters that the uncertainty continues to exist both at the macro level and specifically in some regions.

Tehran, March 29: A report released by UK’s Royal Society says Iran is the fastest growing country in terms of numbers of scientific publications in the world.

Released on Monday, the report states that Iran has had the fastest rate of increase in scientific publication in the world and its scientific output rose 18-fold between 1996 and 2008, from 736 published papers to 13,238.

The United States is still the world’s scientific leader in authorship of scientific research papers, but its share of global authorship has fallen to 21 percent from 26 percent.

Hyderabad, March 28: The 20th edition of the International World Wide Web (www) conference began here Monday.

About 700 delegates from 50 countries are attending the five-day research oriented conference organised jointly by the International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) in Bangalore, in cooperation with the IIIT, Hyderabad and the Institute of Information Technology-Bombay.

The conference with the theme “Web for All” has brought together different stakeholders – research, practitioners, technologists, business and standards bodies for sharing of ideas.

Washington, March 23: Researchers have linked the outbreak of a mysterious and deadly disease in central China, five years ago, with a previously unknown virus.

At that time, a large numbers of farmers began falling victim to the disease marked by high fever, gastrointestinal disorder and an appalling mortality rate – as high as 30 percent in initial reports.

On the basis of DNA evidence, investigators from the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention quickly concluded that it had been caused by human granulocytic anaplasmosis, (HGA) a bacteria transmitted by tick bites.

Washinton, March 23: Apple said Tuesday that the iPad 2, the latest model of the hot-selling tablet computer, will go on sale in Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea in April.

The iPad 2 hit stores in the United States on March 11 and will be available in 25 other countries on Friday.

The iPad 2 had been scheduled to go on sale in Japan on Friday but Apple announced last week that it was delaying the sale of the iPad 2 there because of the devastating earthquake and tsunami.

Apple chief executive Steve Jobs said there had been strong demand for the iPad 2 in the United States.

London, March 22: LinkedIn, the online social network for professionals and job seekers, now has 100 million members worldwide and more than half are from outside the United States.

The company said on Tuesday it is now growing at a rate of roughly 1 million new members every week. The new total is about 10 million more than LinkedIn disclosed in a regulatory filing on March 11.

Brazil and Mexico are among LinkedIn’s fastest growing countries, LinkedIn Chief Executive Jeff Weiner wrote in a blog post.

Washington, March 22: A team of NASA scientists has tested a space outfit in an Antarctic base with conditions similar to those on Mars, for possible use on the Red Planet.

Designed by Argentine aerospace engineer Pablo de Leon, the NDX-1 space suit proved to be resistant to frigid temperatures and winds of more than 47 mph, Reuters reported.

The suit is created with NASA funds and is made of more than 350 materials, including tough honeycomb Kevlar and carbon fibers to reduce its weight without losing resistance.

New Delhi, March 21: India’s biggest challenge is to achieve economic growth while conserving forests and keeping its rivers clean, Minister of State for Environment Jairam Ramesh said Monday.

Speaking on the World Forestry Day, Ramesh said the pressure of the increasing population and work done in the name of development are harming the forests and rivers tremendously.

“We have to achieve economic growth along with conserving forests and keeping our rivers clean. Our culture and traditions teach us to preserve our forests and natural resources,” Ramesh told reporters here.

Bhubaneswar, March 21: There has been no decline in the population of tigers in Similipal forests in Mayurbhanj district, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said today.

Of the 61 tigers in Similipal, 16 are males, 31 females and 14 cubs, he said, replying to a written question in the Assembly.

Patnaik, who also holds the Forest and Environment department, said the number of tigers in the forest was found during a census by the state government in 2009 by adopting the pug mark method.

New Delhi, March 20: Marking the beginning of spring, the Sun will cross the plane of the Earth’s equator tomorrow morning, making day and night of approximately the same duration.

The event known as equinox is eagerly awaited by space enthusiasts as it takes place only twice a year, on March 21 and September 23.

On the equinox, the sun moves across the celestial equator, which lies directly above the Earth’s equator.

When the Sun crosses the plane, it rises exactly in the east and sets exactly in the west.

London, March 20: People across most of the UK were treated to great views of the supermoon thanks to clear skies on Saturday evening.

Anyone who looked up from the beginning of sunset onwards could see the moon shining bigger and much more brightly than normal.
Glastonbury Tor under the supermoon (PA) Glastonbury Tor under the supermoon (PA)

The supermoon, also known as a lunar perigree, occurs when a full moon coincides with it being the closest point in its orbit to Earth.

New Delhi, March 19: March 19 is the undoubtedly the best night to take your dear ones out for a moonlight dinner as the white orb will be 15% brighter 10% larger than normal. And if you miss it, the incident will repeat in 18 years.

Termed supermoon, experts say the full moon will occur at the same time as perigee (when the moon is at the nearest earth orbital point). The moon, otherwise at a distance of 3,84,400 km from earth, gradually comes 20,000 km closer and then moves away.

New Delhi, March 19: The Moon will look bigger and brighter from the Earth Saturday as the rare celestial phenomenon called ‘supermoon’ will take place in the night sky.

“Supermoon is a situation when the Moon is slightly closer to the Earth in its orbit. This happens in the full moon phase after 18 years,” said Mila Mitra, scientific officer and event head at the NGO Science Popularisation Association of Communicators and Educators (SPACE).

It will be around 10 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter as compared to other full moons during the year, said an expert.

San Francisco, March 19: The internet now has its own official red-light district, where sex sites will be regulated against fraud, viruses and child porn.

ICANN, the organisation that oversees the internet, gave final approval Friday to a proposal to create a new top-level domain name on the web with the suffix .xxx, which will host only sites that feature adult content.

New Delhi, March 18: There has been no effect in India of radiation exposure from the quake-hit reactors in Japan, said Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) chief Srikumar Banerjee Friday.

‘I can categorically say that because of Japan incident, there has been no recognizable difference in radiation in any part of India,’ Banerjee said in an interaction at the Indian Women’s Press Corps.

He assured the media persons that radiation was being measured in 87 points across the country and there has not been any difference in their results.

Sutrapada (Gujarat), March 18: A whale shark has been satellite-tagged for the first time in India as part of research to understand its behaviour, ecological preferences and migration, an official said.

The first set of data received Wednesday indicated that the 6.5 metre long male, rescued off the Gujarat coast, had reached the coast of Maharashtra.

The satellite tag was installed by a team of researchers under the Whale Shark Conservation Project, a joint venture of the Gujarat forest department and the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), supported by Tata Chemicals Limited (TCL).