California, June 03: It could soon cost California shoppers at the checkout aisle if they forget to bring their own bags to the store under what would be the nation’s first statewide plastic bag ban.
The California Assembly on Wednesday passed legislation prohibiting pharmacies and grocery, liquor and convenience stores from giving out plastic bags. The bill also calls for customers to be charged for using store-issued paper bags.
Florida, June 03: The BP oil slick drifted perilously close to the Florida Panhandle’s famous sugar-white beaches Wednesday as a risky gambit to contain the leak by shearing off the well pipe ran into trouble a mile under the sea when the diamond-tipped saw became stuck.
New York, June 03: Luminaries from the fields of physics, opera, poetry, theater, music and dance gathered to pay tribute to British physicist Stephen Hawking on Wednesday, with performances and speeches at a gala in his honor.
After outliving his predicted death from his degenerative disease by more than 40 years, Hawking told the audience filling Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall that he is thinking about what he will leave behind.
New Delhi, June 02: Asserting that the UPA government was committed to cleaning up the Ganga, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday said no untreated waste and industrial effluents would flow into the river by 2020.
“Under ‘Mission Clean Ganga’, it would be ensured that by 2020 no untreated municipal sewage and industrial effluents flow into the Ganga,” Dr. Singh said, in the Report to the People on completion of one year of the UPA’s second term in office.
New Delhi, May 31: Following an order by an appellate authority, the Environment Ministry today stayed the clearance granted to a mining project at village Pirla in South Goa three years ago.
On May 13, the National Environment Appellate Authority (NEAA) had stayed the nod given by the ministry to private firm Careamol Iron Ore Ltd after it was found that it allegedly made a “wrong” declaration in its Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) report in violation of ecological norms.
Beijing, May 31: China has developed a super computer that runs at more than one quadrillion (one thousand million million) calculations per second, making it the fastest one in the country, experts have said.
The super computer named “Xingyun”, has been developed in Tianjin, and works at double the speed of “Tianhe-1″, the previous fastest machine in China.
The Tianhe-1 was developed by the National University of Defence Technology in October 2009, Li Jun, president of the Dawning Information Industry Co. Ltd., was quoted as saying by Xinhua.
San Francisco, May 30: Google on Friday released web traffic data indicating that Facebook is king when it comes to online visitors despite criticism about privacy at the social-networking service.
Facebook.com is visited monthly by 540 million people, or slightly more than 35 per cent of the Internet population, according to Google Ad Planner worldwide data gathered using recently-acquired Double Click.
Mumbai, May 29: Private sector lender Kotak Mahindra Bank today opened 10 more branches across five states, taking its total branch network to 250 pan India.
The five states include Uttar Pradesh, Haryana,Rajasthan, Delhi and Maharashtra, the bank said in a statement
released here.With this, Kotak has now presence in three new states –UP, Rajasthan and Haryana.
“Expanding the branch network is an integral part of our consumer banking portfolio, which is aimed at increasing
London, May 29: A British researcher has successfully infected himself with a computer virus and claims to be the first of its kind.
Scientist Mark Gasson, contaminated a tiny, radio frequency identification (RFID) chip with a virus and placed it under the skin on his hand. He uses that chip to activate his cell phone, as well as open secure doors, reports bbc.co.uk.
The chip which is an advanced version of ID chips used to locate animals, enables him to pass through security doors and activate his mobile phone.
New Delhi, May 28: The Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change Friday gave in principle approval to the National Water Mission and suggested that its basic approach should be to make water conservation a peoples’ movement in the country.
The council meeting, which was chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, discussed steps to make available all data on water in the public domain so as to mobilise citizens, local and state governments for focused action on water conservation and augmentation.
New Delhi, May 28: Strengthening surveillance capabilities of the Indian Coast Guard, Defence Secretary Pradeep Kumar today commissioned an Interceptor boat in Goa for responding to urgent calls at sea.
The boat, C-147, is the fifth of its class and designed and built indigenously by the ABG Shipyard. It is fitted with modern navigational and communication equipment, officials said here.
The interceptor boat is commanded by Commandant S R Nagendran and will be deployed for enhancing the close-coast surveillance capability of the Coast Guard.
New York, May 28: Responding to mounting pressure from users and privacy groups, Facebook introduced a new, simplified version of its privacy controls on
Wednesday. Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s founder and chief executive, said the revised settings will make it easier for users to understand how much of their personal information is publicly accessible on the web.
London, May 28: Junk of abandoned rockets, shattered satellites and missile shrapnel in space may cause collision between satellites, destroying communication facilities on earth, the US defence department has warned.
According to scientists, the debris scattered in the earth’s orbit is reaching a “tipping point” and pose a threat to the $250 billion space services industry.
A single collision between two satellites or large pieces of “space junk” can send thousands of pieces of debris spinning into orbit, triggering an “uncontrolled chain reaction”.
Bangalore, May 28: Earlier this month, alarm bells sounded in the United States at a phenomenon considered as dire as climate change: the disappearing honeybee.
If the trend continues, it may spell the doom for agriculture — 80 per cent of which depends upon this humble pollinator — not to mention the environment, scientists have warned.
Amid theories about the possible reasons for the ‘bee colony collapse disorder’ (including pesticides, disease, climate change and genetically modified crops), comes a new study that points to another culprit: the ubiquitous cell phone.
Palampur (HP), May 27: Concerned over “unsatisfactory” functioning of some Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs), Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) is mulling performance based financial assistance to these centres.
Assistant Director General of ICAR, A M Narula, who inaugurated a two-day training-cum-workshop organised at CSK HP Agricultural University Palampur on oil seeds and pulses, expressed his dissatisfaction over working of some KVKs as front line demonstration centres for oil seeds and pulses.
Washington, May 27: Scientists have created an eight-layer, early stage retina from human embryonic stem cells, the first three-dimensional tissue structure to be made from stem cells. The complex tissue structure offers hope to millions with degenerative eye disorders.
It also marks the first step toward the development of transplant-ready retinas to treat eye disorders such as retinitis pigmentosa and macular degeneration that affect millions.
Hamburg, May 27: Internet giant Google is to allow German data protection officers to examine one of its controversial Street View cars, which collect data for its online mapping service, the company announced Thursday.
Earlier this month, German officials were highly critical of a data protection gaffe which enabled the Google’s vehicles to collect snippets of private data on unencrypted wifi networks as they trawled the streets gathering information to appear on Street View.
Washington, May 27: A computer model that can locate the ‘active regions’ on a comet’s surface and help protect space probes from possible damages caused by dust emitted from these regions has been developed by scientists.
The model, developed by the scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany, uses only that information which is available from Earth.
It adopts an indirect approach — taking into consideration the 3-D shape of the comets — to localise the active regions.
Seattle, May 27: Apple Inc shot past Microsoft Corp as the world’s biggest tech company based on market value on Wednesday, the latest milestone in the resurgence of the maker of the iPhone, which nearly went out of business in the 1990s.
Apple’s shares rose as much 2.8 percent on Nasdaq on Wednesday, as Microsoft shares floundered, briefly pushing its market value above USD 229 billion, ahead of its longtime rival.
New York, May 27: Apple’s iPad finally goes on sale outside the United States this week after heavy US demand for the multi-media gadget forced a one-month delay of its international release.
The touchscreen tablet device from the maker of the Macintosh computer, the iPod and the iPhone will be available on Friday in stores in Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain and Switzerland.
The Cupertino, California-based Apple plans to bring the iPad to Austria, Belgium, Hong Kong, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Singapore in July.
Cape Canaveral May 27: The space shuttle Atlantis landed in Florida on Wednesday, capping a 12-day mission to deliver a new module to the International Space Station before NASA retires the fleet after two more flights.
Circling high over the Kennedy Space Center to burn off speed, commander Ken Ham gently nosed the 100-ton ship toward a landing strip three miles (5 km) away from where he and five crewmates blasted off on May 14 to begin NASA’s 132nd shuttle mission.
Washington, May 26: Identifying India as a ‘big partner’ of the US space programme, NASA has applauded the country’s efforts in using its space missions for “societal needs.”
“I think it’s 85 per cent of their budget is spent on what they call societal needs. It’s earth science, climate change, those kinds of things, and they still insist that they’re going to bring about a human space flight programme, you know, by 2020 or so,” NASA Administrator Charles F Bolden said.
London, May 26:An electric car in Japan has set a new world record by running for more than 27 hours and covering over 1,000 km without needing to be recharged.
The car named Mira EV travelled at speeds of around 40 kph and ran for 27.5 hours covering a distance of 1,003 km without being recharged on a racing course in Shimotsuma in Ibaraki Prefecture, reports telegraph.co.uk.
The car is fitted with a special lithium ion battery created by the Japanese company Sanyo.
Dubai, May 26: The Emirates’ new integrated telecommunications service provider, Du, and social networking website Facebook have announced free mobile browsing of the new 0.facebook.com website for its customers.
The 0.facebook.com website is a faster, lightweight version of Facebook’s mobile site m.facebook.com. The new site does not have graphics or photos and the pages have been designed for optimum performance on the state-of-the-art telecommunications network in the Emirates.
Mumbai, May 26: The Bulgarian mobile phone number – 0888 888 888 – has been suspended after every person who used it in the past 10 years died. The last man to own it was gunned down outside an Indian restaurant in the Bulgarian capital Sofia.
Vladimir Grashnov, former CEO of Bulgarian mobile phone company Mobitel, was the first user and he died of cancer in 2001. He was 48.
The number was then assigned to Bulgarian mafia boss Konstantin Dimitrov. He was shot dead down in 2003 in the Netherlands. He was 31.