Science

San Francisco, January 28: Apple CEO Steve Jobs has unveiled the iPad, a tablet-style computer that resembles the iPhone, but larger.

“It’s so much more intimate than a laptop and so much more capable than a smart phone,” Jobs said Wednesday at the device’s highly anticipated debut in San Francisco.

Jobs demonstrated how the iPad is used for surfing the Web with Apple’s Safari browser. He typed an e-mail using an on-screen keyboard and flipped through photo albums by flicking his finger across the screen.

Bangalore, January 28: The bilateral initiative between India and South Korea in the field of science got a boost with the setting up of Indo-Korea Science and Technology Centre on the campus of the Indian Institute of Science here on Wednesday.

The centre, which is jointly initiated by the Korea Institute of Science and Technology and the Indian Institute of Science to work together on many globally important issues, was inaugurated by the former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.

Washington, January 28: The space shuttle Endeavour is scheduled to blast off Feb 7 in the shuttle programme’s final night launch, as the US space agency prepares to retire the ageing fleet.

Endeavour is set to launch before dawn on a 13-day mission, NASA said Wednesday after a flight readiness evaluation. The mission is the first of five final flights before the shuttle programme ends in September.

NASA is focused on completing and supplying the ISS before losing the shuttle, which is the only craft capable of ferrying large equipment into space.

London, January 27: With the IPCC and its Chairman Rajendra Pachauri coming under fire over the Himalayan glacier blunder, the UN body’s deputy defended him saying scientists are “only humans” who can make “mistakes.”

Climate scientists are “only humans” who can make mistakes like everyone else, said Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, the deputy leader of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Van Ypeersele also apparently saw nothing wrong over Pachauri using the word “voodoo science” to slam India’s Environment ministry which contested the UN body’s claim.

New Delhi, January 27: Skygazers can observe planet Mars at its biggest and brightest best on the midnight of January 29.

The ‘Red Planet’ will come this close to Earth after two years. “After two years, Mars will appear the brightest,” Amitabh Pandey, founder president, Science Popularisation Association of Communicators and Educators (SPACE), said. “On January 27, Mars will be closest to Earth and on the midnight of January 29, it will be in line with the Sun and the Earth.”

Mars comes close to Earth every two years, “every 26 months to be precise”, according to experts.

New Delhi, January 27: Skygazers can observe planet Mars at its biggest and brightest best on the midnight of January 29.

The ‘Red Planet’ will come this close to Earth after two years. “After two years, Mars will appear the brightest,” Amitabh Pandey, founder president, Science Popularisation Association of Communicators and Educators (SPACE), said. “On January 27, Mars will be closest to Earth and on the midnight of January 29, it will be in line with the Sun and the Earth.”

Mars comes close to Earth every two years, “every 26 months to be precise”, according to experts.

Johannesburg, January 26: Telecommunications company Neotel on Tuesday said it will be ready for individual number porting in April.

“The porting of numbers in blocks of 10 000 or 1000 has been available for some months now,” Angus Hay, executive head – technology at Neotel said in a statement.

This had excluded many businesses as it was only relevant to very large corporations, Hay said.

Washington, January 26: Taking regular exercise helps you to stay physically healthier and mentally sharper into old age, four studies published in the Archives of Internal Medicine showed on Monday.

One of the studies found that women who exercised more during middle age – defined as an average age of 60 by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School – were less likely after 70 to develop chronic diseases, heart surgery or any physical, cognitive or mental impairment.

Washington, January 26: If the cardiologist’s warnings do not scare you, consider this: Controlling blood pressure just might be the best protection yet known against dementia.

In a flurry of new research, scientists scanned people’s brains to show hypertension fuels a kind of scarring linked to later development of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. Those scars can start building up in middle age, decades before memory problems will appear.

Washington, January 26: Condemning a $2m fine meted out to a Minnesota woman for illegally downloading music over the Internet as “monstrous and shocking”, a judge has slashed the penalty to $54 000.

US District Court Michael Davis said the fine imposed by a jury on Jammie Thomas-Rasset, a single mother of four from the town of Brainerd, veered into the “realm of gross injustice”.

In a high-profile music piracy case, Thomas-Rasset was found liable in June of violating music copyrights for using the Kazaa peer-to-peer file-sharing network to download 24 songs.

Washington, January 26: Researchers announced a new project on Monday to sequence all the genes in childhood tumours to try to discover previously unknown causes of cancer.

They also hope they can use the research to help tailor treatments for children, to spare them radiation and chemotherapy that may do them little good.

The collaboration between St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis and Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis parallels a similar project funded by the US government to sequence all the genes in 20 common adult cancers.

Beijing, January 26: Even if its stand against censorship leads it to close its search engine in China, Google Inc still hopes to maintain other key operations in the world’s most populous internet market.

Google is negotiating to keep its research centre in China, an advertising sales team that generates most of the company’s revenue in the country and a fledgling mobile phone business as the company navigates the delicate negotiations with the government.

Both sides are torn by conflicting objectives.

Bangkok, January 26: Governments must act decisively to prevent the extinction of tigers in Southeast Asia’s Greater Mekong region, where numbers have plunged more than 70% in 12 years, the WWF said on Tuesday.

The wild tiger population across Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam has dropped from an estimated 1 200 in 1998 – the last Year of the Tiger – to around 350 today, according to the conservation group.

Washington, January 26: The US has given notice it will not back away from an internet freedom push that has raised hackles in China amid a dispute between Beijing and Google over cyber attacks.

“We are aware that China has a different position with respect to restricting information,” State Department spokesperson Philip Crowley said on Monday.

“We think this is inconsistent with the information environment and prerequisites of the 21st century,” Crowley told reporters.

Kalpakkam (TN), January 26: Two more fast breeder reactors of 500 MWe capacity each would be set up here by 2020, a top official of the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR) said today.

“In addition to the prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (FBR), work on which is nearing completion, we have planned to construct two more reactors of this kind,” IGCAR Director Dr Baldev Raj told reporters here.

He said the work on the two reactors was expected to start by 2014.

London, January 26: The hole in the ozone layer is now steadily closing, but chances are that it could aggravate warming in the southern hemisphere, warns a new study.

The Antarctic ozone hole was once regarded as one of the biggest environmental threats, but the discovery of a previously undiscovered feedback shows that it has instead helped to shield this region from carbon-induced warming over two decades.

High-speed winds in the area beneath the hole have led to the formation of brighter summertime clouds, which reflect more of the sun’s powerful rays.

New Delhi, January 26: Minister of State for Defence M.M. Pallam Raju on Monday asked private industries to become motivational tools for scientists working in defence labs and harness the spin-off benefits of defence technology.

London, January 25: A Bear who became an internet sensation after a webcam was installed in her den gave birth live on the internet.

Pregnant Lily the black bear became a web celebrity after her den cam was installed on January 8 so researchers and fans could monitor her hibernation.

In two weeks, she amassed more than 60,000 fans on Facebook and thousands more were logging on to watch her sleeping in her United States winter home in Ely, Minnesota.

Mumbai, January 25: By January-end, when travelling in a public bus you can get information on the next bus stop and traffic status on your cellphone, via bluetooth.

The Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking has decided to install bluetooth devices inside regular and air-conditioned King long buses. So when passengers switch on the bluetooth on their cellphone they can get information such as the next bus stop, estimated time of arrival, destination of the bus, traffic status and other buses on the same route – for free.

Chennai, January 25: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully tested on ground on Sunday at Sriharikota, its biggest and most powerful rocket motor called S-200, powered by 200 tonnes of solid propellants.

This is a vital step in the development of its Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark-III (GSLV Mk-III), which will put a satellite weighing four tonnes in orbit.

Chennai, January 25: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully tested on ground on Sunday at Sriharikota, its biggest and most powerful rocket motor called S-200, powered by 200 tonnes of solid propellants. This is a vital step in the development of its Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark-III (GSLV Mk-III), which will put a satellite weighing four tonnes in orbit.

San Francisco, January 24: The technology rumour mill is busy grinding speculation regarding an Apple event on Wednesday at which the culture-changing firm will unveil its “latest creation”.

Expectation that the maker of iPhones and iPods is set to wow the world with a tablet computer is so rampant that the California company’s stock could suffer if it fails to deliver.

“This proposed Apple tablet will take the App Store and iPhone operating system and deliver it in a larger form factor instead of starting from scratch,” said Canada-based independent technology analyst Carmi Levy.

San Francisco, January 24: Google is courting folks that make games people love to play on smartphones.

The internet giant has teamed with a professional Game Developers Conference (GDC) taking place in San Francisco in March to offer free Nexus One and Droid smartphones to those that register early for the event.

Sessions at the conference will be devoted to games tailored for mobile devices, “making attendees great potential developers of new content for phones using the Android” operating system, according to GDC organisers.

Chandigarh, January 24: Rail Ministry has approved the electrification of the Rohtak-Bathinda railway track, Sirsa MP Ashok Tanwar said today.

After electrification, more trains would be pressed into service on this track and it would be a boon for traders of Narwana, Tohana and Jakhal, he said.

Tanwar said the Sirsa station would also be made into a model station by the Railways.

–Agencies

New Delhi, January 24: Recent news has revealed that some unknown Pakistani hackers had intercepted an official email communication between J&K Police’s intelligence chief and the J&K Chief Minister. However, it is claimed that the intercepted email did not carry “sensitive information”. As per a senior police officer this is normal as both sides do it.