Science

Bangalore, October 09: Infosys Technologies Ltd. posted net profit of Rs.15.40 billion (Rs.1,540 crore) for the second quarter (July-Sep) of this fiscal, registering 7.5 percent year-on-year (YoY) growth as per the Indian accounting standard.

In a regulatory filing Friday, the IT bellwether said its consolidated income for the quarter under review (Q2) increased by 3.1 percent YoY to Rs.55.85 billion (Rs.5,585 crore) under the Indian accounting standard.

New Delhi, October 09: Mobile handset sales in India recorded a 6.7 percent increase to 100.9 million in the year ended June 30, as compared to 94.6 million the year before, according to an IT market intelligence firm.

In terms of units shipped, Nokia sold the most with a market share of 56.8 percent, followed by Samsung with a 7.7 percent share and LG with 5.4 percent share in the 12-month period ended June 30, said a report by IDC’s India Quarterly Mobile Handsets Tracker.

Washington, October 09: In what scientist Amitabha Ghosh called an “incredible moment”, NASA successfully crashed its rocket into a crater near the lunar south pole of the moon’s surface in search for hidden ice.

No light flash was visible in the thermal images broadcast on NASA television, as the 2.3-tonne rocket impacted the Cabeus crater at 1131 GMT.

A second shepherding spacecraft flew through the debris plume, collecting and relaying key data back to Earth before it too plowed into the lunar surface, according to the US space agency.

Washington, October 09: Scientists hope to make a splash by “bombing” the Moon with two spacecraft today.

The plan is to slam the projectiles into a dark crater at the lunar south pole, kicking up a six-mile high dust cloud that may contain water.

British researchers helped Nasa pick the spot for the drama, which will be broadcast live on the American space agency’s website.

The Cabeus south polar region was identified by the University of Durham team as a site with high concentrations of hydrogen – a key component of water.

Washington, October 09: Scientists have discovered a bacteria species that forms metallic gold — but it’s unlikely to make anyone rich.

An international team has found that the bacterium Cupriavidus metallidurans catalyses the biomineralisation of gold by transforming toxic gold compounds to their metallic form using active cellular mechanism.

According to the scientists, they have found evidence indicating that there may be a biological reason for the presence of these bacteria on gold grain surfaces.

Washington, October 09: A US rocket is to crash into the moon Friday in an experiment scientists hope will provide data about ice hidden in the perpetually dark lunar craters.

Astronomers around the world are prepared to capture the impact of the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) into the moon’s Caebus crater at 1130 GMT. The rocket will deliberately crash into the moon, kicking up a plume of dust that scientists hope to analyse for traces of water that they believe are abundant in the

cold, shadowy craters.

Washington, October 08: A new type of green rocket propellant, comprising frozen mixture of water and “nanoscale aluminium” powder, is being developed that could be manufactured on the moon, Mars and other water-bearing bodies, says a new study.

The aluminium-ice, or ALICE, propellant might be used to launch rockets into orbit and for long-distance space missions and also to generate hydrogen for fuel cells, said Steven Son, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University.

Chennai, October 08: The optical fibre has been a prerequisite for the extremely rapid development in the field of communications, a development that Charles Kao predicted over 40 years ago.

Just a few years later, Willard Boyle and George Smith radically altered the conditions for the field of photography.

Their invention of digital image sensor – CCD, or charge-coupled device changed the way images were captured by cameras. The CCD became the made it possible for digital transfer of images.

New Delhi, October 08: A Canadian university has developed a new technology that may help identify people facing the risk of breast cancer, enabling them to take early preventive measures

The technology, developed by the University of Toronto in collaboration with the Canadian Institute of Health Research and the Canadian Cancer Society, could provide a breakthrough for patients in India where one out of every 22 women is diagnosed with breast cancer.

New Delhi, October 08: Microsoft Corporation India Pvt. Ltd. on Wednesday announced the latest version of its mobile phone software Windows Mobile 6.5. Starting at Rs. 11,000, the new software will be available across a range of styles and prices.

Washington, October 07: After centuries of observation, astronomers have identified yet another ring around Saturn, according to an article appearing Wednesday in the journal Nature. The newly discovered ring is barely visible, yet includes one of Saturn’s most famous and long-identified moons, Phoebe, according to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

The laboratory helps operate the Spitzer Space Telescope which was used to identify the ring.

Pasadena, October 07: The Spitzer Space Telescope has discovered the biggest but never-before-seen ring around the planet Saturn, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced on late Tuesday.

The thin array of ice and dust particles lies at the far reaches of the Saturnian system and its orbit is tilted 27 degrees from the planet’s main ring plane, the laboratory said.

JPL spokeswoman Whitney Clavin said the ring is very diffuse and doesn’t reflect much visible light but the infrared Spitzer telescope was able to detect it.

San Francisco, October 07: Users of Google’s Gmail and Yahoo Mail were also targeted in the large-scale phishing attack that harvested at least 10,000 passwords from Microsoft’s Live Hotmail, according to reports Tuesday.

Neither of the companies’ US representatives responded to requests for information. But in Europe, where most of the Hotmail phishing victims appeared to be located, a spokesman for Google confirmed the targeting of Gmail users.

Washington, October 06: A Pioneer in fibre optics and two scientists who figured out how to turn light into electronic signals -work that paved the way for the Internet age – were awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize for physics.

Charles Kao, a Shanghai-born British-American, won half the 10 million Swedish crown ($1.4 million) prize for a discovery that led to a breakthrough in fibre optics, determining how to transmit light over long distances via optical glass fibres.

France, October 06: French researchers say they had uncovered the biggest dinosaur footprints in the world, left by giant sauropods that may have weighed 40 tonnes or more.

An extraordinary track of footprints was found in April this year in the Jura plateau at Plagne, near the southeastern city of Lyon, by a pair of amateur fossil-hunters, the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) said.

Professional palaeontologists have since authenticated the find.

Washington, October 06: Thousands of Hotmail users’ details have been posted online after what Microsoft says is likely to be a phishing attack.

Neowin.net first reported the leak when it found username and password details posted online at pastebin.com, a site where developers share code.

Around 10,000 people were affected, according to Neowin, spanning hotmail.com, msn.com and live.com accounts.

The list, which alphabetically details accounts from A to B, suggests the anonymous party that originally posted it on October 1 could have details for thousands more accounts.

Sydney, October 06: A new imaging agent could help to save innumerable lives by tracking melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer, at an early stage.

Ivan Greguric and colleagues working within the Cooperative Research Consortium (CRC) for Biomedical Imaging Development note that about 130,000 new cases of malignant melanoma occur worldwide every year.

Patients have the best chance of survival with early diagnosis and prompt treatment. However, positron emission tomography (PET) scans used for diagnosis sometimes miss small cancers, delaying diagnosis and treatment.

London, October 06: Criminals are going to have a really tough time hiding their faces, thanks to a new software that can recreate their faces.

The software is being used by approximately 15 police departments in the UK as well as half a dozen European countries, including France and Switzerland.

In field trials conducted by the Derbyshire police force, it led to twice as many identifications of suspects as traditional methods.

Law enforcement agencies worldwide traditionally employ sketch artists, who piece together faces.

Sydney, October 06: Scientists in Denmark have found a powerful new technique to rid soil of toxic heavy metals faster and more efficiently than current methods.

“Our aim was to speed up the established process for removing metals like lead and cadmium from soil using electrokinetic methods to protect community health and safety,” says Lisbeth Ottossen of the Technical University of Denmark, who led the study.

Paris, October 05: A report charges that Lance Armstrong’s Astana cycling team was given “special treatment” by the International Cycling Union (UCI) during this year’s Tour de France, the online edition of the daily Le Monde said Monday.

The daily cites a report drawn up by the French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD) about the way doping tests were administered during the three-week race, in which Armstrong finished third. His Astana teammate Alberto Contador won the race.

Washington, October 05: Giant chipmaker Intel has recently conducted a study, concluding that Microsoft Windows 7 has improved in performance and stability compared to Windows XP SP3.

The study titled “The Value of PC Refresh with Microsoft Windows 7” takes into consideration Windows 7’s user adoption, performance, stability and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

More than 290 out of 300 Intel users said they “would recommend Microsoft Windows 7 to colleagues,” the study said.

New Delhi, October 05: The largest non-carbonaceous plant fossils, 140 times bigger than today’s algae species, have been discovered in western Rajasthan, opening a new window for understanding evolution of life on earth.

A team of researchers from the University of Lucknow have discovered the fossils with physical characteristics of Vaucheriacean plant, a type of yellow-green algae found in fresh or marine water, five kms from Jodhpur in Sursagar mines region.

Bhubaneswar, October 05: Indian scientists claim to have developed a rice variety that requires no cooking, only soaking in water.

The rice variety developed at the government-run Central Rice Research Institute (CRRI) at Cuttack in Orissa is characterized by low amylase content and becomes soft on soaking in water, institute director Tapan Kumar Adhya told IANS in an interview.

Chicago, October 03: Gasps and tears greeted the announcement on Friday that Chicago had lost its bid to host the 2016 Summer Games, as the city went from favorite to also-ran in the multibillion-dollar Olympics sweepstakes.

“This was Chicago’s shot at coming out as a world-class city so it’s deflating,” said Kevin O’Hara, 48, who runs a financial trading firm in Chicago.

Chicago was the first city eliminated in the first round of voting by the International Olympic Committee, with rivals Rio de Janeiro, Madrid and Tokyo still standing.

London, October 03: Scientists have detected a crack in the armour of the Helicobacter pylori, a common microbe that infects the stomachs of one-sixth of the world’s population, causing gastritis and ulcers.

They identified a group of substances that block a key chemical pathway that the bacteria need for survival. Their study could lead to new, more effective antibiotics to fight these hard-to-treat microbes.

Javier Sancho, biologist at the University of Zaragoza, Spain, and colleagues note in the new study that Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) bacteria infect the stomach lining.