Science

Washington, September 26: Engineers have observed and tracked the movement of E. coli in a liquid medium, which is similar to that of a kayak paddle.

Their findings will help lead to a better understanding of how bacteria move from place to place and potentially, how to keep them from spreading.

Scientists have long theorised that the cigar-shaped cell bodies of E. coli and other micro-organisms would follow periodic orbits that resemble the motion of a kayak paddle as they drift downstream in a current.

Until now, no one had managed to directly observe or track those movements.

Washington, September 26: Want a PC full of free software? To get it, you don’t need to adopt Ubuntu or any of the other Unix-based operating systems. Nor do you have to rely on the sometimes risky freeware you find scattered around the Internet.

New Delhi, September 25, 2009: Gmail outage puts a question mark on reliability of cloud computing. When Gdrive was announced earlier this year many tech honchos said that it was the end of Hard disk or desktop computer. They said when whole data will be available on the net who will go for hard disk.

But with spate of gmail, Facebook and Twitter outages, many people have started questioning the feasibility and reliability of cloud computing.

New Delhi, September 25: Water does exist on lunar and it can be extracted but in less quantity, confirmed Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) chairman G Madhavan Nair on Friday. Indian spacecraft Chandrayaan’s historic discovery has given wings to the hopes about a permanent lunar base.

An elated Madhavan Nair said on the occasion that the Chandrayaan-1 was a complete success. “The Chandrayaan mission performed wonderfully. Earlier I said it had completed 95% of its mission objectives, today I say it has done 110%,” he quipped.

New Delhi, September 25: iPhone MMS update iPhone MMS release date AT&T mms. AT&T is all set to switch on MMS facility in iPhones across the US. Though it is not going to happen in one and it will be done in several shifts, most probably Friday itself.

AT&T’s been feeding us a story that it’ll offer MMS on the iPhone only “once [it completes] some system upgrades that will ensure our customers have the best experience,” but here’s the thing: it seems that it works right now — if you’ve got a build of OS 3.0 that’ll let it.

New Delhi, September 25: Samsung has launched its first android touchphone Galaxy I7500in India partnering with Tata DOCOMO. Priced at Rs 28,990, the smartphone has a metal detector, magnetic compass and more.

Samsung Galaxy 17500 packs with a 3.2 amole touch-screen, Wi-Fi connectivity, and preloaded Google mobile services such as Google Maps, Google Talk, Gmail, Google Chrome, Google search and YouTube.

Galaxy is the first of the block of Android handsets the company plans to roll out in India later this year, said Asim Warsi, General Manager (Marketing) of Samsung India.

San Francisco, September 25: Internet messaging sensation Twitter is to close a new funding round of $100 million from investors who value the company as high as $1 billion, the New York Times reported Thursday.

The privately held company, which is yet to register a profit, intends to use the funds to beef up its system as it tries to grow fast to compete with Facebook.

Twitter, which allows users to blog short messages from their cellphones, currently has about 50 million users and hopes to match Facebook’s 300 million users worldwide.

Bangalore, September 25: By finding water on the lunar surface, India’s maiden lunar mission Chandrayaan-1 has completed “110 percent of the objectives”, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman G. Madhavan Nair said here Friday.

Disagreeing with a section of the media, which dubbed the moon mission a ‘failure’ when it was abruptly aborted Aug 30 after Chandrayaan lost radio contact with the earth, Nair maintained that it was a wonderful mission.

Bangkok, September 25: A gecko with leopard-like spots on its body and a fanged frog that eats birds are among 163 new species discovered last year in the Mekong River region of Southeast Asia, an environmental group said on Friday.

WWF International said that scientists in 2008 discovered 100 plants, 28 fish, 18 reptiles, 14 amphibians, two mammals and one bird species in the region. That works out to be about three species a week and is in addition to the 1 000 new species catalogued there from 1997 to 2007, the group said.

Johannesburg, September 25: South Africa’s natural water resources are declining, the Cape Times reported on Friday, quoting from a study released this week.

“With each of the national water studies carried out since the 1950s, our estimate of the country’s total natural water resources has declined,” project director Brian Middleton told the newspaper.

“If we were allocating water according to the higher estimates made in previous studies, we would find that there is simply not enough water available to meet our needs.”

Washington, September 25: Millions of Monarch butterflies migrate to Mexico for the winter and scientists have long speculated on how the insects find their way. It turns out their antennas are the key.

How do we know? Well, researchers painted butterfly antennas black, and the insects got lost.

Managing to fly south may not sound like a big deal to people armed with maps and satellite receivers, but all butterflies have for navigation is the sun in the sky.

And the sun keeps moving, so the butterflies have to constantly adjust to stay on course throughout the day.

Pasadena, September 25: A spacecraft orbiting Mars has spotted water ice in several impact craters midway between the north pole and equator – the first time ice so close to the surface has been discovered so far south on the red planet.

Instruments on Nasa’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter estimated that the newfound ice is 99% pure.

Previous spacecraft have spied ice lurking below the Martian surface. Before the Phoenix lander froze to death last year, it dug trenches and touched ice specks at its arctic landing site.

Paris, September 25: The stunning remains of a “four-winged” dinosaur have confirmed that birds owe their ancestry to two-footed dinosaurs that lived millions of years ago, the world’s most famous fossil-hunter said.

Xing Xu of the Chinese Academy of Science in Beijing is staking the claim thanks to an astonishingly-preserved fossil of a bird-like dinosaur called Anchiornis huxleyi.

Until now, A. huxleyi was thought to be a primitive bird. It was presumed to have been a near-contemporary of Archaeopteryx, the first recognised bird, which flew around 150 million years ago.

Bangalore, September 25: India on Friday hailed the discovery of water on the moon as a triumph for its lunar programme as the country aims to cement its reputation as a serious player in the space industry.

The mood among India’s space scientists has gone from disappointment last month when its Chandrayaan-1 satellite mission was prematurely aborted to jubilation with news of a major discovery made in partnership with Nasa.

Tokyo, September 25: Sony’s PlayStation 3 video game console outsold Nintendo’s Wii nearly fivefold in Japan in the three weeks to September 20, helped by the launch of a new cheaper, slim version, a survey said on Friday.

Sony sold 257 254 PS3s in its home market in the three-week period, while Nintendo sold 52 229 Wii consoles, the research by video game publisher Ascii Media Works showed.

Paris, September 25: French archaeologists have discovered the oldest known place of worship dedicated to the dugong, or sea cow, on an island just north of Dubai, two research centers said on Thursday.

The sanctuary believed to date back to 3 500 to 3 200 years BC was discovered on Akab island in the United Arab Emirates, 50km north of Dubai.

Why are we asking this now?

The American space agency Nasa announced yesterday that three separate missions examining the Moon have found clear evidence of water there. The discovery has huge implications not only for science, but geopolitics as well.

Water, as on Earth? Water you could float a boat in?

Toronto, September 25: Capturing carbon directly from the air is the only way to prevent dangerous climate changes, says a pioneering Canadian scientist.

University of Calgary scientist David Keith says governments need to earmark more research funding for technologies to capture carbon dioxide in surrounding air to save the planet. Keith has successfully tested an air capture technology last year. The market for carbon capture technologies is estimated to reach $1 billion a year within 20 years.

Bangalore, September 25: This is a revolutionary finding that could spur space scientists on to look for possibility of life in the lunar environs. US’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) has detected traces of water across the entire surface of the Moon.

The path-breaking finding was made using Nasa’s payload on board India’s first unmanned moon-bound space craft, Chandrayaan-1. DNA had first reported (May 22 edition) that Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) and Nasa had “for the first time found sure-fire hints of presence of water on the Moon”.

San Francisco, September 25: Internet messaging sensation Twitter is to close a new funding round of $100 million from investors who value the company as high as $1 billion, the New York Times reported Thursday.

The privately held company, which is yet to register a profit, intends to use the funds to beef up its system as it tries to grow fast to compete with Facebook.

Twitter, which allows users to blog short messages from their cellphones, currently has about 50 million users and hopes to match Facebook’s 300 million users worldwide.

Chennai, September 24: The sensational discovery of water molecules on the lunar surface by an instrument owned by the US’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and carried by India’s Chandrayaan-1 has been termed by scientists as a “very precious find”.

“Moon water is more precious than gold,” an Indian space scientist told IANS, declining to be named.

He said the presence of water makes a lot of difference for future explorations. “For instance, we may not have to carry water from earth,” he added.

Chennai, September 24: The American space agency NASA is expected to announce Thursday major findings of its moon mineralogy matter that went on board India’s Chandrayaan-1.

The announcement has been kept under wraps, but it is speculated it will be about the presence of water or ice on the moon.

ISRO placed in orbit seven satellites including Oceansat-2 within a span of 20 minutes on Wednesday, its first successful mission after the abrupt end of the ambitious Chandrayaan-I project.

At the end of the 51-hour countdown, the 44.4 meter tall four-stage PSLV-C14 blasted off from the first launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota with ignition of the core first stage and put the satellites in orbit one after another.

New Delhi, September 23: Tata Docomo, the GSM brand of Tata Teleservices, in association with Korean handset maker Samsung Mobile, Wednesday launched India’s first Android-powered mobile phone.

Priced at Rs.28,990, Samsung Galaxy (I7500) has a 3.2-inch full touch-screen and WiFi connectivity, and will provide users access to Google mobile services and full web browsing at high speed.

Android is an open-source operating system for mobiles and wireless devices that allows developers to design applications independent of the handset type.

New York, September 23: Internet major Yahoo! will be launching a global brand campaign focusing on showcasing its core product enhancements, among others. The campaign would be launched in India on October 5.

In a statement, the firm said it would be launching a global brand campaign to celebrate its connection with people and communicate core product enhancements. “The brand campaign will launch on September 28 in the US and October 5 in the UK and India, and extend into 2010.