Science

Geneva, August 07: The world’s biggest atom-smasher will operate below full power when its restarts in November, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) said Thursday.

In a statement, CERN said no more repairs would be necessary for “safe running” this year and next, after the 27-kilometre (17-mile) collider is switched back on.

Nestled inside a tunnel straddling the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) promises to unlock scientific mysteries about the creation of the Universe and the fundamental nature of matter.

New Delhi, August 06: A yellow shining full moon turned into a dim red one early this morning as sky watchers witnessed the penumbral lunar eclipse.

Though only a fractional diameter of the Sun was eclipsed by the Earth, it was closely monitored by scientists and amateur astronomers all over the world, Director Nehru Planetarium Rathnasree said.

Lunar eclipse occurs when the moon passes behind the earth in such a way that the earth blocks the sun’s rays from falling on the moon, she said.

Washington, August 06: Saying that the US needs to wake up to the reality of India’s technological revolution being led by IIT-educated ‘young men and women under the age of 27’, President Barack Obama’s nominee for deputy commerce secretary said countries like India, China, Brazil and Russia were going to pose a major challenge to American dominance in the coming years.

Kolkata, August 05: A tiny device, almost a look-alike of popular iPhone except for its larger screen, promises to bring about a paradigm shift in the way education is imparted in government-owned schools in rural areas.

Called the ePod, the hand-held device aims to make available the fruits of the latest computing technology in the hands of millions of students.

Manufactured by Tidaldata, a storage devices company, based in California, the ePod had become a rage with the students in the US in 2008.

Tokyo, August 05: A group of experts held an inaugural meeting here to discuss how Japan should explore the moon following the formulation of a national space development project in June that underlined the country’s ambition to send its first manned moon probe.

A private panel set up under Seiko Noda, state minister for Science and Technology Policy, and Food Safety, plans to consider how Japan can bring moon exploration to realisation. The panel plans to produce a report around June next year.

Hamburg, August 05: One day soon, your car may be able to alert you if a tsunami, tornado or other disaster is imminent, according to a team of German scientists.

In the past, sirens howled to warn the population against floods, large fires or chemical accidents. Today, however, there is no extensive warning system in most countries following the dismantling of sirens after the Cold War.

New Delhi, August 05: Sony Ericsson has done a lot to gain the attention. Sony has previously launched its mobile application store and now Sony is again back with a new class cell phone.

Sony Ericsson W995 Walkman is the ultimate mobile phone for the entertainment purpose. This handset can be used wherever it’s needed.

Sony Ericsson W995 Walkman is the powerful Video mobile as the company has mainly aimed the visual quality of the cell phone.

San Francisco, August 05: Social networking website Facebook continues its rapid rise and has already become the fourth most trafficked website in the world, technology blog TechCrunch has reported.

In June this year, Facebook attracted a total of 340 million unique visitors globally, trailing only Google, Microsoft and Yahoo sites, the report said, citing latest results from market research firm comScore.

According to the report, Facebook grew 157 percent in the past year alone, gaining 208 million visitors.

San Francisco, August 04: Google on Monday resorted to old-time outdoor billboards in its quest to convince business IT managers to use software applications that the internet titan offers as services online.

Messages that will change each work day for four weeks debuted on billboards along major commute routes in Boston, Chicago, New York City and San Francisco, according to Google Creative Lab managing director Andy Berndt.

New York, August 04: Doing crossword puzzles, reading, and playing cards daily may delay the rapid memory decline that occurs if people develop dementia, according to a US study.

Researchers from New York’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine spent five years following 488 people aged 75 to 85 who did not have dementia at the start of the study.

During the study period, 101 of these people developed dementia.

Washington, August 04: If global warming is to be addressed without breaking people’s pocketbooks, no single answer will do the job, a US research group tied to the electric utility industry says in a new study that concludes the problem must be attacked from many directions.

Johannesburg, August 04: About 150 yellowwood trees, an endangered species and the national tree of South Africa, were chopped down and poisoned in the Drakensberg because a government environmental group mistook them for black wattle trees, a report said on Tuesday.

The yellowwood trees that were destroyed were between 50 and 100 years old, Beeld newspaper reported.

The Working for Water initiative, administered by the department of water affairs and forestry, was created to fight invasive alien plants.

Pretoria, August 04: South Africa says it and other developing countries won’t consider the next round of climate change talks successful unless rich nations pay up.

South African officials meeting on Tuesday to discuss strategy ahead of the December climate change talks in Copenhagen said at least 1 percent of global GDP should be set aside by rich nations.

That money would help developing countries conduct research and take other steps to cope with climate change. It also could help them obtain technology to reduce their carbon emissions.

Washington, August 04: The US Marine Corps is banning its troops from going onto Facebook, MySpace and other social network sites, citing a possible security risk.

The corps issued an order on Monday saying the ban is effective immediately on the Marine Corps computer network. It said the internet has been used as a haven for malicious behavior, and said that using social sites can expose information to adversaries.

Washington, August 04: Researchers said on Monday they had found primitive bladder cancer cells that cloak themselves with a “don’t eat me” signal that scares off immune system cells, allowing them to mature into tumours later on.

But they found a way to unmask this disguise and said their findings may lead to new approaches for treating cancers of several different types.

Johannesburg, August 04: Television licence fees will increase 11%, the SABC said on Tuesday.

The increase, effective from last Saturday, was approved by Communications Minister Siphiwe Nyanda, SABC spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago said in a statement.

“The annual fee for a domestic, business, dealer and lessor licence will increase by R25 – from R225 to R250.

“Concessionary TV licences, granted to those over the age of 70, as well as to receivers of social grants from the State, will be increased by a mere 8% – from R65 to R70 per annum.”

Mumbai, August 04: Significant changes in the lowest part of earth-ionosphere have been observed by the scientists from the Indian Institute of Geomagnetism (IIG) who conducted experiments on Very Low Frequency (VLF) radiowaves for the first time during total solar eclipse (TSE) on July 22.

The scientists monitored very low frequency (VLF) radiowaves travelling long distances through the earth-ionosphere wave guide and found increase in VLF signal strength during TSE at around 50 to 60 kms above the earth.

New Delhi, August 04: Skywatchers will find lunar radiance rather dim on the full moon day this Thursday when the penumbral lunar eclipse occurs.

The moon’s small entry into the earth’s penumbral shadow will produce an extremely subtle dimming of the moon’s southern edge which will, however, be difficult to observe with the naked eye, Science Popularisation Association of Communicators and Educators (SPACE) Director C B Devgun said.

Mumbai, August 03: The Nokia XpressMusic added a new Nokia 5630 cell phone in the list. This is smarter and faster cell phone in all its features. The latest Xpress-music phone is packed with the quickest processor Nokia have till now.

This cell phone works on the ARM 11 600MHz processor and supports the different network (Quad-band GSM supports). This is the first cell phone of the music series which have 3G network (UMTS and HSDPA).

This Xpress-Music phone offers many softwares features N-Gage support, and support all the extra outdoor apps.

London, August 03: India and China are in talks to monitor the melting of glaciers in the Himalayas, a border region crucial to both countries’ water supplies, Minister for Environment Jairam Ramesh has said.

“We are talking to the Chinese about monitoring the Himalayan glaciers,” Ramesh told the a newspaper.

However, he said India would not allow Chinese scientists “to climb all over India’s glaciers” but wanted a collaborative research programme.

Washington, August 03: Scientists are now seeing signals that the Sahara desert and surrounding regions are greening due to increasing rainfall, all thanks to the rising temperatures due to climate change.

According to a report in National Geographic News, if sustained, these rains could revitalize drought-ravaged regions, reclaiming them for farming communities.

This desert-shrinking trend is supported by climate models, which predict a return to conditions that turned the Sahara into a lush savanna some 12,000 years ago.

New Delhi, August 02: Are you constantly on the move and don’t have time to log on to your computer to be in touch with your friends? Coming to your rescue now is your mobile phone through which you can access any social networking site, anytime, anywhere.

Take college student Ajay Kumar for instance.

On a holiday in Goa, Kumar was constantly glued to his mobile phone — not calling or texting but scrapping and walling his friends on their profiles on Facebook and Orkut.

Kanpur, August 02: Taking a big leap in its technological quest, IIT Kanpur has developed a nanosatellite which is expected to provide real-time data on drought, flood, vegetation and forestation.

The satellite, designed and developed by a group of students of the institute, will be handed over to ISRO, which is expected to launch it by the end of the year.

New York, August 02: A sad day for Yahoo! That’s the consensus — a rare one — across both global technology and investor communities. Yahoo stock dropped 10 percent, Microsoft rose one percent. For once, the markets may have got it right. The decision to work together on their search engines is a big mistake for Yahoo, and a small gain for Microsoft.

But it was coming, even if we didn’t see exactly this 10-year deal in which Microsoft’s Bing will power Yahoo Search.

Cape Canaveral, August 01: Koichi Wakata was still getting used to gravity, though it wasn’t going to stop him from diving into a deluge of sushi.

Huge amounts of the delicacy awaited the Japanese astronaut Friday after he returned to Earth aboard shuttle Endeavour with six other astronauts. Wakata, the first Japanese astronaut to return from a long space journey, lived in orbit at the international space station for four and a half months.