A woman judge has reportedly been appointed to hear the case of Paralympic champion Oscar Pistorius, who has been charged with the murder of his model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, which re-opens in early March.
A rock that mysteriously appeared in front of the Mars Rover a few days back, has left scientists baffled.
NASA Mars Exploration Rover (MER) lead scientist Steve Squyres of Cornell University reported appearance of a suspected gypsum near Endeavour Crater’s rim – a region of Meridiani Planum that Opportunity has been researching since 2011 – and the discovery of clays, which likely formed in a pH-neutral wet environment in early Mars, Discovery News reported.
: A team of astronomers has obtained proof of formation of a giant planetary system around a young star by the observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA).
The research team, led by astronomers at Osaka University and Ibaraki University, observed a young star named HD 142527 in the constellation Lupus (the Wolf) with ALMA.
The ALMA image shows that cosmic dust, which is component material of planets, is circling around the star in a form of asymmetric ring.
A team of researchers have found that male black widow spiders shake their abdomens to produce carefully pitched vibrations, which let females know they have “come a-courting” and are not potential prey.
Simon Fraser University graduate students Samantha Vibert and Catherine Scott, working with SFU biology professor Gerhard Gries, recorded the vibrations made by male black widow spiders (Latrodectus hesperus), hobo spiders (Tegenaria agrestis) and prey insects.
Researchers have claimed that chimpanzees are capable of using gestures to communicate as they pursue specific goals, like finding a hidden piece of food.
Researchers at Georgia State University”s Language Research Center examined how two language-trained chimpanzees communicated with a human experimenter to find food.
The team devised a task that demanded coordination among the chimps and a human to find a piece of food that had been hidden in a large outdoor area.
Dropbox has reportedly raised 250 million dollars in its funding round, putting the company”s valuation at 10 billion dollars. It is the second time the cloud file hosting service has raised the amount, after 2011 in a round that included Goldman Sachs, Sequoia, Index Ventures and Accel Partners. According to Tech Crunch, in November, based on market estimates about an additional 250 million dollars raise, the company was speculated to reach a valuation of 8 billion dollars.
President Pranab Mukherjee has condoled the passing away of Dawoodi Bohra spiritual leader Dr. Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin. In a condolence message, Mukherjee said: “In the passing away of Dr. Syedna Burhanuddin, the Dawoodi Bohra Community has lost a spiritual leader of highest order whose guidance and insightful teachings will continue to inspire people to follow the path of kindness and compassion”.
Idia Saturday “utterly condemned” the alleged misbehaviour with some Ugandan nationals in the capital by a Delhi minister and his party volunteers and promised “appropriate action” in the matter.
New Delhi’s stand on the matter was conveyed to the African envoys from 20 countries by Dinkar Khullar, secretary (West) in the ministry of external affairs, who held a meeting with them in south block.
Biotechnology major Biocon will start selling breast cancer drug ‘CANMAb’, developed jointly with US-based Mylan, in the country from next month.
The company said the drug, which would be manufactured at its biologics facility in Bangalore, will be sold to the patients at a discount, Biocon Ltd said in a statement.
CANMAb will be available at about 25 per cent discount to the current list price of the reference product – Roche’s Herceptin – in India, which is already significantly lower than its price in developed markets, it added.
India and Pakistan Saturday decided to take a few more steps by the end of next month to normalise trade. This includes opening of bank branches in each other’s country.
After talks here, trade ministers of the two countries agreed also to facilitate commerce over land by keeping the Attari-Wagha border open 24 hours throughout the year.
For older men, having a big belly is more closely tied to general health problems than having low testosterone levels, a new study suggests.
Researchers have known that obesity is linked to lower testosterone among men. But it’s been less clear how each of those factors relates to men’s well-being, Dr. Marianne Andersen told Reuters Health in an email. She worked on the study at Odense University Hospital in Denmark.
Regardless of the culture a child lives in, corporal punishment may do lasting psychological harm, German researchers say.
In a new study conducted in Tanzania, where physical punishment is considered normal, primary school students who were beaten by teachers or family members in the name of discipline tended to show more behavior problems, not fewer, the researchers found.
President Pranab Mukherjee Saturday launched the pulse polio immunisation programme for 2014, administering pulse polio drops to six small children.
Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, who was also present at the function at Rashtrapti Bhavan, pointed out that in this round of the polio campaign, more than 17 crore children will be vaccinated, an official release said here.
It has been decided that any case of wild polio shall be treated as a public health emergency, Azad said.
Russian laws do not criminalize homosexual relations unlike some other countries, President Vladimir Putin said Friday.
“We prohibit nothing and grab no one, there’s no responsibility for those relations unlike in the other countries,” Putin told the Winter Olympics volunteers’ gathering in Sochi Friday.
He mentioned several U.S. states as an example and assured that in Russia everyone can feel “relaxed”, reports Xinhua.
“But leave the children alone,” Putin added, referring to the Russian law banning propaganda of non-traditional sexual lifestyle among the minors.
A drug overdose could be the reason for the death of Sunanda Pushkar, wife of junior HRD Minister Shashi Tharoor, in a hotel here, police sources said Saturday.
“It could be a case of drug overdose but things would be clear only after the detailed autopsy report,” the sources said, adding it could be an overdose of sleeping pills.
Sources revealed that the couple had “verbal spat” during their flight from Thiruvananthapuram to Delhi. In the hotel too they were arguing, which was disclosed by the house keeping staff to police during investigation.
Technology company iBerry Saturday launched its fully-loaded Auxus Nuclea N2 smartphone at a six-day introductory offer price of Rs.19,990.
The octa-core processor-based Auxus Nuclea N2 comes with 16GB internal memory, which is expandable up to 64GB using MicroSD card.
Nuclea N2 supports both micro SIM and a regular SIM on its respective dual SIM slot, according to a company release.
Post the introductory offer period, the phone will cost Rs.23,990.
A 3500mAh Li-ion battery is used in this smartphone with which users can expect talk-time of more than 12 hours.
Generic drug maker Aurobindo Pharma has signed a binding offer agreement to acquire commercial operations of Dublin-based Actavis plc in seven Western European countries.
Closing of the transaction is conditional on certain anti-trust approvals and completion of employee consultation processes, Aurobindo said in a statement today, without disclosing the financial details of the deal.
Aurobindo expects to acquire personnel, commercial infrastructure, products, marketing authorisations and dossier licence rights in seven European countries.
China has developed its own cellphone operating system aimed at easing the stranglehold of the US’ Google and Apple systems, even as sceptics doubt its efficacy.
Dubbed as the China Operating System (COS) it is a strategic product for national security which has become more urgent in the wake of recent incidents such as the US intelligence scandal of Prism and Windows ending further support of its XP system, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) said in a statement.
A nun has given birth to a boy in the Italian city of Rieti.
The nun, originally from El Salvador, claimed she did not know that she was pregnant.
She was rushed to a hospital after experiencing severe abdominal pain.
An ultrasound scan revealed she was expecting a full-term baby, who was delivered by doctors during a natural birth Friday.
“The baby is one of God’s creatures and we have the utmost respect for human life. Pope Francis himself has recalled, that human errors aside, the dignity of the individual must be respected,” said Fabrizio Borrello, a priest.
The body of a three-year-old Indian-origin boy, who went missing mysteriously from his home in Edinburgh in Scotland Jan 15, was found 30 miles away from his home.
Malcolm Graham, assistant chief constable of Police Scotland, said that Mikaeel Kular’s body was found in the Fife area in Scotland just before Friday midnight and a person was detained in connection with the investigation, the Mirror reported Saturday.
Police are yet to confirm who the arrested person is but the report citing a source said that it is the boy’s mother Rosdeep Kular who works as a beauty therapist.
The US has under President Barack Obama shifted from its policy of invading countries to root out terrorism to a “clean, surgical” action to take out terrorists, thus transforming the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from an espionage organisation to a paramilitary force for lethal targeting of terror masterminds, says American author Mark Mazetti, who chronicles the shift in his new book.
When women writers from Islamic countries discuss sexuality and erotic poems, taboos and male dominance, and mull over breaking free from conservative norms, the audience is bound to be large.
At the Jaipur Literary Festival (JLF) Saturday, the hall of the “Baithak” venue was flooded with people eager to hear discussions at the session “Behind the Veil: Women Writers of the Islamic World”.
Hiroo Onoda, the last Japanese imperial soldier to emerge from hiding in a jungle in the Philippines and surrender, 29 years after the end of World War II, has died at 91.
Onoda died of pneumonia at St. Luke’s Hospital in Tokyo after being sick since December, CNN reports.
Onoda was sent to the small island of Lubang in the western Philippines to spy on U.S. forces in the area in 1944.
Daniel Radcliffe is set to appear on Broadway for a third time, as he reprises the role he played in London’s West End last summer in ‘The Cripple of Inishmaan’.
The ‘ Harry Potter ‘ star, who made his New York theatre debut in a 2008 production of ‘Equus’, will join the rest of the London cast of ‘ The Cripple of Inishmaan’ when it transfers to the US on 20 April for a three-month run, Contactmusic reported.
New Indian consul general in Dubai Anurag Bhushan has said that community welfare will be his top priority .
Bhushan pledged that he will do all that he can to bolster Indian expatriates living in Dubai at a meeting organised by the Indian Business Professional Council (IBPC), the Gulf News reports.
The IBPC is the only recognised representative organisation of Indian Business and Professionals in Dubai, the report added.