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Showing posts from May, 2016

Solar plane lands in New York City

A solar-powered airplane finished crossing the United States on Saturday, landing in New York City after flying over the Statue of Liberty during its historic bid to circle the globe, the project team said.  The spindly, single-seat experimental aircraft, dubbed Solar Impulse 2, arrived at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport at about 4 a.m. local time after it took off about five hours beforehand at Lehigh Valley International Airport in Pennsylvania, the team reported on the airplane's website.  Such a pleasure to land in New York! For the 14th time we celebrate sustainability," said the project's co-founder Andre Borschberg on Twitter after flying over the city and the Statue of Liberty during the 14th leg of the trip around the globe. The Swiss team flying the aircraft in a campaign to build support for clean energy technologies hopes eventually to complete its circumnavigation in Abu Dhabi, where the journey began in March 2015. The solar cr...

Asian Elephant

Asian Elephants are much smaller than the African elephantsonly growing to a couple of meters tall. Asian elephants are found in the tropical jungles of India and China, and throughout most countries in south-east Asia.  Asian elephants have been domesticated for hundreds of years for foresting and often battle. There are many places across Asia where Asian elephants are kept for tourists to ride, and are often treated fairly badly. Asian elephants are well known for their immense strength and friendliness towards humans. Today, the Asian elephant is considered an endangered species with only around 50,000 left in the wild. This is due to the loss of habitat of the Asian elephant and illegal poachers hunting the Asian elephant, for their skins and ivory. The Asian elephant has smaller ears than the African elephant and the Asian elephant also has a more curved spine than the African elephant. Unlike the African elephants, the female Asianelephant very rarely have tusks...

Taiwan's Asus unveils household robot

Taiwan's Asus has unveiled what it says is the first "affordable" household robot.  Voice-activated Zenbo will cost $599 (£409) and Asus says it will be able to control smart home devices. The firm said it would be less expensive than competing household robots because it did not have humanoid features such as arms.  But Taipei correspondent Cindy Sui said Zenbo could only perform a limited selection of tasks when she was given a demonstration.

Zoo officials have shot dead a gorilla after a four-year-old boy fell into its enclosure in the US city of Cincinnati

The boy climbed through a barrier and fell into a moat, where he was grabbed and dragged by the gorilla.  The zoo said it took action to shoot the 400lb (180kg) gorilla as the situation was "life-threatening". The boy is expected to recover.  Last week two lions were shot dead in a zoo in Chile after a man entered their pen in an apparent suicide attempt.Cincinnati zoo has temporarily shut its gorilla exhibit following the incident on Saturday. The boy had fallen about 10ft into the moat. Video shows the boy being dragged through the shallow moat. The gorilla then stops, with the child below him and looking up at him.  But the boy was reportedly dragged by the 17-year-old male western lowland gorilla named Harambe for about 10 minutes.  The child was taken to a local hospital and although no information about his condition has been released it is believed he will recover.  Zoo director Thane Maynard said: "The officials made a tough choice and they ma...

A new, expandable room has been opened up on the space station

The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (Beam) is a demonstrator for the type of habitats that may be used to build future orbiting labs.  It is possible such rooms could even make for more living space during the many months it would take humans to travel to Mars.  The Beam was taken up to the station last month and connected to a berthing point on the Tranquility module.  Installed in compact form, it had to be inflated - something astronaut Jeff Williams eventually managed to achieve.  The new room will undergo two years of tests. Engineers want to know if the structure is as robust as traditional metal modules.  Astronauts will not actually go in the Beam that often, given its experimental nature. And when they do, it will be to have a quick look around to check its integrity. Nothing will be stored in the room, either.  Most of the time, the hatch to the Beam will remain closed and controllers on the ground will monitor its status through a serie...

Ebola survived nurse left with permanent weakness in her leg

Pauline Cafferkey, 40, from Cambuslang, South Lanarkshire, was hospitalised three times after contracting the virus while working in Sierra Leone in 2014.She told that she was now "Ebola negative" and her health had come on "leaps and bounds". But she said there were long-term issues, such as numbness and dizziness.Speaking on Radio Scotland's Stephen Jardine programme, Ms Cafferkey revealed that her case was the highest viral load of Ebola ever recorded in a survivor. She said that since being discharged from hospital for a third time in February, she had been doing "great" and had come on "leaps and bounds in the past few months." However, she added: "I've got pins and needles and numbness over various parts of my body. I've still got swelling at the base of my spine, which is very painful and dizziness - my balance isn't too good."Ms Cafferkey said a weakness that developed in her left leg had not improved....

Solar plane lands in Pennsylvania

The plane began the stage on Wednesday in Dayton, Ohio, travelling 1,044km to reach the East Coast waypoint.  The journey is the 13th leg in a quest that started in Abu Dhabi last year to circumnavigate the globe on zero fuel.  Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard was in the pilot's seat of the 72m-wingspan, electric plane.  The aircraft took off from Dayton International Airport at 04:02 local time (08:02 GMT). It landed in Lehigh Valley at 20:49 local time (00:49 GMT, Thursday).  The achievement positions the project to make its entry into New York in the coming days. The "Big Apple" is set to be the base for Solar Impulse as it waits for a weather window to fly the Atlantic.  Deciding when to cross the ocean will be a tricky decision. The slow-moving, ultra-light plane needs benign winds, and the team concedes that the right conditions may not present themselves for several weeks.Wednesday's flight to Lehigh Valley was postponed for 24 hours for check...

Facebook to update Trending Topics

There can be a lot of coaching for workers and therefore the feed will not believe an inventory of reports organisations, as well as the BBC, Washington Post and Buzzfeed News, to validate subjects.  The feed, that lists common headlines together with a short description, has been suspect of political bias.  However, Facebook's report found no proof of this.  Facebook general counsel Colin Stretch same the investigation analysed three,000 reviewer selections following allegations that conservative problems were being suppressed.The site was suspect by anonymous former workers of change of state with its Trending Topics feature, promoting "progressive" views and websites over content presenting views from the yank right. Current and former workers were additionally interviewed by the firm.  The findings were unconcealed in an exceedingly 12-page letter, addressed to North American nation legislator John Thune however additionally printed on-line, in resp...

Twitter changing some of its rules to make itself simpler to use and more attractive to newcomers

Twitter Iraqi National Congress  same on Tues that user names and media attachments like photos and videos can not count toward the length of a tweet however the 140-character limit can stay.  Twitter same the modification, a part of its efforts to modify its micro-blogging service, can happen within the next few months.  "A few easy changes to create conversations on Twitter easier! And no a lot of removing characters for pictures or videos!" Chief government Jack Dorsey same during a 115-character tweet.  Twitter's stock touched a record low at $13.72 on Tues, whereas capitalist sentiment around Twitter stock plunged on social media, in step with Reuters knowledge.  The length of tweets was originally designed to incorporate a user's name and still match inside the 160-character SMS electronic communication format used for mobile phones.  Additional changes embody the flexibility to retweet and quote-tweet an individual's own posts.  Dorse...

Huawei is suing its tech rival Samsung over claims that its patents have been infringed

The Chinese firm aforementioned it had been following its South Korean rival in 2 courts - one in Golden State, the opposite in Shenzhen.  According to Huawei, many of its cellular communications and code inventions had been utilized in Samsung's phones while not its permission.  Samsung told it might defend its business interests.  The specific patents concerned haven't been disclosed.  However, Huawei has aforementioned a minimum of a number of them area unit classed as Frand - Associate in Nursing signifier concerning "fair, affordable and non-discriminatory". This means the Chinese company has committed itself to providing anyone a licence see you later as they comply with a non-excessive compensation.  This kind of agreement is common within the school sector because it makes it potential for various companies' merchandise to speak and share information formats with one another.  Huawei's property chief indicated it had been seeking permissi...

Apple rehires distinguished security professional as encoding fight boils

Apple opposition, that has resisted pressure from U.S. enforcement to unlock encrypted iPhones, this month rehired a high knowledgeable in sensible cryptography to bring a lot of powerful safety features to a large vary of shopper merchandise. Jon Callas, WHO co-founded many well-respected secure communications firms as well as PGP corporation, Silent Circle and Black phone, rejoined Apple in could, Associate in Nursing Apple representative same. Callas had worked at Apple within the Nineteen Nineties and once more between 2009 and 2011, once he designed Associate in Nursing cryptography system to shield information keep on a Macintosh laptop. Apple declined to detail his new role, and Callas declined to comment. The Cupertino, California-based company has clashed with the U.S. government over whether or not Apple ought to facilitate enforcement access encrypted client info keep on its devices. Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Justice asked federal judges in Californi...

US engineer Frances Arnold has won the Millennium Technology Prize

By driving a sped-up version of natural process within the research lab, the tactic has created new enzymes for industrial catalysts, family detergents, and even to form explosive charge from sugar.  The €1m (£0.8m) prize is awarded biyearly and academician Arnold is that the 1st feminine winner in its 12-year history.  It recognises developments that "change people's lives for the better".  The Technology Academy Republic of Finland, that presents the prize, aforementioned the deliberations began in Nov 2015 however that "there was only 1 outstanding candidate". Prof Arnold, from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), spoke to before travel to capital of Finland for Tuesday's ceremony.  She aforementioned the "basic concept" of mistreatment evolution to make higher enzymes emerged from her laboratory quite twenty years agone.  "Evolution, to me, is that the best designer of all time. and that i found out that this could ...

Portuguese drug maker Bial and French laboratory Biotrial are at fault on many counts

Portuguese drug maker Bial and French laboratory Biotrial are at fault "on many counts" for a unsuccessful drug trial that left one person dead and 5 others hospitalized in Gregorian calendar month, French Health Minister Marisol Touraine said on Monday.   All trials of the drug, designed to treat mood and anxiety problems as well as coordination disorders coupled to medicine issues, have since been suspended.  The victims were given the experimental drug made by Bial throughout a section one trial at a non-public facility in Rennes, Brittany, run by France's Biotrial.  "A final investigation report confirms that the conditions under that the check was approved did not breach existing legislation," Touraine told journalists. "Inspectors consider, however, that Bial and Biotrial are accountable on many counts; relating to the dose prescribed  and the time taken to alert authorities," she said.  An initial inquiry in Gregorian calendar month had...

The price being paid for a massive policy failure on mosquito control, says World Health Organization leader Margaret Chan

Speaking at the agency's annual World Health Assembly, Dr Chan said experts had "dropped the ball" in the 1970s with regards to getting a handle on disease-carrying insects.  More than 60 countries and territories now have continuing Zika transmission.  Most recently, the infection, spread by mosquito bites, reached Africa. The virus is thought to cause serious birth defects during pregnancy and has been declared a global public health emergency. According to Dr Chan, outbreaks that become emergencies always reveal specific weaknesses in affected countries and illuminate the fault lines in our collective preparedness."Zika reveals an extreme consequence of the failure to provide universal access to sexual and family planning services," she said. Dr Chan added that Latin America and the Caribbean, which have been hit hard by Zika, have the highest proportion of unintended pregnancies in the world.Eradication campaigns were successful in the America...

Facebook apologised after refusing to run an advert featuring plus-sized model

The social network told it had made a mistake and has currently approved the image.  Australian feminist group Cherchez La Femme had expressed fury once Facebook rejected their advert for associate event designed to market body positivism. Originally the social network told them the advert "depicts a body... in an undesirable manner".  While the event page was not taken down, the advert to promote it absolutely was not approved.  "Ads like these are not allowed since they create viewers feel dangerous regarding themselves," read the original response from Facebook's Ads Team, which the organisers shared as screenshots on their page.  It also recommended that associate various image of somebody "running or riding a bike" would be a lot of acceptable. "Our team processes millions of advertising images weekly, so we have a tendency to often create mistakes," said a interpreter.  "To be clear, the image complies with our adver...

Oculus anti-piracy update cracked in a day

The update lets games verify that they were legitimately purchased Associate in Nursingd square measure running on an approved receptor device. It also breaks Associate in Nursing unofficial patch known as Revive that lets Oculus-only games run on rival devices. But Revive's creator found he might disable digital rights management (DRM) in receptor titles utterly to keep the patch operating. That also stops code from corroboratory it has been de jure purchased, paving the way for pirates to copy receptor games."DRM as a means to forestall piracy is quite futile," said Ernesto Van der Sar, founder of news website TorrentFreak. "If there's a demand to use a product or access a service, people can typically realize a means around DRM and alternative technological blockades. "History has shown many examples of however it largely inconveniences legitimate customers." Facebook-owned Oculus has invested with in exclusive code titles to encourage fol...

A newly-classified fossil gives clues to how life in the oceans recovered from a mass extinction about 250 million years ago

The reptile is Associate in Nursing early relative of the ichthyosaurs - a massive cluster of marine reptiles that swam at the time of the dinosaurs.  With its tiny toothless head, the creature is something of a curiosity, say scientists.  The specimen suggests marine reptiles evolved quickly after the event.  Previous evidence has instructed it took a long time for animals within the seas to get better.  Details of the specimen, Sclerocormus parviceps, are unveiled in Scientific Reports.  Dr Nick Fraser, Keeper of Natural Sciences at National Museums Scotland, worked on the fossil alongside groups in the America and China. "Here's something that provides America a way of the biological process pathway," said Dr Fraser.  "We've still got a long thanks to move to see where the ichthyosaurs came from, however it's a step within the right direction.  "And it all points to a very speedy radiation once this mass extinction "Sclerocormus is on...

China's Science Revolution

From building the biggest experiments the world has ever seen to rolling out the latest medical advances on a massive scale and pushing the boundaries of exploration from the deepest ocean to outer space - China’s scientific ambitions are immense.  Just a few decades ago the nation barely featured in the world science rankings. Now, in terms of research spending and the number of scientific papers published, it stands only behind the US. But despite this rapid progress, China faces a number of challenges.  Here are five key science projects that illustrate its enormous strengths, as well as some of its weaknesses, and may help answer the question whether China can become a global leader in research.Nestling in a vast natural crater, China’s giant is about to come alive. A colossal, steeply curved dish glints in the sunlight, surrounded by jagged mountains that cut into the sky. Construction workers, busy putting the finishing touches to this structure, look tiny...

India launches mini space shuttle

The 7m scale model took off from Andhra Pradesh and was expected to fly about 70km (43 miles) into the atmosphere before coming down at sea.  Since Nasa stopped its Space Shuttle programme in 2011, there has been strong international competition to design alternative reusable spacecraft.  Such vehicles significantly cut the cost of space exploration. India has been putting substantial research and resources into its space programme.  A Mars orbiter launched in 2013 is its most high profile space venture to date. It hopes to launch a full scale reusable shuttle within a decade.The 1.75-tonne craft was not expected to survive the flight but was designed to enable the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) to collect important data on hypersonic speed and autonomous landing.  The model was developed over the past five years at a cost of 1bn rupees ($14m; £9.6m). Prime Minister Narendra Modi praised the "industrious efforts" of the scientists involv...

Toshiba capital about $1.8 billion halve

Japan's Toshiba Corp said on Monday it would more than halve its capital base - a move that comes in the wake of a $1.3 billion accounting scandal last year.  It will cut its capital to 200 billion yen ($1.8 billion)from 439.9 billion yen to plug a deficit in its earnings reserves on its balance sheet after posting huge losses, it said. The capital reduction will be subject to shareholders' approval and would be effective July 31, the embattled industrial conglomerate said in a statement.  The company also said that it was correcting its earnings results for the year that ended in March. Its operating loss came to 708.7 billion yen, compared with the 719.1 billion yen loss announced earlier this month. It will hold a briefing from 4 p.m. (0700 GMT) to explain the corrections.

Solar plane lands in Dayton round-the-world flight

An experimental airplane powered solely by energy from the sun landed in Ohio on Saturday night on the latest leg of its historic bid by pilots and developers to fly around the globe without a drop of fuel.  The single-seat Solar Impulse 2 aircraft arrived in Dayton shortly before 10 p.m. local time, some 17 hours after leaving Phoenix Goodyear Airport, the project team said on its official Twitter page.  "People told the Wright Brothers & us what we wanted to achieve was impossible," said Bertrand Piccard after landing. "They were wrong!"  The locale was of special significance to the pilots, as the home base to aviation pioneers Orville and Wilbur Wright.  Amanda Wright Lane, a descendant of the brothers, neither of whom ever married, was on hand to welcome the flight. With a wingspan exceeding that of a Boeing 747 but an ultra-light carbon-fiber skin and overall weight of a car, the Solar Impulse cruises at speeds ranging from only 34 to 62 miles p...

Solar plane lands in Dayton

An experimental airplane powered solely by energy from the sun landed in Ohio on Saturday night on the latest leg of its historic bid by pilots and developers to fly around the globe without a drop of fuel.  The single-seat Solar Impulse 2 aircraft arrived in Dayton shortly before 10 p.m. local time, some 17 hours after leaving Phoenix Goodyear Airport, the project team said on its official Twitter page.  "People told the Wright Brothers & us what we wanted to achieve was impossible," said Bertrand Piccard after landing. "They were wrong!" The locale was of special significance to the pilots, as the home base to aviation pioneers Orville and Wilbur Wright.  Amanda Wright Lane, a descendant of the brothers, neither of whom ever married, was on hand to welcome the flight.  With a wingspan exceeding that of a Boeing 747 but an ultra-light carbon-fiber skin and overall weight of a car, the Solar Impulse cruises at speeds ranging from only 34 to 62 miles...

Nokia cuts more than a thousand jobs in Finland

Nokia is cutting 1,032 jobs in Finland as part of a cost-cutting program following its acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent, the telecom network equipment maker said in a statement on Friday. Finland's biggest company has cut thousands of jobs in its home country over the past decade as its once-dominant phone business was eclipsed by the rise of smartphone rivals. Nokia started the latest cost cutting program in April and is targeting 900 million euros ($1 billion) of operating cost synergies from the Alcatel deal by 2018.  The company has declined to give an overall figure for global job cuts, but has said it in talks with employee representatives in about 30 countries. Nokia employs about 104,000 people worldwide, with about 6,850 in Finland, 4,800 in Germany and 4,200 in France.

Wrist-band device for alcohol monitoring wins U.S. prize

A San Francisco-based company has won a U.S. government-sponsored competition with an alcohol monitoring devices that can be worn on the wrist, the latest milestone in the development of wearable technologies that monitor and diagnose medical conditions.  BACtrack, a privately held medical device maker, took the $200,000 top prize in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Wearable Biosensor Challenge on Thursday with its wristband monitor, which measures blood alcohol levels via sweat on the skin.  The product, dubbed BACtrack Skyn, has not yet been submitted to the Food and Drug Administration for marketing approval. Dr. George Koob, head of the NIH's National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, said he expected the device to be a valuable resource for alcohol research community.  “It can help doctors accurately measure a patient’s drinking history, and not just depend on the most recent tests," Koob said. "This can help a lot with the treatment.” ...

Google appealed to France's highest court after CNIL ordered it to delete some of its search results globally

In 2015, the Commission on Informatics and Liberty (CNIL) said Google should respect French "right to be forgotten" rulings worldwide.  But Google said the ruling could lead to abuse by "less open and democratic" countries.  The company is now appealing against a 100,000-euro (£76,000) CNIL fine.The "right to be forgotten" refers to a landmark ruling passed by the European Union's Court of Justice (ECJ) in May 2014. It gives people the right to have results linked to their name removed from search websites, if they "appear to be inadequate" or "irrelevant".  Google says results can end up removed "even when those links point to truthful and lawfully published information like newspaper articles or official government websites".  Companies offering services to European citizens must comply with the ruling, even if their websites are not hosted in Europe.  Google said it had reviewed almost 1.5 million requests, o...