Science & Technology
Friday, 25 December 2009
EARTH'S various ecosystems, with all their plants and animals, will need to shift about a quarter-mile (.42 km) per year on average to keep pace with global climate change, scientists said in a study released on Wednesday.How well particular species...
AFTER a decade-long indulgence in smoking, I have been smoke-free for just over two years. In the past, I used to compare smoking to the art of seduction.Becoming addicted was uncannily similar to being seduced by someone you've admired for a long...
Thursday, 24 December 2009
THE monkeys at this run-down research centre which was once the pride of Soviet science have seen it all, a brutal civil war, freezing winters and starvation.Now, if the scientists at the Institute of Experimental Pathology and Therapy have their...
TO THE European Union, Lithuania's Soviet-built nuclear power plant is a gigantic safety hazard that needs to finally shut down this New Year's Eve. To Lithuanians, however, the twin concrete reactor blocks of the Ignalina plant, rising amid lakes...
TOUCHSCREENS are so yesterday. Remote controls? So last century. The future is controlling your devices with a simple wave of the hand.A wiggle of the fingers will change television channels or turn the volume up or down. In videogames, your...
Wednesday, 23 December 2009
FREDERIC Scheer is biding his time, convinced that by 2013 the price of oil will be so high that his bio-plastics, made from vegetables and plants, will be highly marketable.Scheer, 55, is the owner of Cereplast, a company that designs and makes...
INTERFERING in mosquitoes' sex lives could help halt the spread of malaria, British scientists said on Tuesday.A study on the species of mosquito mainly responsible for malaria transmission in Africa, Anopheles gambiae, showed that because these...
A 38-YEAR-OLD northern white rhino born in south Sudan ate African grasses for the first time in three decades Monday, the first full day on the continent for the world's last four northern white rhinos capable of breeding.The rhinos' handlers and...
Tuesday, 22 December 2009
RAJU the bear will never have to smoke cigarettes or dance on his hind legs under the hot sun again thanks to a multinational project to save an endangered species and end a cruel centuries-old tradition in India.Raju was the last endangered sloth...
ELDERLY people who drink several cups of green tea a day are less likely to suffer from depression, probably due to a "feel good" chemical found in this type of tea, Japanese researchers said.Several studies have linked drinking green tea...
MAN'S best friend could be one of the environment's worst enemies, according to a new study which says the carbon pawprint of a pet dog is more than double that of a gas-guzzling sports utility vehicle. But the revelation in the book "Time to...
Monday, 21 December 2009
DRUG-ELUTING balloon is emerging as a better alternative to drug-eluting stents in the treatment of coronary artery disease in patients with diabetes, said Lam Chee Hong, the managing director for B Braun Medical Supplies Sdn Bhd.As the number of...
THE world's oceans are becoming noisier thanks to pollution, with potentially harmful effects for whales, dolphins and other marine life, US scientists said in a study published yesterday.Low-frequency sound in the ocean is produced by natural...
BEAUTY is not so much in the eye of the beholder as in the measurements between the eyes, mouth and ears of the woman being observed, US and Canadian researchers have found.In four experiments aimed at finding "an ideal facial feature...
ASTRONAUTS from Russia, Japan and the United States blast off to the International Space Station on Monday, bringing with them promises of "space sushi" and "tweets" from the cosmos.The astronauts will lift off aboard a Russian...
Saturday, 19 December 2009
TEN giant panda cubs will be on display at the Shanghai World Expo next year at the city's zoos, giving tens of millions of Chinese and foreign visitors a glimpse at the highly endangered species.The six females and four males will arrive in...
AS efforts falter to save North America's largest freshwater fish a toothless beast left over from the days of dinosaurs officials hope to stave off extinction by sending more water hurtling down a river so the fish can spawn in the wild.The US...
ON A desolate stretch of track just before midnight, when all passenger lines have been put to bed, a juiced-up Japanese bullet train goes online and accelerates to over 200 miles per hour. The 700-tonne train, about a quarter of a mile long,...
STARTING the day right by eating a bowl of cereal in the morning dates back more than 100,000 years, according to Canadian researchers in a study to be released yesterday."The consumption of wild cereals among prehistoric hunters and gatherers...
Friday, 18 December 2009
CAMILLE HOAREAU stands on Denis Island's beach of creamy-white sand, exactly where trees used to grow a few years ago and where the fish will soon swim if global warming surges on."See those? They all went down recently," he says, pointing...
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