Tech & Science

Thomas Sam, 42, and his wife Manju Sam, 36, from Sydney, Australia, are undergoing trial for manslaughter by gross negligence for the death of their nine-month-old child, Gloria. She died from infection caused by severe eczema after they shunned effective conventional medical treatments for homeopathy, a form of alternative medicine that has been described as pseudoscience. Articles in peer-reviewed academic journals including Social Science & Medicine have characterized homeopathy as a form of quackery. Gloria developed severe eczema at the a

Using infrared laser rangefinders and global positioning system modern technology, a survey released that the Ming Dynasty section of the Great Wall of China is , some longer than previous estimates. Historical accounts put the wall's length around , however it was not actually physically measured. The actual constructed wall measurements come to . The remaining of the defensive wall system are trenches, hills and rivers according to the survey project which traversed mountains and deserts. Sandstorms buried some sections of the wall, and

On Wednesday morning, April 8, Jews gathered around the world to recite the sacred and rare blessing of the sun (birkat hachama in Hebrew), recited only once every 28 years. The blessing is intended to celebrate the positioning of the sun, stars, and planets in the exact formation in which they were created. Although modern science seems to have disproved such a claim, the blessing is still recited and maintains much symbolic value in the Jewish faith. The sun or the shape of the sun must be seen in order to recite the "BirkatHachamah" after

Adam is a robot developed by Welsh Aberystwyth University researchers which combines artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and automation to independently conduct and analyse biological laboratory research. "What's new and exciting about Adam is [it is] the first time we've managed to show that a computer can not only think up new scientific ideas, but experimentally test them and decide whether they're true," said Ross King, a computer science professor and lead researcher at Aberystwyth University, "Adam makes up its own mind what to do. I

Noam Chomsky is a professor emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Linguistics and Philosophy. At the age of 40 he was credited with revolutionizing the field of modern linguistics. He was one of the first opponents of the Vietnam War, and is a self described Libertarian Socialist. At age 80 he continues to write books; his latest book, Hegemony or Survival, was a bestseller in non-fiction. According to the Arts and Humanities Citation Index Professor Chomsky is the eighth most cited scholar of all time. On March 13, Professor

At its headquarters in Tokyo, Japan, Honda Motor Company demonstrated on Tuesday technology which links a person's thoughts with robots. The operator wears a helmet which scans for electric currents stimulated by brain activity, but also uses infrared sensors to detect changes in blood flows in the head. The information is sent to a computer, which can then execute robotic movements such as opening the trunk of the vehicle or turning on the car's air conditioning. The commands usually take just seconds to reach the robot. Honda also released

The space shuttle Discovery landed at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Saturday, ending its thirteen-day mission to the International Space Station (ISS). The spacecraft's landing was delayed for two hours due to low-lying clouds and heavy winds. Discovery had been sent out to the ISS in order to install a new set of solar panels that would increase its power supply. “Welcome home, Discovery, after a great mission to bring the International Space Station to full power,” said an astronaut, George Zamka, radioing from the mission control

Elizabeth Mitchell, who plays Juliet Burke on the popular series Lost, has been cast in the ABC pilot for V, its remake of the classic science fiction television miniseries, according to an Entertainment Weekly report. Although ABC and Warner Bros. officials told the magazine she was only cast as a guest star, the announcement led to speculation and concern that the casting could mean Mitchell's character will be bumped off at the end of Lost's fifth season. EW reports at least two characters will be killed during this season, which ends in M

Portions of Wikileaks.org, the "uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis", has been blocked in Australia. Wikinews has also learned that three URL links to Wikipedia, a free, online encyclopedia anyone can edit, have also been blocked. Portions of the video sharing website YouTube have also been blocked. The websites are among thousands of others that the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), a government owned entity, block access to when using their blocking software. The alleged three lists,

Science fiction author Harlan Ellison announced, in a press release dated March 13, 2009, that he is suing television company CBS Paramount Television for failure to pay residuals to Ellison for the Star Trek episode "The City on the Edge of Forever". Ellison is also suing writers' union the Writers Guild of America, west (WGA), of which he is a member, for failing to diligently pursue Ellison's royalties from Paramount. In a strongly and colorfully worded press release, Ellison and his lawyer alleged that Paramount had failed to pay the autho

Scientists in Alberta, Canada have discovered a new species of dinosaur in remains left untouched for 25 years. The find has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The measurements put the fossil, the smallest discovered in North America, at one and a half feet (50 centimetres) tall, weighing in at an estimated 4 to 5 pounds (1.8-2.2 kilograms) when it was alive, about the size of today's modern domesticated cat. Scientists believe it ate things like insects and other smaller dinosaurs. It is estimated to have r

Wolfram Research Inc., makers of Mathematica and A New Kind of Science, have released a limited alpha of their new web service Wolfram Alpha. Wolfram Alpha is described by CEO Stephen Wolfram as a "computational knowledge engine." Unlike Google, Yahoo! and other traditional web search engines that rely on statistical methods for retrieving online documents, Wolfram Alpha answers factual questions in the way that Wikipedia does, except it relies on analytical methods instead of human-generated documents. Although the product is still in a limit