NEW YEAR: Time will stand still for one second 31/12/2008
The world's official timekeeper has decided to add an extra second to the year 2008, one second before midnight GMT tonight, in order to adjust our clocks to solar time. Time will therefore stand still for exactly one second....
INTERNET - USA: Year-end online sales shrink for first time in eight years 31/12/2008
For the first time after eight years of growth, online retail spending in the United States is down for the holiday period of November 1 - December 23, compared to last year. Sales, which reached $25.5 billion, were down 3%....
Blind man navigates obstacle course perfectly 24/12/2008
In a recent experiment, a completely blind patient navigated a complicated obstacle course flawlessly, providing researchers with an opportunity to assess just what kind of 'sight' is possible without a functioning visual cortex. The ?...
New family tree sheds light on origins of species 'hotspots' 24/12/2008
A new family tree of proteas (commonly known as sugarbushes) reveals that new species of these plants are appearing three times faster in biodiversity hotspots in Australia and South Africa than in the rest of the world. The findings, publ...
A new vision for the Internet 24/12/2008
The EU-funded project CASAGRAS ('Coordination and support action for global RFID-related activities and standardisation') aims to provide a framework of foundation studies to assist the European Commission and the global community in ?...
AAAS annual meeting, Chicago, USA 24/12/2008
The 2009 annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) will be held from 12 to 16 February 2009 in Chicago, USA. The theme of this year's meeting is 'Our planet and its life: origins and futures'. ?...
Course on child health and the environment, Stockholm, Sweden 24/12/2008
A course dedicated to the link between child health and the environment is scheduled to take place from 23 to 27 March 2009 in Stockholm, Sweden. The objective of the course is to provide state-of-the-art knowledge about the environmental ...
A new vision for the Internet 23/12/2008
The EU-funded project CASAGRAS (Coordination and Support Action for Global RFID-related Activities and Standardisation) aims to provide a framework of foundation studies to assist the European Commission and the global community in definin...
Culture vultures go beyond, way beyond Google 23/12/2008
European researchers are pushing online culture and heritage research way beyond Google by using a smart search system that is multilingual, multimedia and optimised for cultural heritage. Better yet, this promising system has wide applicat...
Understanding how infectious diseases spread depends on unlocking secrets held in existing data 23/12/2008
Often experiments are needed to make scientific progress, but sometimes the answers lie in data already collected, requiring new analysis tools to unlock the secrets. This applies to infectious disease transmission, main topic of a recent w...
