Japan's space agency on Saturday launched an experimental communications satellite to enable super high-speed data transmission at home and in Southeast Asia.
The domestically developed H-2A rocket carrying the satellite, Kizuna, was launched from the southern island of Tanegashima, according to a live internet broadcast by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, known as JAXA.
The satellite, equipped with two large multi-beam antennas, separated from the rocket and successfully entered its intended orbit 280 kilometres from Earth, JAXA said in a statement.
The agency said it hoped to enable data transmission of up to 1.2 gigabytes per second at a low cost across Japan and in 19 different places in Southeast Asia through Kizuna, which JAXA developed with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.
Japan has yet to join the lucrative international satellite market, and Kizuna, which should be in operation for five years, is not intended for commercial use. Its large H-2A rocket is one of the most advanced and reliable in the world, and Saturday's was its eighth straight successful launch.
Japan launched its first satellite in 1970 and has achieved several major scientific coups in space, including launching a probe that collected samples from an asteroid.
Japan's space agency on Saturday launched an experimental communications satellite to enable super high-speed data transmission at home and in Southeast Asia.
The domestically developed H-2A rocket carrying the satellite, Kizuna, was launched from the southern island of Tanegashima, according to a live internet broadcast by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, known as JAXA.
A rocket carrying the satellite lifts off from its launch pad on the island of Tanagashima on Saturday.
(Kyodo News/Associated Press) The satellite, equipped with two large multi-beam antennas, separated from the rocket and successfully entered its intended orbit 280 kilometres from Earth, JAXA said in a statement.
The agency said it hoped to enable data transmission of up to 1.2 gigabytes per second at a low cost across Japan and in 19 different places in Southeast Asia through Kizuna, which JAXA developed with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.
Japan has yet to join the lucrative international satellite market, and Kizuna, which should be in operation for five years, is not intended for commercial use. Its large H-2A rocket is one of the most advanced and reliable in the world, and Saturday's was its eighth straight successful launch.
Japan launched its first satellite in 1970 and has achieved several major scientific coups in space, including launching a probe that collected samples from an asteroid.
Continue Article
The country is racing to catch up with regional rival China, which has put astronauts in space twice since 2003, and was the third country to send a human into orbit after Russia and the United States.
Japan has since announced plans to send its first astronauts into space and set up a base on the moon by 2025.
In February 2007, the agency launched its fourth intelligence-gathering satellite amid concerns over neighbouring North Korea's nuclear weapons and missile programs.
Source: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/02/23/japan-satellite.html
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Lunar eclipse to occur Wednesday night
LOS ANGELES - The last total lunar eclipse until 2010 occurs Wednesday night, with cameo appearances by Saturn and the bright star Regulus on either side of the veiled full moon.
Skywatchers viewing through a telescope will have the added treat of seeing Saturn's handsome rings.
Weather permitting, the total eclipse can be seen from North and South America. People in Europe and Africa will be able to see it high in the sky before dawn on Thursday.
As the moonlight dims — it won't go totally dark — Saturn and Regulus will pop out and sandwich the moon. Regulus is the brightest star in the constellation Leo.
Jack Horkheimer, host of the PBS show "Star Gazer," called the event "the moon, the lord of the rings and heart of the lion eclipse."
Wednesday's event will be the last total lunar eclipse until Dec. 20, 2010. Last year there were two.
The weather could be a spoiler for many in the United States. Cloudy skies are expected for most of the Western states with a chance of snow from the heartland to the East Coast, said Stuart Seto of the National Weather Service.
"It looks like it's going to be a hard one to spot," Seto said.
A total lunar eclipse occurs when the full moon passes into Earth's shadow and is blocked from the sun's rays that normally illuminate it. During an eclipse, the sun, Earth and moon line up, leaving a darkened moon visible to observers on the night side of the planet.
The moon doesn't go black because indirect sunlight still reaches it after passing through the Earth's atmosphere. Since the atmosphere filters out blue light, the indirect light that reaches the moon transforms it into a reddish or orange tinge, depending on how much dust and cloud cover are in the atmosphere at the time.
Wednesday's total eclipse phase will last nearly an hour. Earth's shadow is expected to blot out the moon beginning around 7 p.m. on the West Coast and 10 p.m. on the East Coast. West Coast skygazers will miss the start of the eclipse because it occurs before the moon rises.
Unlike solar eclipses which require protective eyewear, lunar eclipses are safe to view with the naked eye.
Later this year, in August, there will be a total solar eclipse and a partial lunar eclipse.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080220/ap_on_sc/lunar_eclipse
Skywatchers viewing through a telescope will have the added treat of seeing Saturn's handsome rings.
Weather permitting, the total eclipse can be seen from North and South America. People in Europe and Africa will be able to see it high in the sky before dawn on Thursday.
As the moonlight dims — it won't go totally dark — Saturn and Regulus will pop out and sandwich the moon. Regulus is the brightest star in the constellation Leo.
Jack Horkheimer, host of the PBS show "Star Gazer," called the event "the moon, the lord of the rings and heart of the lion eclipse."
Wednesday's event will be the last total lunar eclipse until Dec. 20, 2010. Last year there were two.
The weather could be a spoiler for many in the United States. Cloudy skies are expected for most of the Western states with a chance of snow from the heartland to the East Coast, said Stuart Seto of the National Weather Service.
"It looks like it's going to be a hard one to spot," Seto said.
A total lunar eclipse occurs when the full moon passes into Earth's shadow and is blocked from the sun's rays that normally illuminate it. During an eclipse, the sun, Earth and moon line up, leaving a darkened moon visible to observers on the night side of the planet.
The moon doesn't go black because indirect sunlight still reaches it after passing through the Earth's atmosphere. Since the atmosphere filters out blue light, the indirect light that reaches the moon transforms it into a reddish or orange tinge, depending on how much dust and cloud cover are in the atmosphere at the time.
Wednesday's total eclipse phase will last nearly an hour. Earth's shadow is expected to blot out the moon beginning around 7 p.m. on the West Coast and 10 p.m. on the East Coast. West Coast skygazers will miss the start of the eclipse because it occurs before the moon rises.
Unlike solar eclipses which require protective eyewear, lunar eclipses are safe to view with the naked eye.
Later this year, in August, there will be a total solar eclipse and a partial lunar eclipse.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080220/ap_on_sc/lunar_eclipse
Friday, February 8, 2008
Malicious programs hit new high
The number of malicious programs found online has reached an unprecedented high, say security firms.
Reports vary but some estimates suggest there were five times as many variants of malicious programs in circulation in 2007 compared to 2006.
Security company Panda Software said it was getting more than 3,000 novel samples of so called malware every day.
Criminals pump out variants to fool anti-virus programs that work, in part, by spotting common characteristics.
Threat landscape
Security software testing organisation AV Test reported that it saw 5.49 million unique samples of malicious software in 2007 - five times more than the 972,606 it saw in 2006.
AV Test reached its total by analysing malicious programs and generating a digital fingerprint for each unique sample.
The organisation said the different ways malware can be packaged will mean some duplication in its figures, but the broad trend showed a steep rise.
The organisation uses the samples to test security programs to see how many they can spot and stop.
Panda Software said the number of malicious samples it received in 2007 was up ten fold on 2006. In a statement it said the rise represented a "malware epidemic".
Finnish security firm F-Secure said it had seen a doubling in the number of pieces of malware it detected in 2007 compared to 2006.
Most of the malicious programs detected by these security organisations are aimed at the various versions of Microsoft's Windows operating system.
The vast majority of these unique malicious programs will be made up of elements from older viruses that have been scrambled to look fresh.
"It started about nine months ago, in early 2007, we saw massive surges of new variants," said Gerhard Eschelbeck, chief technology officer at anti-spyware firm Webroot.
"There are days when we see 1,000 or more new samples," he said.
"It's a low-effort high-frequency type threat," he said. "There's no completely ground-breaking new stuff out there."
He added that hi-tech criminals were adopting several tactics to avoid being spotted by anti-virus programs which try to spot the "signature" of each malicious program they know about.
"Anti-virus relies on customers to submit samples," said Mr Eschelbeck, "but with spyware you typically do not get samples because your customers do not know they are infected."
Increasingly, security firms have turned to new techniques to combat the rise in malware variants. Some use heuristics, or rules of thumb, to spot programs that are similar rather than identical to the ones they have seen before.
Others are using behaviour blockers that shut down any program that shows malicious intent.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7232752.stm
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Obesity 'may be largely genetic'
Becoming overweight as a child is more likely to be the result of your genes than your lifestyle, claims a study.
University College London researchers examined more than 5,000 pairs of identical and non-identical twins.
Their American Journal of Clinical Nutrition study found that differences in body mass index and waist size were 77% governed by genes.
An anti-obesity group said regardless of genes, a balanced diet and exercise were vital to good health.
Children who are overweight are likely to be overweight or obese in adulthood, raising the risk of certain cancers, heart disease, stroke and diabetes later in life.
However, despite the emergence of some possible genes that contribute to obesity, there is still debate as to the extent to which we are pre-programmed to be overweight by our genetic makeup.
The study, from the Cancer Research UK Health Behaviour Research Centre at UCL, goes some way to answering that question.
Background match
Twin studies are a good way to test how far our genes or our environment influence our development.
Identical twins have exactly the same genes, while non-identical twins are genetically different, like brother and sister.
However, because they were born at the same time, and raised in the same household, they can be assumed to have roughly similar upbringing in terms of food.
This allows scientists to measure differences in weight and calculate how much of that difference can be blamed on environment, and how much on genes, even though it doesn't identify individual genes which might be linked to obesity.
They worked out that the effect of a bad environment was far less marked than the effect of a child's genes.
Professor Jane Wardle, who led the study, said: "It is wrong to place all the blame for a child's excessive weight gain on the parents - it is more likely to be due to the child's genetic susceptibility.
"These results do not mean that a child with a high complement of susceptibility genes will inevitably become overweight, but that their genetic endowment gives them a stronger predisposition."
Exercise call
Tam Fry, from the Child Growth Foundation, said that it was important that parents did not give up on healthy lifestyles.
"The gene pool hasn't changed so dramatically in the last 30 years, at a time when obesity has grown out of sight.
"Even if someone has a gene which predisposes them to obesity, it doesn't mean they will become obese if they work hard to eat healthily, and take more exercise to burn off those calories."
Sara Hiom, from Cancer Research UK, said that parents of children showing early weight gain should have additional support to keep them healthy.
"We know that obesity is an important risk factor for a number of cancers so it is important for us all to do what we can to reduce our risk of the disease by eating healthily and maintaining an active lifestyle."
In a separate piece of research, US scientists said they had found clear signs that obesity was "hard-wired" into the brain at birth.
Differences in the brains of obesity-prone rats could be spotted just weeks after birth, the journal Cell Metabolism reported.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7230065.stm
University College London researchers examined more than 5,000 pairs of identical and non-identical twins.
Their American Journal of Clinical Nutrition study found that differences in body mass index and waist size were 77% governed by genes.
An anti-obesity group said regardless of genes, a balanced diet and exercise were vital to good health.
Children who are overweight are likely to be overweight or obese in adulthood, raising the risk of certain cancers, heart disease, stroke and diabetes later in life.
However, despite the emergence of some possible genes that contribute to obesity, there is still debate as to the extent to which we are pre-programmed to be overweight by our genetic makeup.
The study, from the Cancer Research UK Health Behaviour Research Centre at UCL, goes some way to answering that question.
Background match
Twin studies are a good way to test how far our genes or our environment influence our development.
Identical twins have exactly the same genes, while non-identical twins are genetically different, like brother and sister.
However, because they were born at the same time, and raised in the same household, they can be assumed to have roughly similar upbringing in terms of food.
This allows scientists to measure differences in weight and calculate how much of that difference can be blamed on environment, and how much on genes, even though it doesn't identify individual genes which might be linked to obesity.
They worked out that the effect of a bad environment was far less marked than the effect of a child's genes.
Professor Jane Wardle, who led the study, said: "It is wrong to place all the blame for a child's excessive weight gain on the parents - it is more likely to be due to the child's genetic susceptibility.
"These results do not mean that a child with a high complement of susceptibility genes will inevitably become overweight, but that their genetic endowment gives them a stronger predisposition."
Exercise call
Tam Fry, from the Child Growth Foundation, said that it was important that parents did not give up on healthy lifestyles.
"The gene pool hasn't changed so dramatically in the last 30 years, at a time when obesity has grown out of sight.
"Even if someone has a gene which predisposes them to obesity, it doesn't mean they will become obese if they work hard to eat healthily, and take more exercise to burn off those calories."
Sara Hiom, from Cancer Research UK, said that parents of children showing early weight gain should have additional support to keep them healthy.
"We know that obesity is an important risk factor for a number of cancers so it is important for us all to do what we can to reduce our risk of the disease by eating healthily and maintaining an active lifestyle."
In a separate piece of research, US scientists said they had found clear signs that obesity was "hard-wired" into the brain at birth.
Differences in the brains of obesity-prone rats could be spotted just weeks after birth, the journal Cell Metabolism reported.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7230065.stm
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Reuters "Euros Accepted" signs pop up in New York City
NEW YORK (Reuters) - In the latest example that the U.S. dollar just ain't what it used to be, some shops in New York City have begun accepting euros and other foreign currency as payment for merchandise.
"We had decided that money is money and we'll take it and just do the exchange whenever we can with our bank," Robert Chu, owner of East Village Wines, told Reuters television.
The increasingly weak U.S. dollar, once considered the king among currencies, has brought waves of European tourists to New York with money to burn and looking to take advantage of hugely favorable exchange rates.
"We didn't realize we would take so much in and there were that many people traveling or having euros to bring in. But some days, you'd be surprised at how many euros you get," Chu said.
"Now we have to get familiar with other currencies and the (British) pound and the Canadian dollars we take," he said.
While shops in many U.S. towns on the Canadian border have long accepted Canadian currency and some stores on the Texas-Mexico border take pesos, the acceptance of foreign money in Manhattan was unheard of until recently.
Not far from Chu's downtown wine emporium, Billy Leroy of Billy's Antiques & Props said the vast numbers of Europeans shopping in the neighborhood got him thinking, "My God, I should take euros in at the store."
Leroy doesn't even bother to exchange them.
"I'm happy if I take in 200 euros, because what I do is keep them," he said. "So when I go back to Paris, I don't have to go through the nightmare of going to an exchange place."
(Reporting by Angela Moore, writing by Bill Berkrot; Editing by Doina Chiacu)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080206/us_nm/newyork_euros_dc
"We had decided that money is money and we'll take it and just do the exchange whenever we can with our bank," Robert Chu, owner of East Village Wines, told Reuters television.
The increasingly weak U.S. dollar, once considered the king among currencies, has brought waves of European tourists to New York with money to burn and looking to take advantage of hugely favorable exchange rates.
"We didn't realize we would take so much in and there were that many people traveling or having euros to bring in. But some days, you'd be surprised at how many euros you get," Chu said.
"Now we have to get familiar with other currencies and the (British) pound and the Canadian dollars we take," he said.
While shops in many U.S. towns on the Canadian border have long accepted Canadian currency and some stores on the Texas-Mexico border take pesos, the acceptance of foreign money in Manhattan was unheard of until recently.
Not far from Chu's downtown wine emporium, Billy Leroy of Billy's Antiques & Props said the vast numbers of Europeans shopping in the neighborhood got him thinking, "My God, I should take euros in at the store."
Leroy doesn't even bother to exchange them.
"I'm happy if I take in 200 euros, because what I do is keep them," he said. "So when I go back to Paris, I don't have to go through the nightmare of going to an exchange place."
(Reporting by Angela Moore, writing by Bill Berkrot; Editing by Doina Chiacu)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080206/us_nm/newyork_euros_dc
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