Kenyan elephant numbers plummet by 1000 in four years

IT'S a case of up then down for Kenya's second largest population of elephants. After a promising growth spurt, the elephants are now dying faster than they are being born. The decline is being blamed on illegal poaching, driven by Asia's demand for ivory. ...

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China's disabled face discrimination in finding work

BEIJING: While the plight of the disabled in China has improved significantly over the years, many still face discrimination at work.The lack of job opportunities and job discrimination are cited as the main challenges faced by the disabled in China.There is an estimated 83 million disabled yet their unemployment rate in 2010 stood at 8.6 percent, twice as high as the national average.Twenty-seven-year-old...

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Handcuffs that give you an electric shock?

Progress?(Credit:Patent Bolt)Sometimes an invention comes along that makes you excited about the future.For a long time, it seems that handcuffs have been stuck in the movies of old. They restrain you, but, odd for our interactive world, that's all they seem to do.Might I tempt you toward futuristic handcuffs that will offer you a small involuntary judder?I am grateful to Gizmodo for discovering that...

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Plants Grow Fine Without Gravity

When researchers sent plants to the International Space Station in 2010, the flora wasn't meant to be decorative. Instead, the seeds of these small, white flowers—called Arabidopsis thaliana—were the subject of an experiment to study how plant roots developed in a weightless environment.Gravity is an important influence on root growth, but the scientists found that their space plants didn't...

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Dallas Cowboys Player Arrested in Teammate's Death

Dallas Cowboys nose tackle Joshua Price-Brent was arrested on an intoxication manslaughter charge today after a single vehicle roll-over killed his passenger, Jerry Brown Jr., who had been a linebacker on the team's practice squad and his former teammate at the University of Illinois.Price-Brent, 24, was allegedly speeding "well above" the posted 45 mph speed limit at about...

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Today on New Scientist: 9 December 2012

Climate talks stumbling towards a deal As the Qatar climate summit looks set to run into the weekend, we look at some key issues, such as compensation for poor countries harmed by climate changeTwin spacecraft map the mass of the man in the moon Two satellites called Ebb and Flow have revealed the fine variations in the moon's surface with the most detailed gravity map everJust cut down on...

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Dollar climbs on positive US jobs data

WASHINGTON: The dollar headed higher against the euro Friday, helped by surprise numbers in the November US jobs report, though the details still painted a less buoyant picture than the headline numbers.At 2200 GMT, the euro was trading at $1.2928, compared to $1.2969 Thursday.The US Labour Department reported the unemployment rate fell to 7.7 per cent in November, instead of a rise to...

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HP to Apple: Hey, we already make PCs in the U.S.

HP said 100 percent of the workstations that it sells in the U.S. are assembled in the U.S.(Credit:HP said 100 percent of the workstations that it sells in the U.S. are assembled in the U.S.)If Made In USA is a feature, Hewlett-Packard's got Apple beat. In effect, that's what HP said today. "Lots of noise...about Apple moving Mac production back to the U.S.... [We] wanted to offer HP's story," said...

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Plants Grow Fine Without Gravity

When researchers sent plants to the International Space Station in 2010, the flora wasn't meant to be decorative. Instead, the seeds of these small, white flowers—called Arabidopsis thaliana—were the subject of an experiment to study how plant roots developed in a weightless environment.Gravity is an important influence on root growth, but the scientists found that their space plants didn't...

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Baby Gabriel's Mother Sentenced to Prison

Elizabeth Johnson -- who at one point admitted to killing her son, the missing infant Gabriel Johnson, before saying she gave him away -- told a judge she "deserved the maximum" sentence, before receiving a prison term of 5.25 years, half of the max.In October, Johnson, 26, was found guilty of custodial interference and unlawful imprisonment stemming from the disappearance of...

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Space bigwigs offer billion-dollar private moon trips

Robots aren't the only ones heading to the moon. The first private company offering regular trips to the lunar surface plans to start flights in 2020, shuttling people two at a time on exploratory missions. However, with an expected price tag of $1.4 billion per flight, or around $750 million per person, the trek...

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ECB forecast, rate hints send euro lower

NEW YORK: The euro only barely rebounded against the dollar in late trade Thursday, after plunging on the European Central Bank's sharp cut in its eurozone growth forecast for next year.The euro lost more than one cent after the ECB forecast that the euro area economy will shrink by 0.3 percent in 2013, instead of growing by 0.5 percent as previously estimated.Also pressing it lower were...

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Samsung on peace with Apple: 'the ball's in their court'

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Near the end of a more than three hour hearing between Apple and Samsung, a California judge once again asked both sides to put an end to things."It's time for global peace," U.S. District Court judge Lucy Koh urged both companies with a sense of exasperation."Is there anything the court can do? I'm more than willing to issue orders," she continued. "It would be good for consumers,...

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Space Pictures This Week: Lunar Gravity, Venusian Volcano

Cassiopeia’s BubbleImage courtesy T.A. Rector, UAA/WIYN/NOAO/NSFA new camera called the One Degree Imager, located at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona, is responsible...

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Bodies Believed to Be Missing Iowa Cousins

Authorities believe two bodies found by hunters in Iowa this week are Lyric Cook and Elizabeth Collins, two young cousins who vanished in July."At this time, law enforcement is confident, based upon evidence at the scene and preliminary investigation, that the bodies are those of Lyric Cook and Elizabeth Collins," Capt. Rick Abben, chief deputy of the Black Hawk County Sheriff's...

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Chemical key to cell division revealed

In each of our cells, most of the genetic material is packaged safely within the nucleus, which is protected by a double membrane. The biochemistry behind how this membrane transforms when cells divide has finally been unravelled, offering insights that could provide new ways of fighting cancer and some rare genetic disorders. ...

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Australian station plugs "biggest royal prank ever"

SYDNEY: Sydney radio station 2Day FM Thursday hailed "the biggest royal prank ever" after two of its presenters got through to a nurse treating Prince William's pregnant wife Kate at a London hospital.The embarrassing hoax Tuesday made worldwide headlines and was condemned by the private King Edward VII's Hospital, which said it took "patient confidentiality extremely seriously".Presenters...

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FTC opposes Motorola injunction request against Apple products

The Federal Trade Commission is lending its support to Apple, arguing that Motorola's attempts to ban the sale of iPads and iPhones allegedly infringing on Motorola patents in a now-dismissed case "risks harming competition, innovation, and consumers." The U.S. trade agency made the arguments in an amicus brief (PDF) filed today with the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, explaining that owners...

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A 2020 Rover Return to Mars?

NASA is so delighted with Curiosity's Mars mission that the agency wants to do it all again in 2020, with the possibility of identifying and storing some rocks for a future sample return to Earth.The formal announcement, made at the American Geophysical Union's annual fall meeting, represents a triumph for the NASA Mars program, which had fallen on hard times due to steep budget cuts....

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Bodies Found in Hunt for Missing Iowa Cousins

Nearly five months after Iowa cousins Lyric Cook and Elizabeth Collins disappeared, the girls' families have been told two bodies were found by hunters in a wooded area, though the identities of the bodies have not been confirmed, authorities said.Capt. Rick Abben of the Black Hawk County Sheriff's Office said at a press conference this afternoon that the bodies are being transported...

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When is a baby too premature to save?

It was never easy, but trying to decide whether to save extremely premature babies just got harder. A study called EPICure compared the fates of babies born 22 to 26 weeks into pregnancy in the UK in 1995 with similar babies born in 2006. In...

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Australian economy grows 0.5% in Sep quarter

SYDNEY: Australia's economy grew 0.5 per cent in the three months to September and 3.1 per cent from a year earlier, data showed Wednesday, with the key mining industry powering on despite China's slowdown.The Australian Bureau of Statistics said gross domestic product (GDP) grew a seasonally-adjusted 0.5 per cent in the September quarter, in line with expectations, driven by the mining...

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Uber on the road to reconciliation in D.C. with new legislation

Uber's smartphone personal vehicle service.(Credit:Uber)Embattled privatecar service Uber appears to be making inroads in Washington, D.C.After a series of conflicts with regulators in the nation's capital, the quickly growing startup that lets people request rides via their smartphones scored a victory yesterday when the city council unanimously approved a legislative framework for "digital dispatch"...

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North Star Closer to Earth Than Thought

The North Star has been a guiding light for countless generations of navigators. But a new study reveals that its distance to Earth may have been grossly overestimated.In fact, the North Star—also called Polaris—is 30 percent closer to our solar system than previously thought, at about 323 light-years away, according to an international team who studied the star's light output.Using Russia's...

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Tasting DNA-Altered Salmon That May Hit US Plates

Deep in the rain forests of Panama, in a secret location behind padlocked gates, barbed-wire fences and over a rickety wooden bridge, grows what could be the most debated food product of our time.It may look like the 1993 hit movie "Jurassic Park," but at this real-life freshwater farm scientists are altering the genes not of dinosaurs -- but of fish.They are growing a new DNA-altered...

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