Miscellaneous

Washington, Nov 17: Scientists have discovered a “great valley” in the southern hemisphere of Mercury, providing more evidence that the small planet closest to the sun is shrinking. Scientists used images from NASA"s Messenger spacecraft to create a high-resolution topographic map that revealed the broad valley — more than 1,000 kilometres long — extending into the Rembrandt basin, one of the

Beijing, Nov 16: For the eight consecutive year, China has retained the top spot in the list of the world's fastest supercomputers for its 'Sunway TaihuLight' which can perform 93 million billion calculations per second, media report said today. TaihuLight, the massive supercomputer, built entirely using processors designed and made in China has been crowned as the world's fastest, state-run

Beijing, Nov 16: India has slipped two spots compared to last year in English proficiency rankings while China has improved its ranking, according to a new report. India is placed at 22nd spot in the new report released by Swedish education company EF Education First here yesterday. In 2015, India was placed at 20th spot by the same study. Meanwhile, General English proficiency in China has

New York, Nov 15: An American woman has been arrested for keeping three tigers, a skunk, a cougar, a fox and several monkeys at home. Trisha Meyer, 34, lived in Houston with her 14-year-old daughter as well as the animals. After a month-long investigation, police charged her with theft and child endangerment on Monday, reports Xinhua news agency. Meyer had permits for the tigers but her keeping of

New York, Nov 14: Facebook Inc chief executive Mark Zuckerberg again rejected the idea that the social network affected the US presidential election, saying late Saturday it is "extremely unlikely" news hoaxes changed the outcome. Ensnared in a string of content controversies in recent months, Facebook has insisted that it is a technology company, not a media firm. But scrutiny of the site has

Melbourne, Nov 14: In a bid to promote languages other than English, Australia today announced national rollout of an online programme for pre-schoolers to learn foreign languages, including Hindi, from next year onwards. The Early Learning Languages Australia (ELLA) Polyglots applications will help students and their teachers to learn new languages. According to Minister for Education and

Tokyo, Nov 13:The world's biggest dinosaur robots, including a human-controlled Tyrannosaurus Rex, have been unveiled by a Japanese company which plans to build a massive Jurassic style theme park. The company unveiled a huge robotic T-Rex at a hotel in Tokyo. The realistic robot emerged from the mist into the event hall, roaring loudly and stomping towards the audience. The creature even

San Francisco, Nov 12: Facebook accidentally declared its founder Mark Zuckerberg and many other users dead, acknowledging after fixing the problem that it had committed a "terrible error." "For a brief period today, a message meant for memorialized profiles was mistakenly posted to other accounts," a Facebook spokesperson told AFP. "This was a terrible error that we have now fixed." Media reports

Beijing, Nov 10: China on Thursday launched a navigation satellitewhich will conduct in-orbit experiments using pulsar detectors to demonstrate new technologies. The X-ray pulsar navigation satellite, weighing more than 200 kilogrammes, was launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the country's northwest. It was carried by a Long March-11 rocket, the 239th flight mission by a Long

Donald Trump has become America's first billionaire businessman to serve as president. But he is following in the footsteps of other moguls who have jumped into the political fray elsewhere in the world. The track record for these businessmen-turned-political leaders is decidedly mixed. Some have translated their private sector acumen into success in government. Others had tenures marked by