Dagar and Zhou show the daily struggle with tainted or inadequate water in India and China, a growing shortage that the World Bank says will hamper growth in the world’s fastest- growing major economies. It …

Synthetic biology is a field with an audacious but ultimately utilitarian goal: to redesign the building blocks of life to serve the needs of humanity. It is also an endeavour that challenges clear-cut definitions of …

Other synthetic biology researchers, while impressed by Venter’s technical achievement, are restrained about its implications, both practical and philosophical. They were already well aware that there is no magical Wizard of Oz behind life’s curtain, …

A scientist at the University of Reading has become the first person in the world to be infected by a computer virus. … Read more

China’s one child policy may succeed in keeping its population pegged below 1.5 billion mark by 2050 but the country may end up with over 350 million pensioners as one out of every four people …

Donor corneas are a rarity: In Germany alone, each year roughly 7,000 patients wait for that miniscule piece of tissue. An implant made of plastic may soon offer patients — especially those facing their last …

Scientists in China have succeeded in teleporting information between photons further than ever before. They transported quantum information over a free space distance of 16 km (10 miles), much further than the few hundred meters …

US legislators have accused Canada, China, Mexico, Russia and Spain of “robbing Americans” by failing to crack down on piracy of movies, music, videogames and other copyrighted works. … Read more

Chicago and Montreal researchers studying the lowly lamprey eel have identified an overlooked nervous system pathway running parallel to known brainstem locomotor command circuitry in vertebrates such as birds, fishes and mammals. … Read …

Google has refused to rule out extending controversial facial recognition technology, despite being hit by a storm of complaints over privacy. The internet search giant already offers one facial recognition feature through its Picasa photo …

Google Inc. believes it has come up with the technology to unite Web surfing with channel surfing on TVs. To reach its goal, Google has joined forces with Sony Corp., Intel Corp., and Logitech International. …

Like Greece, our fiscal path is unsustainable for as far as the eye can see. Our debt has surged far above what we have normally been able to manage. And unless fiscal policy changes, it …

Researchers at Yale School of Medicine have discovered a method to select sperm with the highest DNA integrity in a bid to improve male fertility. The method is comparable to that of the egg’s natural …

In a new book written by David Kirkpatrick called, The Facebook Effect, it seems Zuckerberg discovered a pattern during one of his experiments that he used to see if he could predict the love lives …

Kaiten-zushi or “conveyor belt” sushi is not new. It was developed in Japan in 1958. But over the past couple of years, the addition of RFID chips has raised the process of snatching a …

Last fall, Apple’s head of Internet services began making the Hollywood rounds with a proposal to launch a subscription television service that would offer a package of broadcast shows for $10 a month. The service …

Google Inc., under investigation in Germany for the data-gathering practices of its Street View mapping service, now faces probes in Spain, France and Italy for possible violation of privacy laws. … Read more

In a change from its cautious approach in the past, the National Academy of Sciences on Wednesday called for taxes on carbon emissions, a cap-and-trade program for such emissions or some other strong action to …

Sequencing DNA could get a lot faster and cheaper — and thus closer to routine use in clinical diagnostics – thanks to a new method developed by a research team based at Boston University. The …

An important weakness has been discovered in the technology of quantum key distribution (QKD), which is increasingly being used by military and government to secure sensitive communications. … Read more

If mankind creates a microbial life form are we playing God? And, if we are, is that wrong? There is a lot going on in the emerging field of synthetic biology that makes answering these …

Scientists have created synthetic life in the laboratory, in a feat of ingenuity that pushes the boundaries of humankind’s ability to manipulate the natural world. Craig Venter, the biologist who led the effort to …

Modern anthropological research can provide useful and important perspectives on climate change as a cultural crisis in the contemporary world, and contribute to a cultural theory of action and activism. … Read more

Brazil is hoping an effort to track its huge cattle population will jump-start the country’s fledgling chipmaking industry. … Read more

Two of the lighting industry’s three biggest manufacturers, Osram Sylvania and Philips, plan to sell energy-efficient LED bulbs this year that can replace a 60-watt bulb, the most commonly used incandescent lamp. … Read more