"Missing link" found

Yesterday, at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, a revolutionary discovery -- one that will stand as a milestone for paleontologists and evolutionists everywhere -- was announced. Scientists based at the University of Oslo have discovered “Ida,” also known as Darwinius masillae, a 47-million-year-old fossil that has been proclaimed the “missing link” in connecting human skeletal structure to early mammals.

Scientists found Ida in Messel Pit, Germany and soon found out that she is about twenty times older than most fossils related to human evolution. What makes Ida so special is that despite her classification as an early prosimian (lemurs), she has certain undeniable human characteristics such as forward facing eyes and even an opposable thumb.

This is an exciting and validating day for scientists everywhere. Broadcaster and naturalist Sir David Attenborough has said: “This little creature is going to show us our connection with all the rest of the mammals.”

Head on over to The Link for pictures, video and more information about Ida and the team of researchers behind her. Also don’t miss what’s up at the open source journal PLoS One to read about the scientists’ findings.
News link: http://blog.ted.com/2009/05/darwin_validate.php
Photo link: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/05/090519-missing-link-found.html

Now, software that allows laptops to shout for help when stolen!

London Mar 2 (ANI): Scientists have developed a computer program that allows laptops to shout for help if they have been stolen.
The program, called Retriever, has been developed by a software company called Front Door Software Corporation, reports the Telegraph.
Retriever enables users to display alerts on the missing computer's screen and even to set a spoken message such as a shout or a warning.
Tracking software for stolen laptops has been on the market for some time, but this is understood to be the first that allows owners to activate recorded messages, according to The Times.
Owners must report their laptop missing by logging on to a website, which sends a message to the computer, triggering on-screen messages of warning to the thief and voice alerts.
The 21-pound software, designed by the Colorado-based firm, also collects information if the stolen laptop is being used to access the Internet so that the police can be alerted to its location. (ANI)

http://in.news.yahoo.com/139/20090302/862/ttc-now-software-that-allows-laptops-to.html

cricket live

UAE is building network of driverless electric taxis

United Arab Emirates, land awash in petroleum, why are you so ahead of us with your gasoline-free Masdar City (near Abu Dhabi)? Well, the Emirates are awash in another key ingredient — petrodollars. But look at what they’ve done with all that cash: PRT (personal rapid transit), driverless electric taxis that take to the streets later this year. When the system’s fully built, planners say the podcars will be able to deliver riders within 100 meters of any location in the city. The whole network of tracks for the cars will be two stories beneath street level.

The cost? Its creators say the system will pay for itself by charging riders the same price they’d pay for an equivalent taxi ride. Similar podcars are in use at Heathrow Airport near London, but never have they been deployed on such a city-wide scale.
http://www.gadgetted.com/msn/?p=3998

NASA, Google launch Mars exploration

WASHINGTON: NASA and Google announced the release of a new Mars mode in Google Earth that brings to everyone's desktop a high-resolution, three-dimensional view of the red planet. Besides providing a rich, immersive three dimensional view of Mars that will aid public understanding of Mars science, the new mode, Google Mars 3D, also gives researchers a platform for sharing data similar to what Google Earth provides for Earth scientists. The mode enables users to fly virtually through enormous canyons and scale huge mountains on Mars that are much larger than any found on Earth. Users also can explore the planet through the eyes of the Mars rovers and other Mars missions, providing a unique perspective of the entire planet. Users can see some of the latest satellite imagery from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and other probes orbiting the planet. Viewers can learn about new discoveries and explore indexes of available Mars imagery. The new Mars mode also allows users to add their own 3D content to the Mars map to share with the world. The announcement is the latest benefit from a Space Act Agreement that NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, signed with Google in November 2006. Under its terms, NASA and Google agreed to collaborate to make NASA's data sets available to the world.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Health__Science/Science/NASA_Google_launch_Mars_exploration_/articleshow/4068689.cms

Pregnant fossil shows how early whales evolved

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Fossils from two early whales -- a male and a rare pregnant female -- shed light on how these ancestors to modern whales made the leap from walking on land to ruling the sea.
The fetal remains, found with the 47.5 million-year-old pregnant female, were positioned head down, suggesting these creatures gave birth on land, while spending much of the rest of their time in the water.
Initially, the tiny fetal teeth stumped University of Michigan paleontologist Philip Gingerich, whose team discovered the fossils in Pakistan in 2000 and 2004.
"When I first saw the small teeth in the field, I thought we were dealing with a small adult whale, but then we continued to expose the specimen and found ribs that seemed too large to go with those teeth," Gingerich, whose study appears in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS ONE.
The fetal skeleton is the first specimen of the extinct whale group known as Archaeoceti, and the find represents a new species named Maiacetus inuus, a hybrid of the words for "mother whale" and Inuus, the name of a Roman fertility god.
The fetus was positioned head down like other land animals, allowing it to begin breathing right away. This suggests the group had not yet made the leap to giving birth in the water like modern whales, which are born tail first to allow them to start swimming right after birth.
The 8.5-foot (2.59-meter) male, which was collected in the same fossil beds as the female, is about 12 percent bigger and had fangs that were 20 percent larger than those of the female. Gingerich said these well developed choppers suggest the creatures spent a large portion of their time catching and eating fish.
Both fossils had four flipper-like legs that could have supported their weight on land, but only for short distances, suggesting these whales likely came on shore to mate, rest and give birth, Gingerich said.
"They clearly were tied to shore," Gingerich said. "They were living at the land-sea interface and going back and forth."
He said the Maiacetus fossils appear to represent an intermediate whale form, showing the evolution from land-dwelling to aquatic creatures.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/scienceNewsMolt/idUKTRE5130CQ20090204

Microsoft Launches Windows 7 in Hindi

Microsoft, as a part of its efforts to overcome the language barrier to computing, has showcased a variety of custom made products directed specifically at the vernacular language market - a market that has been largely left untapped till now.The new initiatives include Language Interface Packs (LIPs) in 12 Indian languages - Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Hindi, Kannada, Konkani, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Tamil and Telugu - for MS Office and Windows. The company has also announced a total of 45 additional virtual keyboards for these languages. Even Windows Live has not been spared the treatment with it being made available in as many as seven Indian languages. These languages are Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu.There's more in store for developers as well. Directed at vernacular language developers, it has launched the Captions Language Interface Pack (or CLIP) in Hindi, Malayalam, Oriya, and Tamil. CLIP uses a tool tip caption to display translations for user interface items in Visual Studio 2008 making it the first ever instance of Microsoft releasing a tool specifically to help students and beginner developers in India use the product in their own language. The most talked about part of the sneak peek was a rather cool beta version of Windows 7 in Hindi, one of the eight global languages the Operating System (Beta) was released in recently. We would love to have a go at this one!

http://www.techtree.com/India/News/Microsoft_Launches_Windows_7_in_Hindi/551-98498-643.html