Weaver ants help flowers get the best pollinator

MOST flowers don't want pesky ants hanging around scaring away would-be pollinators. Not so the Singapore rhododendron - the first flower found to recruit ants to chase poor pollinators away.

Francisco Gonzálvez at EEZA, the arid zone experimental station in Almeria, Spain, and colleagues studied flowers frequented by large carpenter bees (Xylocopa) and a much smaller solitary bee, Nomia. The larger bees seemed to be better pollinators - setting far more fruit than the smaller bees.

The team found that Nomia avoided plants with weaver ant patrols, and when they did dare to land, were chased away or ambushed by the ants. Being so much bigger, carpenter bees weren't troubled by the ants (Journal of Ecology, DOI:10.1111/1365-2745.12006).

Plants usually produce chemical repellents to scare off insects that prey on their pollinators. But lab tests suggested Gonzálvez's flowers were actively attracting weaver ants, although how remains a mystery. The team thinks carpenter bees choose flowers with ants so they don't have to compete with Nomia.

Michael Kaspari of the University of Oklahoma in Norman says this is a new kind of plant-ant interaction, and that the team makes a "strong case" for the rhododendron manipulating the behaviour of weaver ants to ward off inefficient pollinators.

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State funeral held for former Indian PM Gujral

NEW DELHI: Former Indian prime minister Inder Kumar Gujral, who engineered a thaw in India's relationship with arch rival Pakistan, was given a funeral with full state honours on Saturday.

Gujral's body, draped in the tricolour Indian flag, was brought to the cremation site from his New Delhi home in a flower-laden gun-carriage accompanied by military personnel who fired a 21-gun salute.

India's President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh attended the ceremony held amid prayers on the banks of the Yamuna River.

Gujral, who served as prime minister in a coalition government from April 1997 to March 1998, died on Friday aged 92 from a lung infection.

India's newspapers were full of praise for Gujral on Saturday with the Indian Express calling him a "gentleman-politician" for his intellect and diplomacy.

The Hindustan Times hailed him for going "the extra mile to bring peace" in South Asia's troubled neighbourhood.

As premier, Gujral sought to improve India's strained ties with Pakistan, saying it was time for the two nations to leave the past behind and forge a new relationship.

He was famous for propounding the "Gujral Doctrine", a foreign policy approach based on peaceful accommodation that argued India should treat its neighbours with generosity.

Gujral, whose brother Satish ranks among India's most prominent artists and architects, is survived by two sons, Naresh, who is a member of parliament, and Vishal. His wife, a poetess, died last year.

Gujral was born in the city of Jhelum, Punjab (now a part of Pakistan), into a family of Congress party workers.

He began his career in politics as a student leader and member of the underground Communist Party of India. Gujral was arrested in 1942 and jailed for his involvement in the anti-colonial Quit India movement.

He joined the ruling Congress party after India won independence from Britain and rose through the ranks to become minister of information and broadcasting under prime minister Indira Gandhi from 1969-71 and 1972-75.

But Gujral ran foul of the party when he refused to censor radio broadcasts during the state of emergency imposed by Gandhi in 1975.

Gujral left the Congress party in the 1980s and joined the socialist Janata Dal, serving twice as India's foreign minister before being appointed prime minister in a coalition government in 1997.

Singh said as premier Gujral had set an example of "grace under pressure, of composure in difficult circumstances and of steadfastness to principles".

- AFP/ck

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Android-based Ouya game console shipping soon

Early birds get their hands on Ouya after December 28.

(Credit:
Ouya)

Let the gamers,
Android nuts, and open-source geeks rejoice -- the Ouya is shipping on time!

Well, at least the developers' consoles are, that is. Ouya first garnered attention by raising more than $8.5 million on Kickstarter this summer to create an inexpensive, open-source, Android-based game system.

Early supporters of the crowdfunding campaign got first dibs on a finished Ouya for as little as $95, but those aren't scheduled to ship until March. However, the hundreds of folks who ponied up $699 or more for a first-run, rooted developers' system with early SDK access get to experience Christmas twice in the same week when their consoles ship on December 28.

If creators of the Ouya do fulfill their original commitment to ship the dev kits in December, they'll deserve kudos. Plenty of other Kickstarter-funded projects have run into snags meeting original timelines and commitments -- the Pebble watch is now months late on its original ship date and still working out production issues, for example.

Ouya points out that all consoles will actually be dev kits, but the late December batch is a special group that cost more to produce and give big early backers a first crack at working with the platform. The only catch for developers is that at least some part of the game play has to be available for free, be it a demo or the whole shebang.

Ouya is also working on its own ODK (Ouya development kit) that game designers will be able to access. At the same time, Ouya says it's been busy optimizing Android Jelly Bean for gameplay on a large screen.

If Ouya takes off, 2013 could be a year in which a certain segment of the population gets even less exposure to the sun than in the past.

If you missed out on the first Ouya rush, there's still a chance to get in on the ground floor noob level. Ouya is giving away 10 developers' consoles next month.

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Photos: Kilauea Lava Reaches the Sea

• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Into the Sea

  Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters

  A spectacular natural phenomenon was on display early this week as lava from a vent in Hawaii's Kilauea volcano flowed into the ocean, sending up plumes of steam as it made contact with the waves.

  Though lava can still be viewed from Kalapana near the Big Island's Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, ocean entry is no longer occurring, according to the National Park Service.

  Published November 30, 2012

  
  











• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Sea of Fire

  
  Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters
  

  The lava traveled 7 miles (11 kilometers) from Kilauea’s Pu'u O'o vent to the ocean. When lava reaches the water, it cools and hardens, forming a lava delta that can be dangerous to nearby onlookers, according to Reuters.

  The news service reported that no communities on the Big Island were threatened by the lava flow.

  Published November 30, 2012

  
  











• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Volcanic Flare

  
  Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters
  

  A burst of volcanic activity erupts from Kilauea’s crater in Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park on November 27.

  The volcano has been erupting continuously for nearly 30 years. No major damage has been suffered by a town since 1986, according to Reuters.

  Published November 30, 2012

  
  











• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Fiery Encounter

  Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters

  “Ocean entries are beautiful but dangerous,” said Janet Babb, spokeswoman for the U.S. Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, in a statement reported by Reuters. She warned that the steam could be more hazardous than it appears.

  Published November 30, 2012

  
  











• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Point of Contact

  
  Photograph by Matt Northam, My Shot
  

  A plume of smoke billows where lava from Kilauea meets the sea in this aerial photo taken November 27.

  Published November 30, 2012

  
  











• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Photograph by Peter Vancoillie, Your Shot

  Published November 30, 2012

  
  

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Wild West: Calif. Braces for More Stormy Weather

Northern California is bracing for more stormy weather this weekend after heavy rain and strong winds knocked out power to thousands, delayed flights, tied up traffic and flooded some roadways.

After the second in a series of storms slammed the region Friday, scattered showers are expected Saturday before a third storm strikes Sunday morning, according to the National Weather Service.

A flash flood watch will remain in effect for most of the San Francisco Bay Area and the Santa Cruz Mountains throughout the weekend. The storms could cause rock and mud slides in areas already saturated and affected by wildfires this summer, said NWS forecaster Diana Henderson in Monterey.

"It's not a super storm by any measure, but this is pretty significant," Henderson said. "We should see periods of moderate to heavy rains."

Friday's stormy weather may be behind the death of a Pacific Gas & Electric worker in West Sacramento who was killed after his truck crashed into a traffic signal pole during the stormy weather.

Friday's storm delayed flights at San Francisco International Airport and knocked down a large tree that smashed a car and blocked a busy street for hours in the city's affluent Pacific Heights neighborhood.

AP Photo/The Press Democrat, Kent Porter

The North Bay was seemingly hit the hardest, as parts of Sonoma County received more than 7 inches of rain and areas in Napa County received nearly 6 inches, Henderson said.

With rain expected all weekend long, Tony Negro, a contractor from Penngrove, Calif., in Sonoma County, said he is worried about water flooding his workshop.

"I'm on my way to get some sand bags," he said.

Thousands of people were without power in that area after an outage that also affected the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. The suspension span of the bridge was briefly in the dark as traffic was backed up longer than usual because of rain and strong wind gusts.

Also, a mudslide shut down a stretch of Highway 84 east of Fremont, the California Highway Patrol reported. There was no estimate on when it would reopen.

In Sacramento, an empty big-rig jackknifed in the southbound lanes and struck the median divider on Interstate 5 south of downtown Friday morning, the CHP said.

"I would definitely say it's weather-related. The reports came in that he hit a water puddle and hydroplaned and couldn't correct," CHP Officer Mike Bradley said. "A lot of high-profile vehicles, especially the lighter ones, are getting windblown and having some problems maintaining their lane."

No one was injured in the crash on I-5, California's main north-south highway. But a second vehicle also was damaged and had to be towed, while workers cleaned up diesel fuel spilled from the tractor-trailer.

In West Sacramento, police say wet conditions may have been a factor when a PG&E worker died after he lost control of his vehicle and slammed into a traffic pole. PG&E workers at the scene told KCRA-TV that the driver had been working overtime and was returning from Clarksburg in Yolo County.

In Los Angeles, conditions were wet and gloomy as downtown skyscrapers disappeared in low-hanging clouds.

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Syria again disconnects nation from the internet

Paul Marks, chief technology correspondent

On 29 November, three days after it was slated for dropping cluster bombs in a playground, Bashar Al-Assad's embattled regime in Syria has severed all external connections to the internet, cutting the nation off from cyberspace. Many cellphone networks are also down.

It's possible the outages have been ordered to stymie transmission of news reports of fresh atrocities - but the Syrian government insists that a rebel attack on a key internet backbone cable caused the severance of services.

That's unlikely, says internet analytics outfit CloudFlare.com, owing to the systematic way it appeared to have been taken down. The video above shows the internet paths out of Syria closing down, one at a time. And at 01:00 GMT on Friday the New Hampshire-based traffic analyst Renesys said starkly: "In the global routing table, all 84 of Syria's IP address blocks have become unreachable, effectively removing the country from the internet."

The internet activist collective Anonymous claims to have undertaken its own analysis and has vowed revenge for the outage on behalf of the internet itself, rather than Syria's rebels: it has started a takedown programme targetting Syrian government websites around the world.

If Al-Assad's operatives did indeed take down the net (and they have done it before) they are failing to learn from Egypt's experience: a five-day internet outage in January 2011 did ousted president Hosni Mubarak no good at all. As Egyptian activist Wael Ghonim said later that year, technology can help to foment revolutions - but with or without it, it's the will of the people that's likely to prevail.

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Badminton: Olympic scandal prompts rule revamp

BANGKOK: The Badminton World Federation on Friday announced changes to Olympic doubles rules following a match-throwing scandal at the London Games, but said it would take no further action against coaches.

It said the new system, which will be introduced for the Rio Olympics in 2016, would "ensure such a regrettable spectacle is never witnessed in badminton again".

The BWF said that in the future, following the group stage, all pairs finishing second in their groups would be placed into a second draw to determine who they face in the knockout phase.

But pairs topping their group stage would have fixed positions equivalent to seeded placings in the knockout stage.

"This will eliminate any player's thoughts about actively trying to lose a match or matches, irrespective of other match results. Such a draw process can easily and effectively be made just after all group matches have been concluded," the federation said in a statement released in Bangkok.

Eight women's doubles players from South Korea, Indonesia and China were disqualified for trying to lose matches at the London Olympics.

The scandal prompted Chinese badminton star Yu Yang to say she was quitting the sport, although she resumed playing at the Super Series Premier event in Shanghai earlier this month.

In its statement, the federation said that the BWF Council had concluded it was "not legally feasible" to take further action against any coaches or entourages over the London Olympics case.

The federation noted that some of its member associations had already taken their own action, and said it had strengthened its own code of conduct.

The Korea Badminton Association initially banned two coaches for life but after an appeal reduced the suspension to two years.

The BWF also said its council had approved the trial early next year of an instant-replay line call system using cameras to show the exact place where a shuttle lands on the court.

- AFP/fa

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Apple's new iMacs now available online and in-store

A new iMac purchased and ready to walk out the door at Apple's 5th Ave. store in New York.

(Credit:
Dan Farber/CNET)

Apple's newly redesigned iMacs are now available for order.

Apple has started selling the 21.5-inch model today both online and in its stores. As of this writing, Apple is saying that online buyers will have their 21.5-inch model shipped out in one to three business days. The 27-inch model is a bit of a different story. Although customers can preorder the 27-inch option today, Apple's site currently lists its ship date as two to three weeks.

At the flagship 5th Avenue Apple Store in New York City, the new
iMac was an invisible presence at 8:00 a.m. ET, when the 21-inch version of the latest all-in-one
Mac desktop became available for purchase. The older generation iMacs were still on the display table, and no one was lining up to be first in line to walk out with a new iMac.

According to a store employee, customers could buy the new iMac but it wouldn't be on display for a few hours. The machines were only recently received, and had to be loaded with the software used for the Apple products on display. Of course, the iMac doesn't have the buzz of the iPhone or
iPad, and it's much easier to have it delivered to you door than to lug it up the glass steps of the Apple store.

The new iMacs were unveiled last month during a special press event. The computer is just 5 mm thick at its edge around the display, but is thicker behind the screen where the PC components are. The 21.5-inch model starts at $1,299 for a 2.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 processor and 1TB hard drive. The low-end 27-inch option starts at $1,799 for a 2.9GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 and 1TB hard drive. All of the models come standard with one of a few Nvidia GeForce graphics cards.

CNET senior editor Rich Brown today posted his review of the new iMac, and gave the computer four stars out of five. Brown was pleased with the computer's "thin new design and a competitive, logical set of core component updates." However, he was frustrated by the iMac's lack of HDMI support.

Still, Brown said that the device's "overall polish [helps it] to maintain its leadership among high-end all-in-ones."

CNET's Dan Farber contributed to this report.

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Pictures: Inside the World's Most Powerful Laser

Photograph courtesy Damien Jemison, LLNL

Looking like a portal to a science fiction movie, preamplifiers line a corridor at the U.S. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's National Ignition Facility (NIF).

Preamplifiers work by increasing the energy of laser beams—up to ten billion times—before these beams reach the facility's target chamber.

The project's lasers are tackling "one of physics' grand challenges"—igniting hydrogen fusion fuel in the laboratory, according to the NIF website. Nuclear fusion—the merging of the nuclei of two atoms of, say, hydrogen—can result in a tremendous amount of excess energy. Nuclear fission, by contrast, involves the splitting of atoms.

This July, California-based NIF made history by combining 192 laser beams into a record-breaking laser shot that packed over 500 trillion watts of peak power-a thousand times more power than the entire United States uses at any given instant.

"This was a quantum leap for laser technology around the world," NIF director Ed Moses said in September. But some critics of the $5 billion project wonder why the laser has yet to ignite a fusion chain reaction after three-and-a-half years in operation. Supporters counter that such groundbreaking science simply can't be rushed.

(Related: "Fusion Power a Step Closer After Giant Laser Blast.")

—Brian Handwerk

Published November 29, 2012

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2 Towns Hint at Powerball Winners

The $587 million question on the identity of the winners in the historic Powerball jackpot is still a mystery, but residents in Missouri and Maryland say they already know who the two lucky winners are.

Employees and customers at Marlboro Village Exxon in Upper Marlboro, Md., said a tall, black, bald man held the winning ticket purchased in Arizona, according to ABC News affiliate WJLA-TV.

Meanwhile, speculation began running wild in the small town of Dearborn, Mo., when a factory worker named Mark Hill updated his Facebook account late Thursday, writing, "We are truly blessed, we are lucky winners of the Powerball."

Within hours, his family began celebrating, telling ABC News Hill is one of the two big winners.

"Just shocked. I mean, I thought we were all going to have heart attacks," Hill's mother, Shirley, said Thursday.

Hill's mother says her son and his wife, Cindy, have three grown sons and an adopted daughter from China, but the family has been struggling financially.

Hill works in a hot dog and deli packaging factory, but it was unclear whether he showed up for work Thursday night.

"I'm very happy for him. He's worked hard in his life; well, not anymore," Hill's son Jason said. "Well, I hope we all stay very grounded, stay humble and don't forget who we are."

Powerball Numbers: Two Winners Take Record Jackpot Watch Video

Powerball's Half-Billion Dollar Prize: Lotto Success Stories Watch Video

Missouri Lottery official Susan Goedde confirmed to ABC News Thursday that one of the winning tickets was purchased at a Trex Mart in Dearborn, about 30 miles north of Kansas City.

Lottery officials won't confirm whether Hill is the winner but family members offered another clue: Some of the winning numbers turned out to be the jersey numbers of some all-star Kansas City Royals baseball players, Hill's favorite team.

Hall of Fame third basemen George Brett wore 5; Willie Wilson 6; Bo Jackson 16.

The winning numbers were 5, 23, 16, 22 and 29; Powerball was 6.

Hill did not respond to ABC News' requests for comment.

In Maryland, surveillance cameras at the Upper Marlboro gas station captured the apparent winner walking into the store Thursday afternoon, digging into his chest pocket for his lottery tickets. After a few seconds of scanning the wad of tickets, the man began jumping up and down, pumping his arms.

The man gave the tickets to store manager Nagassi Ghebre, who says the six Powerball numbers was on the ticket, which the apparent winner said he bought in Arizona.

"And then he said, 'I got to get out of here,'" employee Freddie Lopez told WJLA.

But before leaving, the possible winner felt the need to check again to see whether he really had the ticket that millions of Americans dreamed of having.

"He says, 'Is this the right number? I don't know.' And I said, 'Yeah that's the numbers. You got them all,'" customer Paul Gaug told WJLA.

Employees and customers said the main stuck around for a few more seconds shouting, "I won," before leaving.

"He came back a minute later and said, 'I forgot to get my gas. What am I thinking?'" Lopez said.

The man drove out of the gas station in a black car and on a full tank of gas with a cash payout of $192.5 million coming his way.

"He said he lives in Maryland. I'm pretty sure," Gaug said.

The possible jackpot winner was wearing bright neon clothing and store employees told WJLA that he appeared to be a highway or construction worker.

Arizona lottery officials told WJLA that if the man does have the winning ticket, it needs to be redeemed within 180 days of the drawing in Arizona.

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A treasure trove of natural history opens

Kat Austen, CultureLab editor

(Images: Natural History Museum)

Where can you see the pigeons that feature in Chapter One of the On the Origin of Species, next to a first edition of the book? Or the iguanodon teeth that sparked the discovery of dinosaurs? Opening this Friday, the new Treasures Gallery at London’s Natural History Museum displays some of the most influential and fascinating artefacts from the museum's collections in a single room.

In an age of shortening attention spans and information overload, the museum has condensed its collection into a one-stop mega-shop for natural history. But while some may balk at the notion of a boiled-down collection of greatest hits, the new gallery is well-named. The pieces within it - the first Neanderthal skull ever discovered, for example, or one of the emperor penguin eggs collected during Captain Scott’s 1910 expedition to Antarctica - are indeed treasures, and the stories behind them are captivating.

Take the foot-long tooth specimen sitting in a display case between a plate from Audubon’s The Birds of America - the most expensive book in the world - and the first meteorite seen to land in Britain. This dwarf elephant tooth from Cyprus was discovered by palaeontologist Dorothea Bate in 1901 and provided the first evidence of elephants on the island. Bate’s discovery supported the theory that elephants swam over from mainland Europe and then, constrained by the scarcity of food, evolved to be far smaller than their ancestors - roughly the size of a pig.

Bate, we learn, was a self-taught enthusiast. She talked her way into a job at the museum at the tender age of 19, having pursued her interest in fossils by battling up mountains near her home in Carmarthenshire, UK. She went on to pioneer the field of archaeozoology, looking at the impact of humans on their environment.

Where zeal for nature drove Bate to discover, other exhibits show it as a source of creative inspiration. Sparkling within a well-lit case are three glass models of marine invertebrates, deftly sculpted by the Blaschka family of Dresden, Germany. This father-and-son team, who are responsible for the glass flowers in Harvard’s Museum of Natural History, were so fascinated with sea creatures that they not only owned an aquarium populated with specimens from Naples’s marine zoology centre, but were in correspondence with biologist Ernst Haeckel, whose diagrams of microscopic organisms informed their work.

The curiosities on show are frequently backed by this type of engaging human story. A portrait of the museum’s founder Richard Owen sits next to the iguanodon teeth. The teeth were discovered by Mary Ann Mantell alongside a road in Sussex. Her husband Gideon, an amateur naturalist, saw a similarity between the fossil find and the much smaller teeth of the modern iguana. From this observation, he posited that long ago giant reptiles roamed the Earth.

A touchscreen betwixt the two exhibits tells a remarkably honest history of how Owen, an established biologist, wrested the mantle of dinosaur discovery from the Mantells, though Gideon - the son of a shoemaker - fought to overcome both his class and amateur status so that his theory would be accepted by the scientific elite.

The human side of science in days gone by is nowhere more obvious, however, than in the display of pigeon specimens gathered by Charles Darwin during his experiments on breeding (see photo above). Seeing his meticulous labelling and notes on the dead birds and skeletons conveys both his intense dedication and methodical approach, which we now know enabled him to formulate his world-changing theory. “It gives you an insight into Darwin as a curator, working with the collection, as a researcher, the kind of approach that he was taking,” says Jo Cooper, curator of the museum’s bird collection.

Ironically, it is a fossil of the earliest known bird that brings these stories into the present day of scientific research. The archaeopteryx fossil is the most valuable in the museum’s collection, and is held as the world standard for this type of fossil. A CT scan of the skull cavity in 2004 showed the similarities between the archaeopteryx’s brain and that of a modern bird. The fossil may yet hold more gems about the evolutionary link between dinosaurs and birds. “We’re still researching it really intensively”, says curator Tate Greenhalgh.

The Treasures Gallery does what it says on the tin, and more. Far from providing a whistle-stop tour of groundbreaking discoveries and theories in natural history, these artefacts and the stories behind them draw you in - and will spur your curiosity to delve ever more deeply.

The Treasures Gallery is a permanent collection opening tomorrow at the Natural History Museum, London.

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US jobless claims recede, still show Sandy impact

WASHINGTON: US jobless claims fell back to 393,000 in the most recent week, the Labour Department said on Thursday, still showing the impact of superstorm Sandy which blasted the Northeast in late October.

Claims in the week to November 24 fell from 416,000 the previous week and 451,000 in the November 10 week.

But they remained well above the 360-380,000 range held most of this year.

The three weeks of high claims, much the result of the shutdown of the economy in and around New York due to the storm, pushed the four-week rolling average to 405,250.

Many companies in the region, especially small businesses, are still struggling to get back to normal nearly one month after the storm struck.

- AFP/de

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iPhone 5 clears network hurdle on path to China launch

Apple's
iPhone 5 is one step closer to launching in China.

The China Telecommunication Equipment Certification Center has approved the iPhone 5 for a "network access" license in the country. The license approval was discovered by the Wall Street Journal.

Apple is currently planning to launch the iPhone 5 on China Telecom and China Unicom networks. The company is reportedly hoping to bring the device to China Mobile, the country's largest carrier, but so far, no deal has been announced.

Apple's approval comes about a month after another regulatory agency, China's State Radio Management, approved two iPhone 5 models to run on the country's mobile networks. One model supported the China Unicom 3G network, while the other would work on China Telecom's CDMA network.

Now that the iPhone has received its Equipment Certification Center approval, it might not be long before the device ships. In the past, vendors that receive the approval launch their new handsets within a matter of weeks. If Apple follows that schedule, it would launch the iPhone 5 sometime in December, as expected.

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Caterpillar Fungus Has Anti-Inflammatory Properties

In the Tibetan mountains, a fungus attaches itself to a moth larva burrowed in the soil. It infects and slowly consumes its host from within, taking over its brain and making the young caterpillar move to a position from which the fungus can grow and spore again.

Sounds like something out of science fiction, right? But for ailing Chinese consumers and nomadic Tibetan harvesters, the parasite called cordyceps means hope—and big money. Chinese markets sell the "golden worm," or "Tibetan mushroom"—thought to cure ailments from cancer to asthma to erectile dysfunction—for up to $50,000 (U.S.) per pound. Patients, following traditional medicinal practices, brew the fungal-infected caterpillar in tea or chew it raw.

Now the folk medicine is getting scientific backing. A new study published in the journal RNA finds that cordycepin, a chemical derived from the caterpillar fungus, has anti-inflammatory properties.

"Inflammation is normally a beneficial response to a wound or infection, but in diseases like asthma it happens too fast and to too high of an extent," said study co-author Cornelia H. de Moor of the University of Nottingham. "When cordycepin is present, it inhibits that response strongly."

And it does so in a way not previously seen: at the mRNA stage, where it inhibits polyadenylation. That means it stops swelling at the genetic cellular level—a novel anti-inflammatory approach that could lead to new drugs for cancer, asthma, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and cardiovascular-disease patients who don't respond well to current medications.

From Worm to Pill

But such new drugs may be a long way off. The science of parasitic fungi is still in its early stages, and no medicine currently available utilizes cordycepin as an anti-inflammatory. The only way a patient could gain its benefits would by consuming wild-harvested mushrooms.

De Moor cautions against this practice. "I can't recommend taking wild-harvested medications," she says. "Each sample could have a completely different dose, and there are mushrooms where [taking] a single bite will kill you."

Today 96 percent of the world's caterpillar-fungus harvest comes from the high Tibetan Plateau and the Himalayan range. Fungi from this region are of the subspecies Ophiocordyceps sinensis, locally known as yartsa gunbu ("summer grass, winter worm"). While highly valued in Chinese traditional medicine, these fungi have relatively low levels of cordycepin. What's more, they grow only at elevations of 10,000 to 16,500 feet and cannot be farmed. All of which makes yartsa gunbu costly for Chinese consumers: A single fungal-infected caterpillar can fetch $30.

Brave New Worm

Luckily for researchers, and for potential consumers, another rare species of caterpillar fungus, Cordyceps militaris, is capable of being farmed—and even cultivated to yield much higher levels of cordycepin.

De Moor says that's not likely to discourage Tibetan harvesters, many of whom make a year's salary in just weeks by finding and selling yartsa gunbu. Scientific proof of cordycepin's efficacy will only increase demand for the fungus, which could prove dangerous. "With cultivation we have a level of quality control that's missing in the wild," says de Moor.

"There is definitely some truth somewhere in certain herbal medicinal traditions, if you look hard enough," says de Moor. "But ancient healers probably wouldn't notice a 10 percent mortality rate resulting from herbal remedies. In the scientific world, that's completely unacceptable." If you want to be safe, she adds, "wait for the medicine."

Ancient Chinese medical traditions—which also use ground tiger bones as a cure for insomnia, elephant ivory for religious icons, and rhinoceros horns to dispel fevers—are controversial but popular. Such remedies remain in demand regardless of scientific advancement—and endangered animals continue to be killed in order to meet that demand. While pills using cordycepin from farmed fungus might someday replace yartsa gunbu harvesting, tigers, elephants, and rhinos are disappearing much quicker than worms.

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Two Winners in Record Powerball Jackpot

Winning tickets for the record Powerball jackpot worth more than $587 million were purchased in Arizona and Missouri.

Missouri Lottery official Susan Goedde confirmed to ABC News this morning that one of the winning tickets was purchased in the state, but they would not announce which town until later this morning.

Arizona lottery officials said they had no information on that state's winner or winners but would announce where it was sold during a news conference later in the day.

The winning numbers for the jackpot were 5, 23, 16, 22 and 29. The Powerball was 6.

The jackpot swelled to $587.5 million, according to Lottery official Sue Dooley. The two winners will split the jackpot each getting $293.75 million. The cash payout is $192.5 million each.

An additional 8,924,123 players won smaller prizes, according to Powerball's website.

"There were 58 winners of $1 million and there were eight winners of $2 million. So a total of $74 million," said Chuck Strutt, Director of the Multi-State Lottery Association.

In Photos: Biggest Lotto Jackpot Winners

This is the 27th win for Missouri, ranking it second in the nation for lottery winners after Indiana, which has 38 wins. Arizona has had 10 Powerball jackpot wins in its history.

Players bought tickets at the rate of 131,000 every minute up until an hour before the deadline of 11 p.m. ET, according to lottery officials.

The jackpot had already rolled over 16 consecutive times without a winner. That fact, plus the doubling in price of a Powerball ticket, accounted for the unprecedented richness of the pot.

Powerball Numbers: Two Winners Take Record Jackpot Watch Video

Powerball's Half-Billion Dollar Prize: Lotto Success Stories Watch Video

"Back in January, we moved Powerball from being a $1 game to $2," said Mary Neubauer, a spokeswoman at the game's headquarters in Iowa. "We thought at the time that this would mean bigger and faster-growing jackpots."

That proved true. The total, she said, began taking "huge jumps -- another $100 million since Saturday." It then jumped another $50 million.

The biggest Powerball pot on record until now -- $365 million -- was won in 2006 by eight Lincoln, Neb., co-workers.
As the latest pot swelled, lottery officials said they began getting phone calls from all around the world.

"When it gets this big," said Neubauer, "we get inquiries from Canada and Europe from people wanting to know if they can buy a ticket. They ask if they can FedEx us the money."

The answer she has to give them, she said, is: "Sorry, no. You have to buy a ticket in a member state from a licensed retail location."

About 80 percent of players don't choose their own Powerball number, opting instead for a computer-generated one.
Asked if there's anything a player can do to improve his or her odds of winning, Neubauer said there isn't -- apart from buying a ticket, of course.

Lottery officials put the odds of winning this Powerball pot at one in 175 million, meaning you'd have been 25 times more likely to win an Academy Award.

Skip Garibaldi, a professor of mathematics at Emory University in Atlanta, provided additional perspective: You are three times more likely to die from a falling coconut, he said; seven times more likely to die from fireworks, "and way more likely to die from flesh-eating bacteria" (115 fatalities a year) than you are to win the Powerball lottery.

Segueing, then, from death to life, Garibaldi noted that even the best physicians, equipped with the most up-to-date equipment, can't predict the timing of a child's birth with much accuracy.

"But let's suppose," he said, "that your doctor managed to predict the day, the hour, the minute and the second your baby would be born."

The doctor's uncanny prediction would be "at least 100 times" more likely than your winning.

Even though he knows the odds all too well, Garibaldi said he usually plays the lottery.

When it gets this big, I'll buy a couple of tickets," he said. "It's kind of exciting. You get this feeling of anticipation. You get to think about the fantasy."

So, did he buy two tickets this time?

"I couldn't," he told ABC News. "I'm in California" -- one of eight states that doesn't offer Powerball.

In case you were wondering, this Saturday's Powerball jackpot is starting at $40 million.

ABC News Radio contributed to this report.

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Hive minds: Honeybee intelligence creates a buzz

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President Tony Tan meets Indonesian counterpart in Jakarta

SINGAPORE: Singapore President Tony Tan Keng Yam met his Indonesian counterpart Dr Susulio Bambang Yudhoyono in Jakarta on Wednesday.

Dr Tan is on a state visit to Indonesia at the invitation of President Yudhoyono, who received the Singapore president at the Merdeka Palace in Jakarta with a full ceremonial welcome.

Dr Tan last visited Indonesia on an official visit in 2005, soon after President Yudhoyono took office as Indonesia's first directly elected President.

Dr Tan was then Singapore's deputy prime minister.

Both leaders have known each other since their time as security ministers for their respective countries.

Dr Tan also held talks with Indonesian Vice President Boediono on Wednesday and laid a wreath at the Kalibata National Heroes Cemetery in Jakarta.

President Tan, who is accompanied by several officials, will end his visit in Yogyakarta on Saturday.

- CNA/jc

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Nokia wins key victory in RIM patent dispute

As if its slumping market share figures aren't enough, Research In Motion has found itself in some legal trouble with Nokia.

A Swedish arbitrator has ruled that RIM is "in breach of contract and is not entitled to manufacture or sell WLAN products without first agreeing royalties with Nokia." If such a royalty agreement is not made, Nokia could have the legal grounds it needs to ban the sale of any BlackBerry devices that violate its patents related to WLAN (wireless local access network) technology.

Reuters was first to report on the news.

The trouble between RIM and Nokia dates all the way back to 2003 when the companies signed a licensing agreement that allowed RIM to use some of Nokia's standard-essential patents, and vice versa. In 2011, RIM sought arbitration on the contract, requesting that Nokia's WLAN patents be included in that deal. The company reasoned that the WLAN intellectual property should be included in any agreement related to standard-essential patents.

During the arbitration process, Nokia argued that RIM's use of WLAN technology in its products violated its patents, and requested that the BlackBerry maker pay it royalties. RIM did not refute that it used WLAN in its products, but reportedly believed that the use was covered under the initial contract.

According to Reuters, the arbitrator decided against RIM earlier this month, paving the way for Nokia to recently file lawsuits in the U.S., Canada, and U.K. to enforce that ruling.

For RIM, the stakes are high. If the courts uphold the arbitrator's decision and enforce it, RIM could see its products banned from sale until the company signs a licensing deal with Nokia. There's also a chance, however, that this dispute could get dragged out in courts for awhile, and thus, maintain status quo.

CNET has contacted both RIM and Nokia for comment on the arbitrator's decision. We will update this story when we have more information.

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Pictures: Falcon Massacre Uncovered in India

Photograph courtesy Conservation India

A young boy can sell bundles of fresh Amur falcons (pictured) for less than five dollars. Still, when multiplied by the thousands of falcons hunters can catch in a day, the practice can be a considerable financial boon to these groups.

Since discovering the extent of Amur hunting in Nagaland this fall, Conservation India has taken the issue to the local Indian authorities.

"They have taken it very well. They've not been defensive," Sreenivasan said.

"You're not dealing with national property, you're dealing with international property, which helped us put pressure on [them]." (Related: "Asia's Wildlife Trade.")

According to Conservation India, the same day the group filed their report with the government, a fresh order banning Amur hunting was issued. Local officials also began meeting with village leaders, seizing traps and confiscating birds. The national government has also requested an end to the hunting.

Much remains to be done, but because the hunt is so regional, Sreenivasan hopes it can eventually be contained and stamped out. Authorities there, he said, are planning a more thorough investigation next year, with officials observing, patrolling, and enforcing the law.

"This is part of India where there is some amount of acceptance on traditional bush hunting," he added. "But at some point, you draw the line."

(Related: "Bush-Meat Ban Would Devastate Africa's Animals, Poor?")

Published November 27, 2012

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Powerball Fever Sweeps the Nation, Fuels Jackpot

The allure of the record $500 million Powerball jackpot has led to long lines across the nation at local mini-marts and gas stations, with Americans hoping their champagne and caviar dreams become a reality when the numbers are drawn tonight.

The jackpot was boosted Tuesday from $425 million to the now historic $500 million sum, which is expected to get sweeter as millions of Americans rush to the store for their last chance to purchase a ticket and become a multi-millionaire overnight.

Powerball officials tell ABC News they expect to sell more than 105,000 tickets every minute before the drawing. When the dust settles, more than 189 million tickets would have been sold for the half a billion-dollar jackpot. That's more than double the number sold for Saturday's $325 jackpot that nobody won.

ABC News was allowed access to the Powerball studios in Tallahassee, Fla., where the 11 p.m. ET drawing will take place. The closely guarded machines and balls are locked in a vault before the numbers are drawn and only a select few are allowed inside the room during the actual broadcast.

Anyone who enters or leaves the vault is documented and workers who handle the lottery balls wear gloves, worried that human touch might change what numbers are randomly drawn.

Cameras are located in every nook and cranny of the Powerball studio, spying on workers as they ready the machines for the big moment. Lottery officials in several states will be watching those feeds in real time to monitor the proceedings.

Not everyone has Powerball fever in the country as tickets for tonight's jackpot are not offered in eight states. But that has not stopped many Californians and Nevadans who have flocked to Arizona to get in on the action.

Lotto Fever: Going After $500M Powerball Jackpot Watch Video

Powerball Drawing No Winner; Jackpot Grows to $425 Million Watch Video

"I'd say the line has to be like three, three and a half hours," one person told ABC News while waiting online to purchase tickets Tuesday.

Still, the long lines have not deterred those who hope to dramatically change their lifestyle and make their wildest dreams become a reality.

"I'm going to the Bahamas and enjoying myself on an island," said one Powerball hopeful.

Chuck Strutt, executive director of the Des Moines, Iowa-based Multi-State Lottery Association, said the chance of getting a winner tonight is approaching 60 percent.

"We call it the redneck retirement fund cause sooner or later, somebody is going to," said one man.

There has been no Powerball winner since Oct. 6 – that's 16 consecutive drawings without a winner. It's the second-highest jackpot in US lottery history, behind only the $656 million Mega Millions prize in March.

Powerball tickets doubled in price in January to $2, and while the number of tickets sold initially dropped, sales revenue has increased by about 35 percent over 2011, according to the Associated Press.

Lottery officials put the odds of winning Wednesday's Powerball pot at one in 175 million. With so many people plaything this time around, some are worried it may hurt their odds.

"Your odds of being a winner are still the same. With so many people playing, it does mean are more likely to split the jackpot if you want," said Scott Norris, math professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

Everyone who lines up with cash in their hand and dreams in their head seems to have a strategy in picking the winning combination of numbers. Or, do you simply let the computer pick for you?

"It doesn't matter. Your odds of winning are actually the same no matter who picks it," said Norris.
Norris says the only real advantage that can help someone is buying more tickets.

"Your odds increase directly proportional to the number of tickets you buy. So if you buy 100, your odds are 1 in 7 million, but still astronomically small," he said.

With odds so small in a game where just about anyone who plays is a loser, there is some hope for those living in Illinois and New Jersey. Both states have sold three winning tickets for jackpots worth at least $300 million.

A single winner choosing the lump sum cash option would take home more than $327 million before taxes.

ABC News' Steve Osunsami and Ryan Owens contributed to this report.

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North Korea: What a terrible state to get into

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Japanese firm develops health monitor for dogs

TOKYO: Worried the family dog is too chubby?

Japanese information technology giant Fujitsu says it may have the solution with a new health management service that lets owners keep a close eye on their pet's exercise regimen through a pedometer attached to its collar.

The "Wandant" counts how many steps the pooch took during its latest outing, with the data then available online for pet owners' perusal, Fujitsu says.

"Wan" is Japanese for "woof", while "dant" comes from the word "pendant".

The device also measures the dog's temperature, while owners can use an online diary to track how much their dog is eating, its weight and "stool conditions".

"The data are presented graphically on a custom website that makes trends in the dog's activities easy to understand at a glance," according to the firm.

"This helps owners get a stronger sense of their dog's health, while enabling communication with the dog."

- AFP/il

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Apple's new iMac to arrive November 30

The latest version of Apple's
iMac goes on sale November 30.

Apple said this morning that the 21.5-inch iMac will be available at that time through the Apple Online Store, Apple's retail stores and some Apple resellers. The 27-inch iMac, meanwhile, will be available for order through the Apple Online Store and will begin shipping in December.

The 2012 edition of the iMac comes with 8GB of memory, a 1-terabyte hard drive, a quad-core Intel Core i5 processor, Nvidia GeForce graphics processors, and the new Fusion Drive.

The 21.5-inch model starts at $1,299 and the 27-inch model starts at $1,799.

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Space Pictures This Week: Space "Horse," Mars Rover, More

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  High Horse

  Photograph by Greg Parker, Your Shot
  

  The Horsehead Nebula rears its pretty head in a November 17 photograph submitted to National Geographic's Your Shot photo community.

  Taken from the New Forest Observatory in the United Kingdom, the image shows how the nebula's horse head is part of a larger cloud of dust. Situated about 1,500 light-years away, the Horsehead Nebula is visible only because its obscuring dust is silhouetted against another, brighter nebula, according to NASA.

  (See "'Soccer Ball' Nebula Discovered by Amateur Astronomer.")

  Published November 26, 2012

  
  











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  Green Lit

  Photograph by Jeremy La Zelle, My Shot
  

  Green curtains of aurora stretch over the sky in the Alaska Arctic in a picture submitted to National Geographic's My Shot on November 17.

  "The constantly changing kaleidoscope of colors are reminiscent of a fireworks display—but without sound," photographer Jeremy La Zelle wrote with his submission.

  "All we hear is the quiet peaceful sounds of a freezing Alaska night."

  (See "Aurora Pictures: Best Fall Photos of Northern Lights.")

  Published November 26, 2012

  
  











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  Martian Vista

  Image courtesy Caltech/NASA
  

  NASA's Curiosity rover snapped this picture after moving 83 feet (25 meters) eastward on November 18—the 102nd Martian day, or sol, of its mission to study whether life once existed on Mars.

  The view shows Yellowknife Bay, part of the Glenelg area of the Gale Crater, which is located near the base of a three-mile-high (five-kilometer-high) mountain rich with layered sediment deposits laid down over hundreds of millions of years.

  (Read more about the Gale Crater.)

  Published November 26, 2012

  
  











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  Gilded Mountains

  Image courtesy ESA

  The sands of the Sahara appear like golden brush strokes around the Tibesti Mountains in a March 2012 satellite image recently released by the European Space Agency.

  Located in Chad and Libya, the mountains' highest peak is Emi Koussi-pictured above as a circular structure in the lower-right portion of the dark area.

  Lava flows can be seen extending from the westernmost volcano, Toussidé.

  (See volcano pictures.)

  Published November 26, 2012

  
  











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  Photograph by Quang Nguyen Luong and F. Motte, Herschel SPIRE/ESA

  Published November 26, 2012

  
  

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Violating Norquist's No-Tax Pledge Could Hurt GOP

The most talked about name in the opening weeks of the fiscal cliff negotiations isn't Barack Obama, House Speaker John Boehner or Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. It's Grover Norquist.

Norquist is not a publicly elected official or even a government appointee. The 56-year-old conservative leader is the founder and president of Americans for Tax Reform and promoter of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge -- better known as the Norquist Pledge.

Americans for Tax Reform opposes tax increases, and the Norquist Pledge calls on members of Congress to do just that. Taken at face value, this pledge poses a big roadblock to any compromise with Democrats in the ongoing fiscal cliff negotiations, even though several prominent Republican leaders have recently signaled an openness to put everything on the table in negotiations, which would seem to violate the pledge.

If the goal at the end of these negotiations is compromise, could there be political risk in Republicans' violating a pledge formulated by a person most Americans have probably never heard of? Actually, yes.

Violating the pledge all but ensures a primary challenge in two years from the Republican right.

"A defection on taxes almost guarantees it -- the End, " said ABC political director Amy Walter.

"It's all about the GOP base," said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. "Most of the Republican House members and a large number of the party's senators are very safe in a general election. No Democrat can beat them. The only place they can lose is in the low-turnout party primary, which is usually dominated by strong conservatives for whom the word 'tax' is almost an obscenity."

Tax Pledge Mutiny as Fiscal Cliff Approaches Watch Video

Political Gamble: Some Republicans Willing to Raise Taxes Watch Video

Sen. Lindsey Graham and Sen. Dick Durbin on 'This Week' Watch Video

It's these voters who make up the GOP base who will likely be the most involved in primary contests -- on the ground, in fundraising and, of course, at the voting booths.

"These activist voters listen to Norquist and his organization, and they have the money to get the message out to voters in TV ads and mailings," Sabato said. "A Republican member tagged with supported tax increases is awarded the political kiss of death."

Two prominent GOP senators up for re-election in deep-red states in 2014 have already expressed a willingness to buck the Norquist Pledge: Saxby Chambliss of Georgia and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

"I agree with Grover -- we shouldn't raise rates -- but I think Grover is wrong when it comes to we can't cap deductions and buy down debt," Graham said on ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos."

"I care more about my country than I do about a 20-year-old pledge," Chambliss said in an interview with WMAZ-TV in Macon, Ga. "If we do it his way, then we'll continue in debt, and I just have a disagreement with him about that."

Sabato said that these two candidates couldn't help but be worried about potential backlashes stemming from what they'd said about the no-tax pledge.

"The GOP primary electorate is very conservative in the South, so I would think Saxby Chambliss and Lindsey Graham would have to be somewhat concerned, even though they both start out as clear favorites," Sabato said.

Whether a primary challenger can mount a strong enough campaign to take down these high-ranking senators raises a different question. The success of senior GOP senators such at Orrin Hatch of Utah in fending off intra-party primary challenges likely gives a boost of confidence to Graham and Chambliss, along with others, as they head into the final month of negotiations.

However, the primary losses of longtime incumbent senators such as Bob Bennett of Utah in 2010 and Richard Lugar of Indiana in 2012 will likely stay somewhere in the minds of these Republican incumbents, complicating the negotiations and raising the political stakes both now and further down the road in 2014.

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A gorilla in the midst – of emotional rebirth?

Rowan Hooper, news editor

(Image: Anup Shah)

In the Central African Republic, a female western lowland gorilla runs through a cloud of butterflies. She capers, if a gorilla can be said to caper. The other gorillas in her group carry on feeding, ignoring her.

It is in stark contrast to the week before: the capering gorilla, named Malui, had given birth to a stillborn fetus. It would have been Malui's fourth offspring, and Makumba, the silverback's, thirteenth. "Malui tried to revive the baby and even tried to get it to suckle," says wildlife photographer Anup Shah, who was watching the animals at the Dzanga-Sangha Special Reserve. What happened next was unusual. Malui's daughter, Mosoko, started grooming her. "Since grooming is rare, it probably signifies something profound," says Shah. "Was the daughter telling her mother that she understood her grief?"

It's not easy to interpret human behaviour in such circumstances, let alone that of other animals. But behaviours associated with grief in humans have been seen in animals such as dolphins and, indeed, gorillas. Malui carried the stillborn baby on her back, finally abandoning the body some 30 hours after giving birth.

The next week, Shah shot the butterfly picture. "Malui was thoroughly enjoying herself," he says - and she seemed to have put the loss of the baby behind her. "I did not see any other instances of deep emotions in these gorillas," says Shah. "My theory is that gorillas reserve deep emotions for extreme situations."

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Speculation rife of year-end general election in Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR: Speculation in rife in Malaysia that a general election could still be held before the end of the year.

Former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad said he is confident that the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition would recapture its two-thirds majority in parliament if the ballot is held now.

As Malaysia's largest political party UMNO gets ready to hold its annual congress on Wednesday, rumours are rampant that parliament may be dissolved immediately after the general assembly, paving the way for a year-end general election.

Speculation was fuelled by a comment made by Prime Minister Najib Razak that the year-end monsoon weather and flash floods were not major problems.

When asked, former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad did not give much away.

"Do you think it's timely? Anytime is a good time," he said.

Dr Mahathir was speaking to the media after delivering his keynote address at the Third World Conference on Riba/Usury on Monday.

He said Malaysia would no longer be independent if foreigners were allowed to interfere in deciding who should govern the country.

Dr Mahathir said the opposition's intention of inviting foreign observers to monitor the upcoming 13th general election was to accuse the government of cheating in the elections.

"There's only one aim. If they lose, they will hold street demonstrations, accusing the government of rigging the elections. They will say the government has cheated, so the ruling party wins. That's all.

"(They) want to resort to rioting like what happened in some of the Arab countries, to topple the duly elected government," he said.

Commenting on the last general election, Dr Mahathir said: "There is no country where the ruling party could lose five states and one federal territory if it had cheated in the general election. I think the opposition would have not have won these if the ruling government had cheated."

Other party seniors voiced preference for a later date, as the second round of government handouts for lower income households will only be given out in January.

Many also believe that the window for an early election this year had closed.

Syed Hamid Albar, Supreme council member of UMNO and former home minister, said: "The most important thing is he has already assessed fully, he has gone around the country many times. So, that is why he says that he thinks anytime... this year also can, but that is more a diversion. I think it will be held next year."

Separately, Mr Najib urged Malaysians not to gamble away their future, by handing over the country to parties which could not deliver.

He outlined reasons why the ruling Barisan Nasional must be given a big mandate in the upcoming general election.

Top of the list is the clarity of the vision and direction of the BN government in developing the nation.

Mr Najib made the comments in a special interview with Malaysian media, ahead of the UMNO General Assembly.

He said as an experienced party, UMNO has always spurred numerous ideas to transform the nation towards a bright future.

He said the opposition was still unclear on the matter.

UMNO forms the backbone of the ruling coalition.

Mr Najib also said UMNO and the BN have no conflict whether in terms of policy or ideology.

He said this was not the case for the opposition parties, which often issued opinions which were at odds, even on basic and fundamental matters.

Mr Najib, who is the BN chairman and UMNO president, said the coalition has a proven track record of their achievements in managing the nation.

"We have recorded all these achievements which people say run contrary to the world economic trend. As such, we are able to ensure the capability of the government remains at a high level, with a high level of confidence," he said.

Regardless of whether elections will be held this year or next, the ruling BN coalition's tenure expires on April 28, 2013 and the prime minister must call for the general election by the middle of next year.

The UMNO general assembly will be his final platform to fire up the spirits of the party and unite UMNO delegates to face the toughest general election in history.

- CNA/de

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Cyber Monday: Dells's deals on good TVs

You won't have any trouble finding rock-bottom prices on no-name TVs from sketchy online vendors this Cyber Monday, but if buying a good television from a trustworthy retailer is your priority, Dell's site has a couple of very good prices on bigscreen TVs I can actually recommend.

Samsung 51-inch plasma, $578 with free shipping. Judging from their published specifications, PN51E530 has the same picture quality as the PN51E550 we really liked. Yeah it's missing Smart TV and 3D, but you could always just add a $40 Roku if you want streaming apps.

Samsung 60-inch plasma, $848 with free shipping. If you like what you just read about the 51-inch version, this 60-incher promises more of the same, just a whole lot bigger.

Sharp 60-inch LED, $999 with free shipping. The LC-60LE600U is basically the same as the LC-LE640U we reviewed earlier this year and called one of the best bargains around. It still is, especially since it has better picture quality than the 60-inch Vizio. Yes, the Vizio has the Smart TV that the Sharp 600U lacks, but see above re: Roku.

All three of these deals are available now, but as usual supplies are limited so they could sell out anytime. If you see any other tempting Cyber Monday deals on good TVs, leave a comment.

Bonus Tip: Deal to Avoid If you're tempted by Amazon's deal for 60% off select Panasonic LEDs, you might want to know that every Panasonic LED TV we've reviewed this year has shown inferior, and sometimes downright bad, picture quality.

Via Dealnews

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Distant Dwarf Planet Secrets Revealed

Orbiting at the frozen edges of our solar system, the mysterious dwarf planet Makemake is finally coming out of the shadows as astronomers get their best view yet of Pluto's little sibling.

Discovered in 2005, Makemake—pronounced MAH-keh MAH-keh after a Polynesian creation god—is one of five Pluto-like objects that prompted a redefining of the term "planet" and the creation of a new group of dwarf planets in 2006. (Related: "Pluto Not a Planet, Astronomers Rule.")

Just like the slightly larger Pluto, this icy world circles our sun beyond Neptune. Researchers expected Makemake to also have a global atmosphere—but new evidence reveals that isn't the case.

Staring at a Star

An international team of astronomers was able for the first time to probe Makemake's physical characteristics using the European Southern Observatory's three most powerful telescopes in Chile. The researchers observed the change in light given off by a distant star as the dwarf planet passed in front of it. (Learn how scientists found Makemake.)

"These events are extremely difficult to predict and observe, but they are the only means of obtaining accurate knowledge of important properties of dwarf planets," said Jose Luis Ortiz, lead author of this new study and an astronomer at the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia, in Spain.

It's like trying to study a coin from a distance of 30 miles (48 kilometers) or more, Ortiz added.

Ortiz and his team knew Makemake didn't have an atmosphere when light from the background star abruptly dimmed and brightened as the chilly world drifted across its face.

"The light went off very abruptly from all the sites we observed the event so this means this world cannot have a substantial and global atmosphere like that of its sibling Pluto," Ortiz said.

If Makemake had an atmosphere, light from the star would gradually decrease and increase as the dwarf planet passed in front.

Coming Into Focus

The team's new observations add much more detail to our view of Makemake—not only limiting the possibility of an atmosphere but also determining the planet's size and surface more accurately.

"We think Makemake is a sphere flattened slightly at both poles and mostly covered with very white ices—mainly of methane," said Ortiz.

"But there are also indications for some organic material at least at some places; this material is usually very red and we think in a small percentage of the surface, the terrain is quite dark," he added.

Why Makemake lacks a global atmosphere remains a big mystery, but Ortiz does have a theory. Pluto is covered in nitrogen ice. When the sun heats this volatile material, it turns straight into a gas, creating Pluto's atmosphere.

Makemake lacks nitrogen ice on its surface, so there is nothing for the sun to heat into a gas to provide an atmosphere.

The dwarf planet has less mass, and a weaker gravitational field, than Pluto, said Ortiz. This means that over eons of time, Makemake may not have been able to hang on to its nitrogen.

Methane ice will also transform into a gas when heated. But since the dwarf planet is nearly at its furthest distance from the sun, Ortiz believes that Makemake's surface methane is still frozen. (Learn about orbital planes.)

And even if the methane were to transform into a gas, any resulting atmosphere would cover, at most, only ten percent of the planet, said Ortiz.

The new results are detailed today in the journal Nature.

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