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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Horse Racing: World's top horse pulls out of Hong Kong Cup

HONG KONG: The world's top racehorse Cirrus des Aigles has withdrawn injured from Sunday's Hong Kong International Races in a major blow to the competition, one of the richest meetings on the global calendar.The French gelding was set to headline a stellar line-up for the 2,000-metre Hong Kong Cup and was seeking to make it fourth time lucky at the meet, where he has failed to scoop a...

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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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Supreme Court to take up issue of gay marriage

WASHINGTON: The US Supreme Court has decided to take up the sensitive issue of gay marriage, hearing challenges to a federal law denying benefits to same-sex couples and California's ban on such unions.The highest US court will likely hear arguments in the cases in March 2013, with rulings to come in June. Same-sex marriage is currently legal in nine states and the federal capital Washington...

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Hot new games for iOS

The stars lined up just right this week (read: gift-giving season is here!) to have a number of awesome game sequels and new releases launch all at once. Frankly, there are so many new games that there is no better time than the present to check out what the App Store has to offer.Rick Broida already wrote about Grand Theft Auto: Vice City earlier today, but there are plenty more that would make nice...

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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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Bieber miffed at Grammys snub, Brubeck gets nod

LOS ANGELES: Justin Bieber's manager has lambasted the Grammys organisers after the Canadian teen sensation failed to garner a single nomination for this year's music awards.At the other end of the musical spectrum, late jazz icon Dave Brubeck was honoured with a posthumous nod for the music industry's top prizes, in a little-noticed category at Wednesday night's nominations show."The...

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Facebook says businesses have paid for 2.5 million promoted posts

Facebook released some new numbers today for its local business Pages, revealing that about 2 percent of the Pages have used promoted posts.The social network said it's reached 13 million local Pages now -- up from the 12.8 million last reported during its earnings call in October -- and 300,000 of those pages have promoted more than 2.5 million posts. Promoted posts are ones that Pages pay for to...

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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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Not 'Wild West': Talking Cyber Ops at Iran's Backdoor

Robert Clark, the operational attorney for U.S. Cyber Command, stood in a grand ballroom with gold flaked ceilings and sparkling chandeliers to address an audience that included men in flowing white robes and veiled women and tried to hammer home a single point: cyber warfare is not the "Wild West."Clark, who emphasized that he was speaking only in a personal capacity and not on...

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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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Critics give epic 'Hobbit' middle marks

NEW YORK: Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" opens in the US this month and critics say the movie, much like the epic journey it depicts, is adventurous - but an uphill slog.The fantasy about a Hobbit called Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf the good wizard, 13 raucous dwarves, and a host of evil forces, takes viewers back to the lavishly filmed Middle-earth world that won Oscars...

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Blockbuster said to sell smartphones at its retail stores

Blockbuster is rumored to be getting ready to sell mobile phones at its retail stores.(Credit:Blockbuster)When DVD rentals don't work, maybe sell... mobile phones? Rumor has it that Blockbuster is getting into the phone hawking business at its retail stores, according to Bloomberg. What seems like a random choice might actually be a conscientious maneuver by Dish Network, which bought the struggling...

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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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