Tech & Science

The US House of Reprensentatives is seeking to lift a nine year old ban on export sales of the F-22A Raptor stealth fighter. US lawmakers approved an amendment that would allow Lockheed Martin, the aircraft's primary manufacturer, to sell the aircraft overseas to foreign nations. Every defence bill since 1997 contained language that prohibited the sale of the multi-role aircraft to foreign nations, due to concerns that the advanced technology in the plane may reach the wrong hands. Japan and South Korea, both strong allies of the United Stat

Research published in the journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) suggests a link between male sexuality and conditions in the womb. Initial research by Dr. Anthony F. Bogaert and his colleagues at Brock University, Ontario revealed a possible link between the number of elder brothers a boy has and the likelihood he is to be gay. Whether this correlation be attributed to nature through the prenatal effects of the womb or to nurture through the psychosocial effects of growing up with elder siblings, however, remained

Today, the Internet news site Digg launched the third version of its site, which sees it expanding from exclusively technology-related news into tech, entertainment, world, business and science news. The site has also had a redesign. Screenshots of the third version of Digg site have being released to various blogs like TechCrunch and also Valleywag over the last few weeks. Shortly after the first screenshots, AOL launched a social news site similar to Digg, located at a subdomain of Netscape. This received a negative response from the majorit

After 6 months of development, the Inkscape project released today a new version of their SVG-based GPLed vector drawing program. It features improved performance and many new features, such as a Layers dialog, better PDF export, configurable keyboard shortcuts and support for clipping and masking. Inkscape runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. Inkscape started in 2003 as a fork of the vector drawing editor Sodipodi. Inkscape does not yet have as many features as the best commercial vector editors, but it is currently suitable for a wide ran

The two recently discovered moons of the planet Pluto were officially named Hydra and Nix by the International Astronomical Union, the internationally recognized authority for assigning designations to celestial bodies. The moons were discovered in May last year by the Pluto Companion Search Team, a team of scientists from the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), the Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), the Space Telescope Science Institute and Lowell Observatory, using images taken from the Hubble space telescope. The

Australian Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts Senator Helen Coonan announced on Wednesday that the federal government would be spending AUD$116.6 million on a package of measures to protect Australians from inappropriate material on the Internet. Dubbed "Protecting Families Online", the package includes free filtering software for all families. The government claims that its National Filter Scheme will be central to the package. In addition to providing families with free filtering software, the government will al

The Interacademy Panel on International Issues (IAP), a global network of the world's science academies, has released a statement urging parents and teachers to provide children with 'the facts about the origin and evolution of life on Earth'. The statement is signed by 67 of the 92 member academies of the organisation, and notes that in some schools around the world, "testable theories" about evolution are being "concealed, denied or confused by theories not testable by science". The statement presents four "evidence-based facts" that no sc

New Zealand farmers have won a key victory in Parliament, with MPs voting to exempt Working farm dogs from microchipping legislation, passing 61:60. The Federated Farmers debated the law for a long time, saying that the cost of microchipping all their dogs will be a huge cost and an inconvenience. Under previous legislation, all newly registered dogs were to have identification microchips embedded by July 1. The microchips in dogs are for owner identification, in case of attacks on humans. This law was introduced when Carolina Anderson, 7-ye

Apple Computer is planning to sell full-length feature films for download via the online iTunes Music Store. The store currently sells digital music tracks, and more recently has begun to sell TV episodes. Apple executives are in negotiations with film studios to arrange the deal and settle on pricing structures. It is expected that films will retail for around $9.99 US dollars, although some studios are reported to want to set a higher price. iTunes is currently by the biggest online retailer of digital music, with its software tightly integ

Helen Coonan, Australia's communications minister announced on Wednesday that the Howard government planned on introducing legislation into parliament restricting access to inappropriate or harmful material on so-called "emerging content services". The government considers 3G mobile communications and subscription-based Internet portals to be emerging content services. Senator Coonan said in a statement that the government was supportive of new technology, but felt that the technology requires safeguards to ensure that children are not exposed

A retired biologist from Florida State University has captured photos of a rodent in Laos which scientists thought was extinct for 11 million years. Science education professor emeritus, David Redfield and bird watcher, Uthai Treesucon, were able to catch the rodent, but only after failing to do so four times. They returned it to the wild after they took photos and a video of the rodent. "We went to Laos specifically to find this animal. We were extremely fortunate in so many ways to be able to do this. We photographed it with stills and a mov

Bill Gates will step down from his daily roles at Microsoft by July 2008. Gates, who founded the company, has been running it for three decades now. Gates plans to spend more time working on health and education at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Taking place immediately, Ray Ozzie, Chief Technical Officer, will assume the title of chief software architect. Also happening immediately, Craig Mundie, Chief Technical Officer, will become chief research and strategy officer. Gates said "Our business and technical leadership has never been