Science Portal

Active Internet users spend on the average three years of their life for aimless web browsing.
Such are the data of the survey carried out by British organization AOL. Daily the user spends in a network for about four hours.

55 % of the respondents have admitted that they spend a quarter of this time in vain. According to these data analytics have counted up, that this time makes 15 days in one year or 3 years of all life of the user.

Also about 35 % of respondents have declared, that large quantities of information hinder them, and 68 % have noted, that they do not trust the first received data and continue to search, until confirmation in more authoritative sources.

Company Virgin Galactic has submitted in New-York the vessel for suborbital flights. SpaceShipTwo will be able to take aboard about 8 person, two pilots and 6 passengers, informs BBC News.

According to representatives of Virgin Galactic, construction of SpaceShipTwo is partially completed and will be ended by 2010. Thus edition This Is London asserts, that test flights of the ship be started already this June, and commercial - 12 months later after tests.

Flight of SpaceShipTwo will last for two hours. Four a half minutes of them passengers will be in full imponderability. Launch of the flying device will be made from a board of plane-carrier WhiteKnightTwo.

Cost of the ticket for flight in SpaceShipTwo will make 200 thousand dollars. In Virgin Galactic say that 200 people have already expressed their desire, and 85 thousand were interested in an opportunity of such flight.

In 2008 the temperature on the Earth will not rise, but, probably, will insignificantly decrease because of record-breaking low level of Sun’s brightness for all 30-years period. It will last till 2055-2060 when the planet will face the deep cold snap.
That is the opinion of deputy head of the Space researches laboratory at the Main astronomical observatory of Russian Academy of Science Habibullo Abdusamatov.

The scientist has also noted, the global temperature on the Earth does not grow almost for the last ten years, therefore the planet is not any more in danger of global warming, predicted by some scientists.

Also the scientist has noted, that increase of hotbed gases level is not the reason of global warming, but natural consequence of change of solar brightness. Therefore the future fall of global temperature will take place even in the event when antropogenic emission of carbonic gas in an atmosphere will reach a record level.

The British nongovernmental organization Soil Association engaged in certification of organic products has refused to certificate the products, which contain artificially created nanoparticles.
Soil Association sets standards for organic products in agriculture, food, cosmetic and partly pharmaceutical industries. It is considered, that SA’s standards are more strict, than official standards of the United Kingdom and the European Union.

On January, 15 SA has declared, that artificially created nanoparticles can be dangerous for health of the person, therefore products containing them henceforth cannot get SA’s certificate. It concerns first of all sanitary-and-hygienic and cosmetic remedies (sun cosmetics, creams from wrinkles), and also some foodstuff and clothes.

“Forbidden” are materials if they contain particles smaller than 125 nanometers and also if the average size of their particles is less than 200 nanometers.

SA emphasizes, that so small particles essentially change their physical and chemical properties, beginning partly to submit not to classical, but quantum physics. Possible influence of nanoparticles on a human body is not studied yet.

Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, HFEA on Thursday, January, 17, has allowed two scientific organizations of the country creation of embryos-hybrids of a person and an animal.
Two leading research centers of the country - university of Newcastle and the London King’s-college have applied for the permission.

License committee of HFEA has decided that two applications meet all requirements of the law, and has given to these two organizations annual research licenses subject to a number of provisos.

The main of them is life’s term of the created hybrid embryos of a person and animals, which is limited to 14 days. After that they should be destroyed.

Engraftment of embryos in an organism of the woman for carrying of a pregnancy is illegal as before.

One of the founders of Internet - encyclopedia Wikipedia – Jimmy Wales - has presented open search Internet - system Wikia Search based on wiki-technologies.
The developer of a new search system informed, Wikia Search enables users to write independently small articles on interesting for them topics.

Wikia Search, in opinion of its founders, will be more often used to receive brief definitions, interpretation of ambiguous concepts, and search of links to the adjacent phenomena.

The founder considers, the results given by a search engine, which database is filled by users, can be potentially much more adequate than results of traditional systems like Google, Yahoo! or MSN.

Creation of search system Wikia Search was declared last March. Then Wikia’s representatives hoped that their search engine in due course will occupy about five percent of the market.

Since March, 2008 Japan introduces the new generation of broadband Internet - communication through fiber-optic lines (NGN) which will allow to transfer greater volumes of video and audio data will be commissioned, to talk over a videotelephone and to watch films online.
On January, 15 the Ministry of Internal Affairs and communications of Japan published the detailed statement of new system principles.

It is necessary to note, that introduction of new generation of Internet - communication will be carried out by NTT company which is going to bring the amount of the users to 20 million by 2010.

Meat and milk of cloned animals is eatable. To such conclusion came experts of the EFSA.
The carried out special research has shown, that there are no contra-indications for the person to eat meat and milk of cloned animals.

EFSA experts claim, “it is highly unlikely, that there is any difference in the view of food safety” between meat and milk of animals - clones and their natural relatives.

At the same time it is recognized in the Agency, that these scientific data “are limited” considering the recent application of this biotechnology”.

EFSA will pronounce a final judgment about edibility of the mentioned foodstuff in May after consultations with the scientific community.

Meanwhile, none of countries use meat of cloned animals for food.

Corporation Comcast during the exhibition CES in Las Vegas has declared development of DOCSIS 3.0 technology, which will give access to the Internet at speeds up to 160 megabit a second, informs Associated Press.
Expansion of DOCSIS 3.0 will begin already this year. It will allow Internet users to download HD feature film for a few minutes.

Usually cable television operators, and Comcast as one of them, do not offer access to the Internet faster, than 10 megabit a second. Fibre-optic lines allow to increase speed up to 50 megabit.

In 2008 Comcast plans to offer its users about thousand of films in HD format. At that, about three hundred of them can be covered by a user’s payment.

In 2008 China is going for the third time to send into a space orbit a pilot ship, which cosmonauts for the first time in a history of this country will make a “space walk”.
Such was the information published in the annual space researches program by the State commission on space, technologies and national safety of Chinese People’s Republic, informs Reuters.

Space mission of the piloted aircraft Shenchzou VII with three cosmonauts onboard is planned for October, 2008. The exact date of the expedition, as well as other details, are not specified yet.

It is known only, that in 2008 China also is going to launch 14 rockets and to put into orbit 17 satellites.

Chinese People’s Republic in October, 2003 became the third country in the world after the USSR and the USA which has independently launched a spacecraft. And in 2005 an orbit was visited by the second Chinese expedition which included two persons.