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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Football: Comfortable Bayern cruise as Dortmund slip

BERLIN: Bayern Munich moved a step closer to the Bundesliga title on Saturday as they beat Augsburg 2-0 and extended their lead over two-time reigning champions Borussia Dortmund to 14 points.Thomas Mueller and Mario Gomez scored in Bayern's victory while 10-man Dortmund lost 3-2 at home against Wolfsburg. Munich jumped onto 41 points while Dortmund remained on 27 points one game day before...

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Best Buy sends five iPads in error, says 'keep them'

These are very generous people, if occasionally inefficient.(Credit:Screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)Our lecture today is entitled "Ethics and the Holiday Spirit."The question at hand is this: if you order aniPad from Best Buy and the company sends you five, what do you do?Do you phone Best Buy and say, "Hullo, you've sent me four too many"?Do you phone Best Buy and say, "Gosh, just wanted to thank...

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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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Australian DJs Behind Prank Call Under Fire

An outpouring of anger is being directed today at the two Australian radio hosts after the death of a nurse who was caught in the DJs' prank call to hospital where Kate Middleton was treated earlier this week.Lord Glenarthur, the chairman of King Edward VII's Hospital - the U.K. hospital where the Duchess of Cambridge was receiving treatment, condemned the prank in a letter...

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Twin spacecraft map the mass of the man in the moon

Flora Graham, deputy editor, newscientist.com(Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MIT/GSFC)Twin spacecraft orbiting the moon have created an incredibly detailed map of our companion. In this image, the moon's normally sober appearance has been enhanced with colours to represent variations in its structure - red indicates more massive areas and blue corresponds to less mass. The two satellites that made the...

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Football: City will benefit from European exit: Ferguson

MANCHESTER, United Kingdom: Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson says that Manchester City's European demise has given Roberto Mancini's side a clear advantage in the race for the Premier League title.City, who host leaders United on Sunday, failed to clinch a place in the Europa League after finishing bottom of their Champions League group following defeat by German side Borussia Dortmund...

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Is Xiaomi China's Apple? Its CEO plays the Steve Jobs role well

The Xiaomi MI-Two next to the HTC One X+ (middle) and the Samsung Galaxy S3.(Credit:CNET Asia)There's a company operating in China that is called the next Apple by supporters, and is run by a founder that has achieved Steve Jobs-like status among his firm's followers.Xiaomi Technology may be largely unknown to the outside world, but in China it's a household name, Reuters reports in a detailed profile...

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Photos: Best Camera-Trap Pictures of 2012

Photograph courtesy Zhou Zhefeng, BBC Wildlife Magazine A leopard seems to strike a regal pose in China in the winning photograph of the annual BBC Wildlife Camera Trap Competition.Photographer Zhou Zhefeng snagged both the top prize and a category win for Animal Portraits.Established in 2010, the contest features the most "visually exciting" or significant camera-trap images taken by conservationists...

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Nurse Duped by 'Queen's' Prank Call Found Dead

The hospital receptionist who was hoaxed by a prank call from a DJ claiming to be the queen asking about Kate Middleton has been found dead."It is with very deep sadness that we confirm the tragic death of a member of our nursing staff," the hospital said in a statement released today.The nurse was identified as Jacintha Saldanha. The hospital said that Saldanha worked at the...

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Today on New Scientist: 6 December 2012

Deep inside a mouse's ear, a swirling galaxy of cells The winner of the GenArt 2012 image competition reveals the power of deep genetic sequencing to understand deafnessKyoto protocol gets a second lease of life Just weeks before it is due to expire, the world's only binding climate agreement appears to have been saved - sort ofZoologger: The toughest eggs in the world The eggs of the tiny seed...

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ECB slashes growth forecasts, keeps door open to rate cuts

FRANKFURT: The European Central Bank slashed its eurozone growth forecasts Thursday, keeping the door open to more interest rates cuts, even as it insisted it was up to governments to solve the debt crisis.As widely expected, the ECB's decision-making governing council voted to leave the bank's main refinancing rate at a historic low of 0.75 percent at its last policy meeting this year.But...

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Will the Samsung Galaxy S IV be 'unbreakable'?

Will the next Samsung Galaxy flagship phone bring a comic book dream to life and be truly "unbreakable."(Credit:CNET)If the rumors are true, Samsung is looking to go big with its next flagship Android phone, presumably to be the Galaxy S IV.Not only is it rumored that the next batch of galactic goodies will pack a quad-core processor and 13-megapixel camera, as CNET's Scott Webster recently reported,...

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High-Voltage DC Breakthrough Could Boost Renewable Energy

Patrick J. Kiger Thomas Edison championed direct current, or DC, as a better mode for delivering electricity than alternating current, or AC. But the inventor of the light bulb lost the War of the Currents. Despite Edison's sometimes flamboyant efforts—at one point he electrocuted a Coney Island zoo elephant in an attempt to show the technology's hazards—AC is the primary way that electricity...

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Winter Chill Descends on Frozen Fiscal Cliff Talks

A chill has descended on Washington just in time for tonight's lighting of the National Christmas Tree.President Obama will preside over an evening festival of star-studded carols and sparkling displays of holiday cheer on the White House Ellipse.But don't expect any of the holiday good will to warm the political frost over the fiscal cliff talks.The White House is mandating...

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Psychiatry is failing those with personality disorders

A workable diagnostic system is needed, because sticking with the status quo is not an option IF DOCTORS sent patients with angina home with nothing but a prescription for a painkiller to control chest pain, they would be sued for malpractice. Sadly, that is a fitting analogy for what happens all too often to people with personality...

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Britain faces more austerity pain

LONDON: Finance minister George Osborne on Wednesday warned Britons that they faced an extra year of austerity measures and insisted that reversing his belt-tightening measures now would be a "disaster".Chancellor of the Exchequer Osborne said Britain would face spending cuts and tax hikes until 2018 -- after the coalition government led by Prime Minister David Cameron had already previously...

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Apple shares continue decline, slide another 4 percent

Apple's stock can't seem to catch a break lately.Shares are off another 4 percent today, and Apple has lost a fifth of its market value since its peak in mid-September. Over the past few months, Apple has faced questions about whether it can maintain its current dominance in the mobile industry, with its iPhone andiPad both ceding market share to devices running on Google'sAndroid operating system....

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Scientific Results From Challenger Deep

Jane J. Lee The spotlight is shining once again on the deepest ecosystems in the ocean—Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench (map) and the New Britain Trench near Papua New Guinea. At a presentation today at the American Geophysical Union's conference in San Francisco, attendees got a glimpse into these mysterious ecosystems nearly 7 miles (11 kilometers) down, the former visited by filmmaker...

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John McAfee Seeks Asylum, Thanks God for 'Sanity'

Eccentric software tycoon John McAfee, wanted for questioning in the shooting death of his neighbor, has made his escape from Belize to Guatemala, where he told ABC News he will be seeking asylum."Thank God I am in a place where there is some sanity," McAfee said. "I chose Guatemala carefully."McAfee, 67, has been on the run from police in the Central American country of Belize...

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Today on New Scientist: 4 December 2012

'Magnetic highway' found at solar system's edge NASA's Voyager 1 has detected a zone where charged particles can race along magnetic field lines linking the solar system with interstellar spaceBack-to-basics money shot shows a cent's battle scars The euro has taken a bit of a battering of late - and not just in the financial markets. See how a 1-cent coin looks through a powerful microscopeBattling...

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Android extends global smartphone lead: survey

WASHINGTON: Google's Android operating system will power more than two-thirds of smartphones sold worldwide in 2012, and will remain the dominant platform for at least the next four years, a survey showed Tuesday.The survey by the research firm IDC showed Android will be the platform for 68.3 per cent of smartphones shipped in 2012, far ahead of 18.8 per cent for the iOS platform used...

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360-degree camera captures head-spinning videos

This may be the closest you'll get to driving an F1 car.(Credit:Video screenshot by Amanda Kooser/CNET)The phrase "immersive experience" gets bandied about quite a bit when talking about technology. I wouldn't use those words to describe the online video experience... until now. The Making View 360-degree ViewCam video system brings you into the action much more than a regular clip.Remember those...

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Pictures We Love: Best of November

Photograph by Qais Usyan, AFP/Getty ImagesThe family of a five-year-old Afghan girl, victim of an alleged rape by a 22-year-old man, sits at her hospital bedside in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan, on November 12. News agencies reported that the assailant, a neighbor, was later detained by police.(Read about the continued struggle of women in Afghanistan in National Geographic magazine.)Why We Love It...

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Alaska Serial Killer Buried Murder Kits Across US

Israel Keyes, the Alaskan man whoconfessed to seven murders before killing himself in a jail cell, told police that he traveled the country to find victims and buried caches of weapons, money and tools for disposing of bodies to use in future crimes.The FBI also released an ominous list of 35 trips Keyes made around the U.S., Mexico and Canada over the last eight years.Keyes,...

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Top accounting firms face charges over China data

WASHINGTON: US market regulators charged the China affiliates of five top accounting firms Monday with violation of securities laws for refusing to provide audit data related to China-based companies."The audit materials are being sought as part of SEC investigations into potential wrongdoing by nine China-based companies whose securities are publicly traded in the US," the Securities...

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AT&T adds 6 LTE markets, now reaches 150 million people

AT&T has expanded its LTE network to six more markets.The company announced today that three U.S. markets -- Albuquerque, NM, Reading, Penn., and Salt Lake City, UT -- are now able to access its LTE network. Three markets in Puerto Rico -- Guayama, San German-Cabo Rojo, and Yauco -- also now have AT&T's LTE network.With the new addition, AT&T's network now spans 109 markets and reaches...

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Photos: Kilauea Lava Reaches the Sea

Into the Sea Photograph by Hugh Gentry, ReutersA spectacular natural phenomenon was on display early this week as lava from a vent in Hawaii's Kilauea volcano flowed into...

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