By Garett Rogers | I guess either way, the answer is ultimately China, but this latest news on Google’s censorship in China is a bit strange. Chinese people are very upset with the French due to an attack on a wheelchair bound Olympic torch carrier. The act caused many Chinese people to call for a boycott on Carrefour — a ...

AP | Federal researchers say they've developed a human identification test that's faster and possibly cheaper than DNA testing. It would be a handy new weapon in the arsenal for detectives, forensic experts and the military, though no one expects it to replace DNA analysis - and its promoters say it is not intended to. The new method analyzes antibodies. Each ...

By Roland Piquepaille | A team of Dutch ecologists has found that subterranean and aboveground herbivorous insects use plants to communicate. ‘Subterranean insects issue chemical warning signals via the leaves of the plant. This way, aboveground insects are alerted that the plant is already occupied.’ This means that by using ‘green telephone lines,’ the two kinds of insects can avoid ...

By Jane Macartney | China has overtaken the US as the world’s biggest user of the internet, thanks to a rise of more than 61 per cent of people in the country using the web in the past year.  More than 221 million Chinese were online at the end of February compared with 137 million at the start ...

By Lewis Page | An American law student has published an analysis of international law regarding war crimes that might be committed using future brain-interface-controlled weapon systems. Stephen White, studying at Cornell Law School, had his paper Brave New World: Neurowarfare and the Limits of International Humanitarian Law published (pdf) in the current issue of the Cornell International Law Journal. ...

Salford Online | Scientists say they have moved one step closer to understanding the processes occurring in supermassive black holes. Black holes are thought to be the feature at the rotational centre of most galaxies. For the first time astronomers have observed a blazer in action – one of the most energetic objects in the universe that is fuelled by supermassive black ...

By Owen Bowcott | Airline passengers are to be screened with facial recognition technology rather than checks by passport officers, in an attempt to improve security and ease congestion, the Guardian can reveal. From summer, unmanned clearance gates will be phased in to scan passengers' faces and match the image to the record on the computer chip in their biometric ...

By Elizabeth Roberts | Bermuda could have its own DNA database within a couple of years, to aid the Police in cracking more crimes. Radical reforms through the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) mean more DNA samples, fingerprints and photographs will be collected when people are taken into custody from August this year. Eventually, the ...

By Larry Dignan | EBay said Tuesday that it is suing craigslist, Craig Newmark and Jim Buckmaster to “safeguard its four-year financial investment.” The auction giant bought a 28.4 percent stake in craigslist in 2004, but alleges that in January that Newmark and Buckmaster “adopted measures that, among other things, unfairly diluted eBay’s economic interest in craigslist by more than 10 percent.” I have ...

By Tomos Livingstone | A CONTROVERSIAL database that calculates council tax bands according to features like parking space and the view from the front room is to be used in Wales. The database is run by the Valuation Office Agency, the Government body that decides which homes fall into which council tax bands. It is already in use in England, which has ...

By DON CLARK A Los Angeles start-up says it has developed a way to dramatically expand the range of a popular wireless tracking technology, opening up many new applications for low-cost identification tags. Closely held Mojix Inc. says its enhancements to a technology known as RFID -- for radio frequency ...

Ewen Callaway New Scientist Long before you decided to read this story, your brain may have already said "click that link". By scanning the brains of test subjects as they pressed one button or another – though not a computer mouse – researchers pinpointed a signal that divulged the decision about seven seconds before people ever realised their choice. The discovery has implications for mind-reading, and the nature of free will. "Our ...

By Lewis Carter The internet could soon be made obsolete by a new "grid" system which is 10,000 times faster than broadband connections. Web could collapse as video demand soars Scientists in Switzerland have developed a lightning-fast replacement to the internet that would allow feature films and music catalogues to be downloaded within seconds. The invention could signal the end of the dreaded ...

Ron Paul Last month, the House amended the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to expand the government’s ability to monitor our private communications. This measure, if it becomes law, will result in more warrantless government surveillance of innocent American citizens. Though some opponents claimed that the only controversial part of this legislation was its grant of immunity to telecommunications companies, there is much more to be wary of in the bill. ...

Plans for the Department of Homeland Security to launch a new satellite surveillance system is coming under new criticism on Capitol Hill. Last week, Secretary Michael Chertoff said the satellite surveillance system would be soon ready to go. But now the Wall Street Journal reports Democrats are threatening to shut down the program unless the department does more to address privacy concerns. The satellite program is designed to provide ...