London, June 11 : The historic India-US civil nuclear deal is almost dead, according to a senior US official.
Asked whether it was now impossible to push the deal through, one Bush Administration official said: “That is probably correct,” The Financial Times reported.
“Even if the Indian Government were suddenly to turn around and get the IAEA stage completed, there would be no time for the remaining two stages,” said Ashley Tellis, one of the original architects of the deal and now an adviser to John McCain’s presidential campaign.
Tellis said that the collapse of the deal would jeopardise India’s access to sensitive US technology, which could have an impact on defence sales and civil nuclear development.

Amsterdam, June 11 : Astronomers have re-discovered one of the youngest and brightest supernova remnants in the Milky Way, the corpse of a star that exploded around 1000 years ago.

The supernova was observed by ESA’s (European Space Agency’s) orbiting X-ray observatory XMM-Newton.

Exploding stars seed the Universe with heavy chemical elements necessary to build planets and create life. The expanding cloud of debris that each explosion leaves behind, known as a supernova remnant (SNR), is a bright source of X-rays and radio waves.

Generally, the debris is thought to appear as an expanding bubble or ring.

Washington, June 11 : NASA is collaborating with a UK company in developing an early warning system for earthquakes, which would be able to predict major quakes two weeks in advance.

According to a report in Discovery News, the project is based on a controversial theory that may gain traction in light of new findings described in a leaked NASA memo about the May 12 earthquake in China’s Sichuan province.

The researchers hope to create a global network of roughly 20 satellites that would scan for telltale activity that some scientists say precedes large earthquakes.

The goal is to create an early warning system that would give up to two weeks notice before a quake anywhere in the world, potentially saving thousands of lives.

London, June 11 : Italian researchers have demonstrated that monkeys too possess the ability to learn how to exchange money for their favourite food items, and whether to trade for one piece of tasty food or many pieces of a less appetizing snack.

Elsa Addessi at the CNR, the Italian National Research Council in Rome, says that the findings of her experiments on capuchin monkeys suggest that they can understand the symbolic value of an object just like humans.

The researcher points out that the capuchins could grasp the ‘money’ concept despite the fact that they had diverged from humans about 35 million years ago.

Washington, June 11 : A new study has shown that people with more green space in their living environment walk and cycle less often and for shorter amounts of time.

For the study, about five thousand Dutch residents were surveyed, which involved completing a questionnaire.

The survey questions focused on participants' physical activity and self perceived health.

Researchers also calculated the percentage of green space within a 1 km and 3 km radius around the house for each resident.

"Little is known about the way in which green space exerts a beneficial effect. Several explanations are possible," said lead author of the study Jolanda Maas.

London, June 11 : An astronomer has suggested that Nix and Hydra, two of Pluto’s moons, are spray-painting the planet and Charon with their dust.

According to a report in New Scientist, Alan Stern at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas, US, has come up with this theory.

Pluto’s dazzling red stands in sharp contrast to the greys of its three moons Hydra, Nix and Charon.

The moons’ similarity was thought to be because the trio was created at the same time from the same material in a massive smash in the early solar system.

Now, Stern has determined that the similarity is due to Nix and Hydra throwing up some dust at Charon, as well as Pluto.