Washington  - The Federal Reserve could raise US interest rates sooner than investors anticipate in an effort to keep rising inflation in check, according to minutes of the central bank's last meeting released on Tuesday.

The US central bank said that while it expected economic growth to remain "damped for several quarters," there were also "significant concerns" about rising prices, as companies were apparently succeeding in passing on higher energy costs to consumers.

Washington, August 26: Carnegie Mellon University experts say that they have developed a low-cost system that can reduce the risk of eavesdropping on Internet communications.

The researchers say that their system, called Perspectives, can also offer protection against attacks related to a recently disclosed software flaw in the Domain Name System (DNS), the Internet phone book used to route messages between computers.

Washington, August 26: Two biologists at Indiana University Bloomington say that sometimes “secondary” sex characters — which improve a creature's chances of finding a mate — may also drive the reproductive separation of populations, and the evolution of new species.

Armin Moczek and Harald Parzer came to this conclusion after examining males from four geographically separated populations of the horned beetle species Onthophagus taurus.

The researchers say that the beetles have diverged significantly in the size of the male copulatory organ, and natural selection operating on the other end of the animal—horns atop their heads—seem to be driving it.

Washington, August 26: A team of zoologists have proposed a theory which says that apart from birds, turtles, and fish, large mammals like cattle and deer may also sense the Earth’s magnetic field.

Birds, turtles, and fish are known to use magnetic guidance in migration. Among small mammals, a handful of rodent and one bat species have been shown to possess a magnetic compass.

Now, according to a report in National Geographic News, the new research, by zoologists at the University of Duisburg in Essen, Germany, suggested that large mammals like cattle and deer all over the world tend to align themselves with the Earth’s magnetic field.

Washington, August 26: Researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, US, have shown by experiments that monkeys have the feeling of empathy, and they enjoy sharing things with others.

Empathy in seeing the pleasure of another’s fortune is thought to be the impetus for sharing, a trait this study shows transcends primate species.

Washington, August 26: Monash University researchers say that they have designed a nano-sized “trojan horse” particle that protects antioxidants from being destroyed in the gut, and ensures a better chance of them being absorbed in the digestive tract.

Dr Ken Ng and Dr Ian Larson from the University''s Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences highlight the fact that antioxidant are known to neutralise the harmful effect of free radicals and other reactive chemical species that are constantly generated by the body, and are thought to promote better health.