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Keanu Reeves makes director debut with modern Kung Fu film

Tue, 21 May 2013 01:38:55 +0530

By Mike Davidson CANNES (Reuters) - He's played a science-fiction hero, policeman and even Hamlet. But now actor Keanu Reeves is taking on a new role - as director of a contemporary martial arts movie aimed at both Chinese and Western audiences. Reeves has stepped behind the camera to make his directorial debut with "Man of Tai Chi", a trilingual film loosely based on the life of a stuntman, Tiger Chen, whom he befriended while working on the sci-fi "The Matrix" trilogy. ...

'Star Wars' to bring 'Rebels' to new animated Disney TV series

Mon, 20 May 2013 23:08:09 +0530

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Disney said on Monday it will produce a new "Star Wars" animated series to air on television in the fall 2014, giving fans of the science-fiction franchise fresh stories before the next live-action film hits theaters in 2015. "Star Wars Rebels," based on George Lucas' multibillion dollar film franchise, will be set in the two decades between the events of the third and fourth films, where the Empire becomes a dominant force in the galaxy, Disney said. ...

China trying to manage exposure of corruption online

Mon, 20 May 2013 18:51:34 +0530

By Terril Yue Jones BEIJING (Reuters) - China's Internet is brimming with disclosures of officials collecting bribes, homes and luxury accessories as casually as they do mistresses. But while the government tolerates such anti-corruption vigilantism, it is also extremely leery of the threat the Internet can pose to Communist Party rule. The Internet is the new tool in the fight against corruption - a cornerstone policy of new President Xi Jinping, who has pledged to tackle the problem head-on. ...

Retiring Ferguson seeks anything but a quiet life

Fri, 17 May 2013 16:32:29 +0530

By Sonia Oxley MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) - When Alex Ferguson wakes up on Monday morning without a Manchester United team to manage he will not be putting his feet up and settling into a quiet retirement. The 71-year-old Scot takes charge of his 1,500th and final United game at West Bromwich Albion on Sunday before stepping down after more than 26 years at Old Trafford. He might have had 10 hours' sleep for the first time ever on Monday night after a huge celebratory open-top bus parade through Manchester to mark his 13th and the club's 20th top-flight title but rest is not on his agenda. ...

Psychiatrists unveil their long-awaited diagnostic 'bible'

Fri, 17 May 2013 10:15:06 +0530

By Sharon Begley NEW YORK (Reuters) - The long-awaited, controversial new edition of the bible of psychiatry can be characterized by many numbers: its 947 pages, its $199 price tag, its more than 300 maladies (from "dependent personality disorder" and "voyeuristic disorder" to "delayed ejaculation," "kleptomania" and "intermittent explosive disorder"), each limning the potential woes of being human. ...

Soldier who killed fellow U.S. troops in Iraq gets life sentence

Fri, 17 May 2013 00:19:10 +0530

By Eric M. Johnson TACOMA, Washington (Reuters) - A U.S. Army sergeant was sentenced to life in prison without parole on Thursday for killing five fellow servicemen in a shooting spree in Iraq, one of the worst cases of violence by an American soldier against other U.S. troops. In a deal that spared him the death penalty, Sergeant John Russell pleaded guilty last month to killing two medical staff officers and three soldiers at the Camp Liberty combat stress clinic, near Baghdad's airport. The military has said the 2009 shooting might have been triggered by combat stress. ...

U.S. sees China launch as test of anti-satellite muscle - source

Thu, 16 May 2013 06:29:37 +0530

By Andrea Shalal-Esa WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government believes a Chinese missile launch this week was the first test of a new interceptor that could be used to destroy a satellite in orbit, one U.S. defense official told Reuters on Wednesday. China launched a rocket into space on Monday but no objects were placed into orbit, the Pentagon said on Wednesday. The object re-entered Earth's atmosphere above the Indian Ocean. ...

Google launches streaming music service ahead of Apple

Thu, 16 May 2013 05:47:26 +0530

By Alexei Oreskovic and Edwin Chan SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc launched a music service on Wednesday that allows users to listen to unlimited songs for $9.99 a month, challenging smaller companies like Pandora and Spotify in the market for streaming music. With its new service, announced at its annual developers' conference in San Francisco, Google has adopted the streaming music business model ahead of rival Apple Inc , which pioneered online music purchases with iTunes. ...

NASA telescope's planet-hunting days may be over

Thu, 16 May 2013 05:37:24 +0530

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA's first telescope dispatched to hunt for Earth-like planets that may support life elsewhere in the universe has lost use of its positioning system, threatening its mission, officials said on Wednesday. Launched in 2009, the Kepler space telescope revolutionized the study of so-called exoplanets, with discovery of 130 worlds orbiting distant stars and 2,700 potential planets still awaiting confirmation. ...

Scientists say united on global warming, at odds with public view

Thu, 16 May 2013 04:37:26 +0530

By Environment Correspondent Alister Doyle OSLO (Reuters) - Ninety-seven percent of scientists say global warming is mainly man-made but a wide public belief that experts are divided is making it harder to gain support for policies to curb climate change, an international study showed on Thursday. The report found an overwhelming view among scientists that human activity, led by the use of fossil fuels, was the main cause of rising temperatures in recent decades. ...

Scientists create human stem cells through cloning

Wed, 15 May 2013 22:26:12 +0530

By Sharon Begley NEW YORK (Reuters) - After more than 15 years of failures by scientists around the world and one outright fraud, biologists have finally created human stem cells by the same technique that produced Dolly the cloned sheep in 1996: They transplanted genetic material from an adult cell into an egg whose own DNA had been removed. The result is a harvest of human embryonic stem cells, the seemingly magic cells capable of morphing into any of the 200-plus kinds that make up a person. ...

Starman falls to Earth after five-month space odyssey

Tue, 14 May 2013 21:40:16 +0530

By Dmitry Solovyov and Irene Klotz ALMATY/CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - The Canadian astronaut who became a music sensation when his zero-gravity version of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" went viral on the web returned to Earth along with two crewmates on Tuesday after a five-month stint on the International Space Station. Chris Hadfield landed safely in central Kazakhstan with his American and Russian colleagues. ...

Ferrari, Lotus the F1 winners on return to Europe

Mon, 13 May 2013 21:36:17 +0530

By Alan Baldwin LONDON (Reuters) - The first European race of the Formula One season provided a boost for Ferrari and Fernando Alonso, with Lotus and Kimi Raikkonen also smiling, but left plenty of other former champions feeling the pain. While Red Bull retained their lead in both championships, they struggled with similar tyre problems to others in Barcelona on Sunday with triple champion Sebastian Vettel finishing off the podium with his lead over Raikkonen cut to four points. ...

Merkel says has no secrets about her communist past

Mon, 13 May 2013 20:45:10 +0530

By Alexandra Hudson BERLIN (Reuters) - Angela Merkel has dismissed claims in a new book that she was more actively committed to East Germany's communist regime than she has acknowledged, saying she has never kept anything secret about her past. The book, "The first life of Angela M.", says that Merkel, who will seek a third term as chancellor in a federal election in September, was responsible for Marxist-Leninist education in a unit of the state's youth wing, in a role that went beyond the cultural duties she has previously spoken of. ...

Eco-friendly green burials catching on in the U.S

Sat, 11 May 2013 17:06:12 +0530

By Steven P Johnson GAINESVILLE, Florida (Reuters) - After a two-year battle with cancer, Joseph Fitzgerald was determined to leave his final resting place to Mother Nature. On a quiet February day in rural Florida, Fitzgerald's body was carried through the Prairie Creek Conservation Cemetery on a bamboo stretcher made by family members. In an ecologically approved "green burial," he was laid to rest on a plot of land surrounded by oak trees and Spanish moss he picked out just months before his passing in a grave that was dug by hand just two days prior. ...

EXCLUSIVE - Elon Musk quits Zuckerberg's immigration advocacy group

Sat, 11 May 2013 05:21:31 +0530

By Sarah McBride and Alina Selyukh SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Billionaire environmentalist Elon Musk has quit a Silicon Valley advocacy group formed by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg after the group funded ads for senators touting their support for an oil pipeline and oil drilling in Alaska. Musk leads one of the world's best known "green" companies, electric carmaker Tesla . A Tesla spokeswoman told Reuters on Friday that the South African-born entrepreneur preferred not to elaborate on his reasons for leaving FWD.us. Zuckerberg announced the formation of FWD. ...

French Muslims look to science to determine start of Ramadan

Fri, 10 May 2013 07:09:15 +0530

By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor PARIS (Reuters) - France's Muslim leaders have agreed to end almost 1,400 years of Islamic tradition and use modern astronomy to determine the start of the holy month of Ramadan and other Islamic holidays. The French Muslim Council (CFCM) voted on Thursday to start using astronomical calculations to set the date rather than relying on the naked eye to sight the new crescent moon. Ramadan traditionally begins the morning after the sighting, which has in the past been delayed by a day or even two by weather. ...

YouTube starts paid subscription service

Fri, 10 May 2013 06:30:01 +0530

By Ronald Grover REUTERS - Google's YouTube video service is dipping its toe into pay television by starting on Thursday a subscription service with 30 content creators, including children's programmers Sesame Street and Muppet creator The Jim Henson Co, and the Ultimate Fighting Championship. YouTube, the world's largest video website, allows creators to set subscription fees and accept advertisements, at their discretion, for the channels they create. For $4.99 a month, subscribers can get golf lessons from the PGA Golf Academy. The Laugh Factory charges $2. ...

Visual effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen dead at age 92

Wed, 08 May 2013 01:11:49 +0530

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Influential visual effects maker and animator Ray Harryhausen, who brought monsters, skeletons and mythological beasts to life for movies like "Jason and the Argonauts" long before computers took over the job, died Tuesday at age 92, his family said. Harryhausen, who was born in Los Angeles and worked for more than 40 years in the movie industry, died in London, his family said in a statement. "The Harryhausen family regret to announce the death of Ray Harryhausen, visual effects pioneer and stop-motion model animator. ...

Italy came to brink before being saved by "King George"

Tue, 07 May 2013 12:39:28 +0530

By Barry Moody and Steve Scherer ROME (Reuters) - On Saturday April 20, the leaders of Italy's two biggest political forces climbed the Quirinal, highest of Rome's seven ancient hills, and begged President Giorgio Napolitano to stay for a second term. Pier Luigi Bersani and Silvio Berlusconi were followed into the presidential palace by outgoing Prime Minister Mario Monti, Northern League boss Roberto Maroni and finally the governors of Italy's regions, in scenes that resembled schoolboys visiting the headmaster's office. ...

New gene therapy trials aim to mend broken hearts

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 05:17:49 +0530

By Ben Hirschler LONDON (Reuters) - British scientists are stepping up clinical tests of gene therapy in a bid to help people with advanced heart failure pump blood more efficiently. Researchers said on Tuesday they planned to enrol patients into two new clinical trials using Mydicar, a gene therapy treatment made by privately held U.S. biotech company Celladon. After more than 20 years of research, the ground-breaking method for fixing faulty genes is starting to deliver, with European authorities approving the first gene therapy for an rare metabolic disease last November. ...

Rise of young voters shifts Malaysia election balance

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 05:14:17 +0530

By Siva Sithraputhran and Anuradha Raghu KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak escaped a direct showdown with youth when a 23-year-old student gave up his bid to challenge him in his home constituency in the May 5 general election. But Mohammed Bukhairy Mohammed Sofian's quixotic plan to run against Najib -- which he dropped to avoid diverting votes from the main opposition candidate -- was a reminder of how young voters are shaping politics in the Southeast Asian nation as never before and unnerving the long-ruling coalition. He is one of 2. ...

Egypt's Mursi backs down, to seek compromise on judges

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 09:46:57 +0530

By Paul Taylor and Omar Fahmy CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi and top judges agreed on Sunday to seek a compromise to defuse a battle over Islamist attempts to force out thousands of judges that have deeply polarised the Arab world's most populous nation. Mursi's Islamist allies had proposed legislation to purge more than 3,000 judges at a stroke by reducing their mandatory retirement age to 60 from 70 to sweep away senior jurists appointed under autocratic former President Hosni Mubarak. ...

Singer Emeli Sande eyes US market after setting UK chart record

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 20:17:59 +0530

By Rollo Ross LONDON (Reuters) - Scottish singer-songwriter Emeli Sande scored a new chart record on Sunday with her debut album after a stellar year in Britain that has paved the way for her next challenge - the U.S. market. Sande smashed a record held for nearly 50 years by The Beatles when her debut album, "Our Version of Events", hit its 63rd week in the top 10 of the UK album charts, according to the Official Charts Company. ...

New $5.5 billion plan aims to rid world of polio by 2018

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 16:59:03 +0530

By Kate Kelland, Health and Science Correspondent LONDON (Reuters) - Health groups said on Thursday they could rid the world of polio by 2018 with a $5.5 billion vaccination and monitoring plan to stop the disease taking hold once more now there are only a handful of cases worldwide. Experts say the plan offers the best chance yet to eradicate a disease that until the 1950s crippled many thousands of people every year but has been brought almost to extinction though effective vaccine campaigns. ...

Astronomers start mission to find 100 billion Earth-like planets

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 15:34:20 +0530

Washington, Apr 4 (ANI): Researchers at The University of Auckland have proposed a new method for finding Earth-like planets, and they anticipate that the number will be about 100 billion.

What causes Einstein's turbulences

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 15:34:19 +0530

Washington, Apr 4 (ANI): To this day turbulence lacks a fundamental mathematical theory.

Curiosity rover's parachute on Mars flaps in the wind

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 15:34:19 +0530

Washington, Apr 4 (ANI): Photos from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has shown how the parachute that helped the Curiosity rover land on Mars last summer has subsequently changed its shape on the ground.