IBM researchers in San Jose, working with colleagues at Stanford, have created a microscope capable of viewing structures as small as 4 nanometers — a whopping 100 million times the resolution of magnetic resonance imaging.

Read abt it Here

The resolution works down to four nanometers, or four-billionths of a meter. To give you an idea of scale atobacco mosaic virus (a tiny virus that affects plants such as tobacco) is 18 nanometers across.

The work was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Here’s a YouTube video that shows how it works

Every home in the UK is to have broadband internet access by 2012 under Government plans.

Lord Carter's Digital Britain report proposed to scrap BT's obligation to ensure every home has access to a telephone line and replace it with a requirement to provide broadband.

This so-called universal service commitment would aim to ensure everyone had quick enough internet access to watch videos online.

The report also proposed the creation of a new body to deal with the problem of people illegally copying and sharing music and films over the internet. The new rights agency would be funded via a levy on internet service providers (ISPs) and the music and film industry. Lord Carter also said new legislation was likely to be brought in requiring ISPs to take action against customers who repeatedly infringe copyright by sharing files.

ISPs would have to tell customers their activities were illegal, and collect information on repeat offenders. This information would have to be passed on to rights-holders - film and music companies - on receipt of a court order. The new broadband obligation would involve all the major players in the field, the report said.

Lord Carter said: "At the moment there is no universal service commitment to broadband at all. We're saying it should be provided by the entire industry. It could be via fixed line connection or wireless."

Paul Murphy, the minister for digital inclusion, said the sector had an important role to play in supporting people through the recession.

"Digital Britain outlines some important issues around the regulatory and technical aspects of creating a digital Britain," he said. "Through the digital inclusion agenda, which I am taking forward, we are focused on the social benefits which this new technology brings and its potential to tackle social issues and enhance life chances and opportunities."

The Government will look into regulator Ofcom's recommendations for a second Public Service Broadcaster to rival the BBC which would involve Channel 4 becoming part of a larger organisation. In its report last week Ofcom left the door open for partnerships involving BBC Worldwide, the corporation's commercial arm and Five.

The Digital Britain report said that while it made sense to begin looking at public sector bodies such as Channel 4 and BBC Worldwide, the Government was also looking at a "range of options".

Thousands of languages face extinction

The world has lost Manx in the Isle of Man, Ubykh in Turkey and last year Alaska's last native speaker of Eyak, Marie Smith Jones, died, taking the aboriginal language with her.

Of the 6 900 languages spoken in the world, some 2 500 are endangered, the UN's cultural agency Unesco said on Thursday as it released its latest atlas of world languages.

That represents a multi-fold increase from the last atlas compiled in 2001 which listed 900 languages threatened with extinction.

But experts say this is more the result of better research tools than of an increasingly dire situation for the world's many tongues.....

'There's another Earth out there - and we'll find it'

The first Earth-like planet orbiting a distant star could be discovered within four years, astronomers believe.
None of the 300 "extra-solar" planets so far identified beyond our own system are thought to be suitable for life, so the discovery of an Earth-like planet made of rock rather than hot gas or frozen ice would significantly increase the chances of finding the second habitable world, scientists say.

A leading astronomer confidently predicted yesterday that the discovery of an earth-like planet - possibly in the water-friendly "habitable zone" around a nearby star - would soon be announced, after two satellite studies by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa).

"Within about three or four years, there will be a press conference at Nasa headquarters and they will tell us just how frequently Earth-like planets occur and once we know that, we will know how to take the next steps in the search for habitable planets," said Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington.....

Mars had 'recent' running water
Mars appears to have had running water on its surface about one million years ago, according to new evidence.

Images from a Nasa spacecraft orbiting the Red Planet show fan-shaped gullies on the surface which seem to be about 1.25 million years old, the study says.
They believe the channels were sculpted by surface water from melting ice........