Shares of Research in Motion rose to an all-time high on Friday, a day after the company reported that second-quarter profits doubled as the subscriber level for its BlackBerry wireless devices surpassed the 10 million level.

Novell has announced that the newest Linux distribution of OpenSUSE is now available for free download from the OpenSUSE Project -- a Novell-sponsored community initiative with 54,000 members. "The OpenSUSE community continues to deliver innovations and has created a new version of OpenSUSE that will excite a wide range of computer users," said OpenSUSE project director Andreas Jaeger. "It...

US scientists extract rocks directly from California's San Andreas Fault, at a depth of some three km.

A report calls for a major campaign to boost science and technology teaching in the UK.

New finds suggest that very hardy people settled in Scotland 13,000 years ago.

The annual ceremony honors the freaky, quirky, and downright weird.

Tiny cameras mounted on tail feathers catch crows selecting twigs, shaping them into tools.

Captive-bred steelhead trout used to boost declining fish populations are less fit than wild-bred trout, raising concerns over conservation programs for endangered species, says a new study.

Japan put its first satellite into orbit around the moon Friday, placing the country a step ahead of China and India in an increasingly heated space race in Asia. The probe was set into lunar orbit after completing a complicated navigational maneuver late Thursday, space agency officials said. The probe will gradually move into orbit closer to the surface to the moon before conducting a...

A team of scientists on Thursday showed off the first rock samples taken from a borehole being drilled into the mighty San Andreas Fault to better understand how earthquakes are born. The 4-inch-wide rock cores were pulled earlier this month from two miles beneath a seismically active section of the fault halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Researchers hope the core...

The number of young children on prescription drugs for heartburn and other digestive problems jumped about 56 percent in recent years and researchers say obesity and overuse might be contributing to the surprising increase. The surge was found in a Medco Health Solutions Inc. analysis released Thursday of U.S. prescription data for 2002-2006. It suggests that more than 2 million U.S. children...

Researchers have identified a compound in tree bark that mimics the chemical reactions of a naturally occurring molecule in the brain responsible for stimulating neuronal cell signaling. The tree bark compound, known as gambogic amide, behaves much like Nerve Growth Factor, a molecule found in the brain. NGF binds to TrkA, a neuronal receptor, and activates neuronal signaling. It is known that the...

A combined treatment with rapamycin and Gleevec might reverse the effects of portal hypertension in patients with chronic liver disease. Portal hypertension is a serious complication of chronic liver disease, and a leading cause of liver transplantation and mortality. It develops when a blockage in the blood flow through the liver causes the body to develop new blood vessels to develop (through a...

Researchers have found that high-normal uric acid levels may cause barely-detectable mini-strokes that potentially contribute to mental decline in aging adults. Diet, exercise and drugs like allopurinol (all of which lower UA levels) could eventually be of value in reducing this risk, especially for those with additional risk factors such as diabetes, obesity and hypertension, the researchers say....

A survey of supernovae reveal the explosions have gotten weaker over time.

The Recording Industry Association of America won a critical battle in the fight against digital piracy on Thursday. A federal jury found a Minnesota mom guilty of sharing copyright-protected music online and decided $220,000 was fair recompense to the record labels. The plaintiffs, which include Virgin Records, Sony BMG, Capitol Records, Arista Records, Warner Bros., UMG Recordings, and...

Researchers are building underwear that could spot cancerous cells before your doctor does.

American internet ad revenues for the first six months of the year set a record at nearly $10 billion US, representing a roughly 27 per cent increase over the first half of 2006, say figures released Friday.

Cambridge, Masachusetts, October 5 2007: Last night saw the presentation of the Ig Nobel awards 2007. Awarded by the Annals of Improbable Research magazine, the prizes recognise 'achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think'

For nearly her entire life, Mary had a crippling fear of cramped spaces that meant she couldn't travel on airplanes, subways, or cars. Seeing a psychologist didn't help. So she tried something else. The 61-year-old bookkeeper, who only gave her first name to protect her privacy, sat down in front of a computer and spilled out her problems to a kind of psychiatric computer game called...

Microsoft's gaming division could soon turn a profit, thanks to the smashing success of Halo 3. Redmond reports the franchise has made history as one of the biggest entertainment launches of all time, with more than $300 million in sales during its first week on store shelves. Halo 3, the conclusion to the epic Halo trilogy, picks up where Halo 2 left off, answering questions about the fates...

Colquhoun's attack on nutritional therapy (August 15th) as unscientific fails to address any actual points of science.

Pfizer Inc., the world's largest drugmaker, is the world's biggest spender on research, the European Commission said Friday. That means it outranks rival Johnson & Johnson, software giant Microsoft Corp. and auto companies Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler AG. Pfizer spent 5.8 billion euros ($8.18 billion) last year to take the top spot from Ford on the EU's research and development list,...

An unprecedented development plan to link South America's economies through new transportation, energy and telecommunications projects could destroy much of the Amazon rainforest in coming decades, according to a new study. Researchers show that IIRSA's development projects will coincide with mounting pressures on the Amazon's ecosystem and its traditional communities. These pressures include...