Reports

Google has announced the launch of a music service in India to help users search for legal online music streams and downloads. The move is being seen as as one meant to fight piracy which has been bleeding the music industry. The official Google India blog announced on Friday that the service is now currently in the labs stage. Using the Google Music Search India service, users in India (and even those outside) can search for Bollywood/Hindi songs from current hits to old classical numbers. The...

The first names in the cast of Peter Jackson's The Hobbit have been announced. Martin Freeman will play Bilbo Baggins, the hobbit whose adventures and discovery of the One Ring led to The Lord of the Rings. He replaces Sir Ian Holm. "Despite the various rumors and speculation surround this role, there has only ever been one Bilbo Baggins for us," Peter Jackson told Deadline.com. "There are a few times in your career when you come across an actor who you know was born to play a role, but that was...

As the US establishment tries hard to project itself as a religiously diverse country, the conviction that America is a Christian nation is gaining currency and becoming more intensified, a study has found. "Though initially paradoxical, these trends are less mysterious if the idea of a Christian America is understood, not as a description of religious demography, but as a discursive practice that seeks to align the symbolic boundaries of national belonging with the boundaries of the dominant...

Some believe in love at first sight, some think it is nothing more than literary trope. But if you were looking for a scientific argument to believe in it, researchers have come up with numbers ― it takes a fraction of a second to fall in love. A team of researchers from Syracuse University has found that when a person falls in love, 12 areas of the brain work in tandem to release euphoria-inducing chemicals such as dopamine, oxytocin, adrenaline and vasopression. The love feeling also affects...

Google and the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) have announced a joint venture to document the entire collection of the 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls and make it freely accessible on the Internet. The IAA and Google and said that the collection ― 30,000 fragments comprising 900 manuscripts ― will be photographed in its entirety for the first time since the 1950s. The $3.5 million project will be funded by Leon Levy Foundation, Arcadia Fund and Yad Hanadiv Fund, according to Haaretz. The...

Over 200 of the world's most significant cultural heritage sites are at risk and in need of immediate intervention to stem irreparable loss and destruction, says a new report, Saving Our Vanishing Heritage. These damages can cost developing nations over $100 billion in lost revenue. The years spanning 2000 to 2009 have been highly destructive—one of the most damaging decades in recent history except for periods of major war and conflict, the report says. Five manmade threats are the cause of 90...

Old forests are losing ground, there are changes in river flows at critical times of the year, and wildlife habitat is losing out to agricultural landscapes in many cases, a comprehensive report ever on the state of Canada's biodiversity has revealed. Canadian Biodiversity: Ecosystem Status and Trends 2010, the first assessment of the country's biodiversity from an ecosystem perspective that presents 22 key findings, has also voiced concern over declines in certain bird populations, increases in...

Archaeologists have discovered a 4400-year-old tomb, south of the cemetery of the pyramid builders at Giza, Egypt. The discovered tomb belongs to a priest named Rudj-Ka (or Rwd-Ka), and is dated to the 5th Dynasty - between 2465 and 2323 BC. The Egyptian Minister of Culture Farouk Hosny said in a statement that the ancient Egyptian tomb was unearthed during routine excavations supervised by the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) near the pyramid builder's necropolis. Dr Zahi Hawass, Secretary...

An unprecedented number of women will be in positions of power, Muslim immigration to the West will rise, and office workers will be unchained from their cubicles ― all in the next 40 years, says a consultancy set up by the author of Future Shock. Toffler Associates has released its predictions for the next 40 years to mark the 40th anniversary of Future Shock, in which author Alvin Toffler studied the 1970s to see what would happen in the future. Some of the predictions that the consultancy...

The Bharat Diamond Bourse (BDB), labelled as the world's largest diamond trading centre, opened Sunday in India's financial capital Mumbai, more than 20 years after the idea was first mooted. The Bharat Diamond Bourse (BDB) is spread over 20 acres, with eight towers of nine storeys each, housing 2,500 offices in addition to the customs department, banks and other service providers who cater to the gems and jewellery trade. An extra space of 2 million sq ft has also been provided for auditoriums...