A Staying up an hour or two past bedtime makes it far harder for kids to learn, say scientists who deprived youngsters of sleep and tested whether their teachers could tell the difference. They could. If parents want their children to thrive academically, “Getting them to sleep on time is as important as getting them to […]

If you are into technology, you are living in wonderful times. Things are developing in leaps and bounds, especially gadgets. Let us look at the technology that is set to break through. CELESTRON SKYSCOUTBackyard stargazing goes seriously hi-tech with the Celestron SkyScout, which was judged to be the Best of Innovations at the New York

A Despite conference jeers, job cuts, and a financial crisis, health secretary Patricia Hewitt may find a reason to smile this week, as the NHS (British National Health Service) was named one of the top places to work by students. Among engineering, science, and IT students, the health service was ranked second in this year’s Universum

A It is a question officials here in Asia are being posed more and more: Why are your economies so vibrant? Answers include young and swelling populations, decreased debt, growing cities, emerging middle-class consumer sectors, evolving markets and, of course, (China’s rise. Add this to that list: Women and their increasing role in Asia’s economies. The

Until three months ago, life in this humble village without electricity would come to a halt after sunset. Inside his mud-and-clay home, Ganpat Jadhav’s three children used to study in the dim, smoky glow of a kerosene lamp, when their monthly fuel quota of four litres dried up in just a fortnight, they had to

A More than a million people are likely to be disappointed by their experience of the Government’s attempts to improve the democratic process. They may have signed an online petition against road pricing, but ministers are determined to push ahead with plans to make it more expensive to drive. The Government is convinced that this is

A The ping of a text message has never sounded so sweet. In what is being touted as a world first, Kenya’s biggest mobile operator is allowing subscribers to send cash to other phone users by SMS. Known as M-Pesa, or mobile money, the service is expected to revolutionise banking in a country where more than

A The works of Aboriginal artists are now much in demand throughout the world, and not just in Australia, where they are already fully recognised: the National Museum of Australia, which opened in Canberra in 2001, designated 40% of its exhibition space to works by Aborigines. In Europe their art is being exhibited at a museum

Since the dawn of human ingenuity, people have devised ever more cunning tools to cope with work that is dangerous, boring, onerous, or just plain nasty. That compulsion has culminated in robotics – the science of conferring various human capabilities on machines. A The modern world is increasingly populated by quasi-intelligent gizmos whose presence we barely

Mars is the closest potentially habitable planet. It has solid ground, protective surface features, a thin atmosphere, more closely mimics the gravitational and lighting conditions on Earth, and is reachable – just. Most importantly, studies have found that this planet has vast reserves of frozen water, and there are other basic minerals as well. In