The Korea Herald

S. Korea, China agree to joint research in Antarctica

South Korea and China have agreed to strengthen their maritime cooperation that will include the mutual use of their assets in the Antarctic for joint research, the South Korean government said Friday.The agreement came at the latest bilateral talks on maritime cooperation held in Beijing on Thursday, according to the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries.At this week's meeting, the 12th of its kind, "the two sides agreed to pursue a joint survey of the sea in the polar region, using the two countrie

Nov. 29, 2013

Sarcomas

Sarcoma is a type of cancer that arises from stem cells. It can develop from muscle, fat, nerve, vascular, cartilage or bone tissues. Sarcomas are broadly classified into soft-tissue sarcomas and osteosarcomas. Soft-tissue sarcomas can arise in any part of the body, but mainly the limbs and retroperitoneum, an area at the back of the abdominal cavity, while osteosarcomas are often found in the limbs. Soft-tissue sarcomas can be further divided into liposarcomas, rhabdomyosarcomas, neurofibrosarc

Nov. 28, 2013

Feeling itchy after a hot shower? Think about hives

Kim Dong-young, a 22-year-old student, had been scratching his skin almost every day, particularly after showering. “I can’t help but scratch my skin to death because I feel itchy and stingy all over my body at the same time,” he said. “My skin then gets blood red and swollen. It looks so ugly.” Kim applied moisturizers for the last three months, thinking that the rash may have been caused by the dry weather. However, he learned from a dermatologist last week that the rash had nothing to do with

Nov. 28, 2013

Feeling itchy after a hot shower? Think about hives

Samsung plans market launch of Galaxy S5 in February: report

Samsung Electronics will reportedly roll out two variants of the Galaxy S5 early next year, equipped with a 64-bit ARM chip.A premium Galaxy lineup will likely sport a 5-inch flexible OLED display and a metal chassis, while a stripped-down model will come in a plastic body, according to a news report.It is expected that the new models will run on the 64-bit Exynos chipset and a Qualcomm Snapdragon chip. The smartphones will be equipped with 3GB of RAM, a 16-megapixel camera, and a 4000mAh batter

Nov. 28, 2013

SKT to launch faster LTE mobile network next year

SK Telecom, the country’s biggest mobile carrier in Korea, plans to launch a mobile service next year that provides faster connection speeds than the existing Long Term Evolution network. Holding a press meeting at the company’s office in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, Thursday, the telecommunications firm demonstrated the new network technology, which is three times faster than LTE. The mobile service, called “two-band LTE,” uses carrier aggregation technology, through which the firm aggregates

Nov. 28, 2013

SKT to launch faster LTE mobile network next year

Samsung SDI to supply energy storage systems to Indian firm

Samsung SDI said Thursday it had struck an exclusive deal to supply energy storage systems and related parts to a major Indian energy management equipment manufacturer. Under the deal, the Korean energy solution firm will supply 110 MWh energy storage systems to ACME for the next two years. The Indian firm, which specializes in energy management products for photovoltaic power generators and telecommunications equipment, is one of the largest companies in the Indian market.Samsung SDI’s lithium-

Nov. 28, 2013

Samsung SDI to supply energy storage systems to Indian firm

Space hosts busy Thanksgiving events

WASHINGTON (AP) ― Space will serve up a banquet of activities on Thanksgiving, featuring a comet kissing the sun, a zero-gravity freeze-dried feast in orbit and a rocket launch attempt:First course Comet ISON, which was discovered a year ago, is making its first spin around the sun and will come the closest to the super-hot solar surface at 1:37 p.m. EST. It may take a few hours before astronomers know if the comet survived its brush with the sun. If it survives, and maybe even if it doesn’t, pe

Nov. 28, 2013

Tongue piercing lets paralyzed drive wheelchairs

WASHINGTON (AP) ― An experimental device is letting paralyzed people drive wheelchairs simply by flicking their tongue in the right direction.Key to this wireless system: Users get their tongue pierced with a magnetic stud that resembles jewelry and acts like a joystick, in hopes of offering them more mobility and independence.Researchers reported Wednesday that 11 people paralyzed from the neck down rapidly learned to use the tongue device to pilot their wheelchairs through an obstacle course f

Nov. 28, 2013

Samsung Electronics may use 64-bit ARM chip

Samsung Electronics will reportedly roll out two variants of the Galaxy S5 early next year, equipped with a 64-bit ARM chip.A premium Galaxy lineup will likely sport a 5-inch flexible OLED display and a metal chassis, while a stripped-down model will come in a plastic body, according to a news report.It is expected that the new models will run on the 64-bit Exynos chipset and a Qualcomm Snapdragon chip. The smartphones will be equipped with 3 GB of RAM, a 16-megapixel camera, and a 4000mAh batt

Nov. 28, 2013

Doctors protest telemedicine plan

Doctors, nurses and pharmacists on Wednesday protested the government’s plan to introduce telemedicine, saying the new practice would threaten businesses, jobs and the quality of medical service.“Telemedicine would lower the quality of medical service and jeopardize operations of local clinics and regional hospitals,” the groups said in a joint news conference.“The introduction of the technology will cut at least 50,000 jobs in the medical service industry,” they said.The event was joined by fiv

Nov. 27, 2013

Candidate for ITU unit chief vows to bridge digital divide

A Korean candidate for director of a U.N. agency for telecommunications said that South Korea can play a critical role in bridging the gap between developed and less-developed nations through the world’s information and communication technology sector. “Korea is now in a position to lead the world’s ICT industry. It is not a follower anymore,” said Lee Chae-sub, a candidate for the director of the Telecommunication Standardization Sector, a division of the International Telecommunication Union (

Nov. 27, 2013

Candidate for ITU unit chief vows to bridge digital divide

Sony seeks ‘SmartWig’ patent for hairpieces with camera, sensors

Sony Corp., which popularized portable music players with the Walkman, is seeking a U.S. patent for “SmartWig” hairpieces that could help navigate roads, check blood pressure or flip through slides in a presentation.The wig would communicate wirelessly with another device and include tactile feedback, Sony said in the filing with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Depending on the model, the hairpiece may include a camera, laser pointer or global positioning system sensor, it said.The developme

Nov. 27, 2013

Calm solar cycle prompts questions about Earth impact

WASHINGTON (AFP) ― The surface of the sun has been surprisingly calm of late ― with fewer sunspots than anytime in the last century ― prompting curious scientists to wonder just what it might mean here on Earth.Sunspots have been observed for millennia ― first by Chinese astronomers and then, for the first time with a telescope, by Galileo in 1610.The sunspots appear in roughly 11-year cycles ― increasing to a daily flurry and then subsiding drastically, before amping up again.But this cycle ― d

Nov. 27, 2013

Calm solar cycle prompts questions about Earth impact

‘Watching sports can make you fitter’

SYDNEY (AFP) ― Watching sports can make you fitter, according to research that says viewing other people exercise increases heart rate and other physiological measures as if you were working out yourself.The study, published in the international journal Frontiers in Autonomic Neuroscience, showed that when watching a first person video of someone else running, heart rate, respiration, skin blood flow and sweat release all increased.They returned to normal at the conclusion of the “jog.”Researche

Nov. 27, 2013

Comet ISON dances with the sun, death

WASHINGTON (AP) ― Comet ISON is teasing the solar system as it dances with the sun and it’s giving astronomers mixed signals.Will it meet a fiery death ― or survive ― when it whips around the sun on Thursday?The icy comet will be only about 1.6 million kilometers away from the sun’s super-hot surface during its close encounter on Thanksgiving. On Monday, it looked like it was about to die even before it got there. On Tuesday, it appeared healthy again.“We have never seen a comet like this,’’ Nav

Nov. 27, 2013

Unemployment accelerates biological aging among men: study

A joint research team from Britain and Finland suggested that work-related stress is linked to accelerated aging, scientific journal PLOS ONE reported on Nov. 20. The University of Olulu in Finland and Imperial College London in Britain analyzed the relationship between 5,620 Finnish men and women’s DNA and their period of unemployment between 1994 and 1997. They compared DNA samples of men who were employed and unemployed to see whether cell lifespan was associated with stress. Unemployed men w

Nov. 27, 2013

Korea aims to land on moon by 2020

South Korea is looking to put an unmanned space vehicle on the moon by 2020 with its own rocket, the government announced Tuesday.In January, Korea successfully launched a scientific satellite into orbit from its own soil with a locally assembled space rocket, the Korea Space Launch Vehicle-1, built in cooperation with Russian scientists.Korea now aims to complete the development of a three-stage domestically produced space rocket by 2020, according to the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Pla

Nov. 26, 2013

Conglomerates, ministries work to boost employment

A part-time job fair for women returning from a career hiatus and the retired elderly opened on Tuesday at an exhibition in Seoul jointly held by local conglomerates and the government.Job seekers ― mostly married women and retired seniors ― formed long lines before the main gates of the exhibition center at Coex in Gangnam. The job applicants waited their turns for job interviews and consulting, with some taking photos for applications on the sidelines. The longest line was in front of the pavi

Nov. 26, 2013

Top Samsung Electronics execs to gather next month

Samsung Electronics’ top executives from around the world will gather in Korea next month to participate in meetings to discuss next year’s business strategies, company officials said on Tuesday.“The executives will look back on the achievements made in the latter half of this year and discuss business strategies (for) next year,” a Samsung official said. Around 600 executives from business units at home and abroad will attend the meetings at Samsung’s business sites in Suwon and Giheung, both i

Nov. 26, 2013

‘Creative economy critical to ICT sector’

Information and communication technology experts from around the world on Monday discussed the role of Korea’s creative economy initiative in the world’s ICT sector during the Global ICT Forum, a preparatory meeting for the 2014 ITU Plenipotentiary Conference.Timothy Mack, president of the World Future Society, a nonprofit international organization for social, technological and economic issues, emphasized the importance of the creative economy of the Korean government. “The creative economy ini

Nov. 25, 2013

‘Creative economy critical to ICT sector’