Even exoplanets, where living creatures cannot exist, still have possibility to host exomoons with habitable zones, U.S. scientists said. An exoplanet is one that orbits a star other than the sun.Astronomers have long researched exoplanets to discover an environment that can support life. However, most of them are of gaseous form and only a few have a solid surface on which living creatures can survive.Rory Barnes of the University of Washington and the NASA Astrobiology Institute said in a stat

Jan. 11, 2013

Russian researchers say they've obtained the first sample of transparent ice from the water of a unique sub-glacial lake in Antarctica.The scientists have drilled into Lake Vostok, sealed for the last 20 million years beneath Antarctica's ice sheet at a depth of 2.3 miles, RIA Novosti reported Thursday.Vostok, the largest of Antarctica's buried network of icebound lakes, may reveal new forms of life and show how life evolved before the ice age, the scientists said."The first core of transparent

Jan. 11, 2013

A device sucks food out of the stomach after eating so only about a third of the calories are kept in the body, helping in weight loss, its U.S. inventors say.The group of inventors, including the creator of the Segway, said patients eat a meal, wait 20 minutes, then empty 30 percent of their stomach contents into the toilet via a tube -- a small, handheld device, which connects to a skin-port discretely embedded on the outside of the abdomen.Calories not digested are calories not absorbed, whic

Jan. 11, 2013

A Seoul hospital has successfully conducted the first-ever transplant of an artificial heart pump in the country, hospital officials said Thursday.The operation took place in August when a 75-year-old patient suffering from congestive heart failure received a left ventricular assist device (VAD), according to the officials at Samsung Medical Center.A VAD is a mechanical circulatory device typically used for patients suffering from congestive heart failure. The left VAD used in the operation was

Jan. 10, 2013

The highly contagious “Apollo” eye infection is rapidly spreading across the country as people are more exposed to viruses indoors during the winter, health authorities warned on Thursday.The number of patients with acute hemorrhagic conjunctivitis surged nearly 65 percent in the third week of December last year from the average number of patients reported during the four weeks before that, Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. The number of patients is also higher than the same

Jan. 10, 2013

A low-sodium diet is one with a limited amount of salt taken in with food. The sodium component in salt is a risk factor for high blood pressure, edema, kidney diseases and cardiac disease, as sodium is a mineral that draws in and retains moisture, affecting the balance of body fluids. In this case, reducing the intake of salt helps to control blood pressure, ease edema, and reduce stress on the heart.How to follow a low-salt diet 1. Things to be aware of when choosing food: On a preferential ba

Jan. 10, 2013

LAS VEGAS ― Samsung Electronics said Thursday that it has set its TV sales goal at 55 million units for this year, as it strives to find a new business model in an industry that has been slowing down for years.Yoon Boo-keun, president of consumer electronics at Samsung, said the firm hopes to sell more TVs than the 51.3 million it sold last year.He also said that Samsung, the world’s top TV maker, did not see any competition in the industry, but it believes new competition will rise in other ind

Jan. 10, 2013

A Chinese father hired professional gamers to kill his son’s online avatar, according to Chinese newspaper the Sanqing Daily. The father, surnamed Feng, believed that if his 23-year-old son was killed every time he played, he would get bored of playing and start putting more effort into getting a job. But his plan failed as son Xiao Feng asked the attackers why they were out to get him, only to hear that his father had hired them to do so. “I can play or I can not play, it doesn’t bother me. I’m

Jan. 10, 2013

For busy office workers, standing while working can help you burn extra calories, U.K. physiotherapist said.A person can burn off about 3.6 kilograms of fat each year -- or 144 calories a day -- by standing on one’s feet for three extra hours a day, according to exercise scientist John Buckley from the University of Chester.Buckley, from the department of clinical science and nutrition, said a person’s metabolic rate “crashes to an absolute minimum” when he or she is sitting down. “It isn’t natu

Jan. 10, 2013

A European spacecraft has captured images of an asteroid heading for a close fly-by of Earth that shows it's bigger than previously thought, astronomers say.The European Space Agency's Herschel space telescope took the photographs of the asteroid Apophis, dubbed the "doomsday asteroid" by the media when initial observations in 2004 yielded a 2.7 percent chance of it striking the Earth in 2029.Subsequent analysis has ruled out a collision, though the asteroid will pass within 22,000 miles of Eart

Jan. 10, 2013

 The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and Saudi Aramco have agreed to establish a research center to develop technologies to capture, store and utilize carbon dioxide. Korea’s leading research institution and the world’s top oil developer signed a memorandum of understanding in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, on Monday. They will build a new facility with a total floor space of 16,500 square meters in the school’s campus in Daejeon.KAIST said the center will be financed equally by the t

Jan. 9, 2013