news20091130bbc

[One-Minute World News] from [BBC NEWS]

[Science & Environment]
Page last updated at 01:58 GMT, Monday, 30 November 2009
The Royal Society puts historic papers online
{One of the articles describes early experiments in blood transfusion}
One of the world's oldest scientific institutions is marking the start of its 350th year by putting 60 of its most memorable research papers online.

The Royal Society, founded in London in 1660, is making public manuscripts by figures like Sir Isaac Newton.

Benjamin Franklin's account of his risky kite-flying experiment is also available on the Trailblazing website.

Society president Lord Rees said the papers documented some of the most "thrilling moments" in science history.

The Royal Society grew out of the so-called "Invisible College" of thinkers who began meeting in the mid-1640s to discuss science and philosophy.

Its official foundation date is 28 November 1660 and thereafter it met weekly to debate and witness experiments.

Mozart study

The papers published on the Trailblazing website were first printed in the society's journal, Philosophical Transactions.

They were chosen from 60,000 printed since the journal's foundation in 1665 - a date which makes it the oldest continuously published scientific periodical in the world.

Among the highlights are a gruesome account of a 17th Century blood transfusion and the article in which Sir Isaac showed that white light is a mixture of other colours.

{{The scientific papers represent a ceaseless quest by scientists over the centuries}
Lord Rees
President of the Royal Society}

Also included is Mr Franklin's account of his ill-advised attempt in 1752 to show that lightning was a form of electricity by flying a kite in a storm, and a 1970 paper on black holes co-written by Professor Stephen Hawking.

There is also an entertaining paper about a study of the nine-year-old Mozart in London in 1770 to determine whether he really was a child prodigy.

Suggestions he was in fact a midget adult were dismissed by writer Daines Barrington on the grounds that young Wolfgang was more enthusiastic about playing with his cat than practising his harpsichord.

'Thrilling moments'

Lord Rees said: "The scientific papers on Trailblazing represent a ceaseless quest by scientists over the centuries, many of them Fellows of the Royal Society, to test and build on our knowledge of humankind and the universe.

"Individually, they represent those thrilling moments when science allows us to understand better and to see further."

The Royal Society is holding a series of events during its 350th year to mark the anniversary.

They include a nine-day science and arts festival next summer and a series of public lectures and debates at its London headquarters.


[Science & Environment]
Page last updated at 09:57 GMT, Monday, 30 November 2009
Large Hadron Collider sets world energy record
{The LHC is built inside a27km-long circular tunnel}
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiment on the French-Swiss border has set a new world record for energy.
By Paul Rincon
BBC Science reporter

The LHC pushed the energy of its particle beams beyond one trillion electron volts, making it the world's highest energy particle accelerator.

The previous record was held by the Tevatron particle accelerator in Chicago.

Officials say it is another milestone in the LHC's drive towards its main scientific tests set for 2010.

The LHC is designed to smash together beams of sub-atomic particles to just under the speed of light. Researchers hope to see signs of new physics in the aftermath of the collisions, helping them unlock the secrets of the Universe.

Operated by the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (better known by its French acronym Cern), the LHC is built inside a 27km-long circular tunnel.

'Pilot beam'

"We are still coming to terms with just how smoothly the LHC commissioning is going," said Cern's director general Rolf Heuer.

"It is fantastic. However, we are continuing to take it step-by-step, and there is still a lot to do before we start physics in 2010. I'm keeping my champagne on ice until then."

Until now the LHC had been operating at a relatively low energy of 450 billion electron volts.

On Sunday, engineers increased the energy of this "pilot beam", reaching 1.18 trillion electron volts at 2344 GMT.

The previous record of 0.98 trillion electron volts has been held by the Tevatron accelerator since 2001.

The LHC is eventually expected to operate at some seven trillion electron volts.

Last week, the machine circulated two beams of protons for the first time and carried out its first low-energy beam collisions.

Researchers working on the collider have said they are delighted with the quick progress made since the machine restarted on 21 November.

The LHC had to be shut down for repairs shortly after its inauguration in September 2008 when an electrical fault cause one tonne of liquid helium to leak into the collider's tunnel.


[Asia-Pacific]
Page last updated at 08:18 GMT, Sunday, 29 November 2009
India nuclear plant leak under investigation
Indian officials are investigating the leak of a radioactive substance into drinking water at an atomic power plant in the south of the country.

Fifty-five workers at the Kaiga plant needed medical treatment for excessive exposure to radiation after tritium contaminated a water cooler.

Officials said the leak might have been deliberate.

"Mischief is not ruled out. Investigations are on," plant director J P Gupta told Reuters news agency.

The 55 workers had returned to their duties at the plant, Mr Gupta added.

"This incident has in no way affected the public, safety, health and environment."

The highly protected Kaiga plant is on the west coast of India, 450km (280 miles) from Bangalore.

Tritium, also known as Hydrogen-3, is used in research, fusion reactors and neutron generators.


[Business]
Johnston Press starts charging for online local news
Johnston says the introduction of "paywalls" is a trial
One of the UK's biggest newspaper firms is to charge for access to online content from six of its titles.

The Johnston Press websites will either ask users to pay £5 for a three-month subscription to read the full articles, or direct them to buy the newspapers.

Johnston is the first regional publisher in the UK to trial asking readers to pay for its online news.

Sites in the pilot scheme include the Worksop Guardian, the Ripley & Heanor News and the Whitby Gazette.

The Northumberland Gazette is also included in the trial. In Scotland, the Carrick Gazette and Southern Reporter are taking part.

Payment models

The Scotsman, also published by Johnston, operates a similar system for readers wishing to view "premium content" on its site.

Johnston, which owns more than 300 papers across Britain and has suffered from a drop in advertising revenues, says the introduction of "paywalls" is an experiment to assess the impact of charging for content.

"Once you start restricting access on the websites, if you have content that can broadly be found somewhere else, then you really restrict the number of people coming to websites," the Guardian's director of digital content Emily Bell told the BBC.

"I think it's great that people are experimenting with lots of different models because undoubtedly we need to find more money in the market," she added.

The Financial Times charges a subscription for full access to its web content.

Earlier this month, News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch said he would try to block Google from using news content from his companies.

Mr Murdoch has previously said that the websites of his news organisations would begin charging for access.