Today on New Scientist: 21 December 2012

Cadaver stem cells offer new hope of life after death Stem cells can be extracted from bone marrow five days after death to be used in life-saving treatmentsApple's patents under fire at US patent office The tech firm is skating on thin ice with some of the patents that won it a $1 billion settlement against SamsungHimalayan dam-building threatens endemic species The world's highest mountains...

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Agents to hire more Sri Lankan maids next year

SINGAPORE: Maid agents in Singapore are looking to hire more foreign domestic helpers from Sri Lanka.From next year, the Association of Employment Agencies plans to bring in between 500 and 1,000 Sri Lankan maids a month, up from the current 100 to 200 a month.Based on records from the Sri Lankan High Commission in Singapore, there are about 4,500 Sri Lankan maids here.The association...

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Browsers: Top 5 events from 2012

For a while there, the browser was winning the war.New startups launched online services rather than packaged software. Browser makers raced to transform the Web from a place to publish documents into a general-purpose programming platform. People spent more and more time using the Web instead of software that ran natively on devices.Then the era of modern smartphones andtablets began. And in 2012,...

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Pictures: Fungi Get Into the Holiday Spirit

Photograph courtesy Stephanie Mounaud, J. Craig Venter InstituteMounaud combined different fungi to create a Santa hat and spell out a holiday message.Different fungal grow at different rates, so Mounaud's artwork rarely lasts for long. There's only a short window of time when they actually look like what they're suppose to."You do have to keep that in perspective when you're making these creations,"...

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Obama Still an 'Optimist' on Cliff Deal

Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty ImagesWASHINGTON D.C. – Ten days remain before the mandatory spending cuts and tax increases known as the “fiscal cliff” take effect, but President Obama said he is still a “hopeless optimist” that a federal budget deal can be reached before the year-end deadline that economists agree might plunge the country back into recession.“Even though Democrats and Republicans are...

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Urban Byzantine monks gave in to temptation

WHO ate all the pies? In 6th-century Jerusalem, the Byzantine monks were greedy gobblers - despite strict rules that they should eat mainly bread and water. Most early Byzantine monasteries were located in remote deserts, but St Stephen's monastery thrived...

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SIA to spend S$95m upgrading B77-200ER cabins

SINGAPORE: Singapore Airlines said it will spend S$95 million refitting 10 Boeing 777-200ER aircraft with new long-haul cabin products.The improvements include seats that fold down into full-flat beds in Business Class and larger entertainment screens for both Business and Economy.A shift in seat layouts will allow every passenger in the Business Class direct access to the aisle.The first...

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Web media: The 5 biggest stories of 2012

Kim DotCom's arrest and subsequent legal fight was one of the biggest stories in digital media during the past year. Check out the rest of them. (Credit:Kim DotCom; Greg Sandoval/CNET) Fun, fun, fun!That's what digital movies, music, and books are supposed to be about. But for the people who create and sell the stuff, it's been all crumbs, crumbs, crumbs. The past year was another tough one for the...

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Hollies Get Prickly for a Reason

With shiny evergreen leaves and bright red berries, holly trees are a naturally festive decoration seen throughout the Christmas season.They're famously sharp. But not all holly leaves are prickly, even on the same tree. And scientists now think they know how the plants are able to make sharper leaves, seemingly at will. (Watch a video about how Christmas trees are made.)A new study...

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Fiscal Cliff 'Plan B' Is Dead: Now What?

Dec 20, 2012 11:00pm The defeat of his Plan B — Republicans pulled it when it became clear it would be voted down — is a big defeat for Speaker of the House John Boehner.  It demonstrates definitively that there is no fiscal cliff deal that can pass the House on Republican votes alone.Boehner could not even muster the votes to pass something that would only allow...

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2013 Smart Guide: New maps to rein in cosmic inflation

Read more: "2013 Smart Guide: 10 ideas that will shape the year" We're about to get a better grasp of one of the biggest ideas in the universe: inflation. The first maps of the cosmos from the European Space Agency's Planck satellite are due...

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Train service on NEL resumes after disruption

SINGAPORE: Services on the North East Line (NEL) have resumed after a disruption due to train fault. SBS Transit said full operations resumed at 5.18pm on Thursday. Earlier, a statement from SBS Transit said there was no service between Punggol and Little India.Free bus rides were made available at designated bus stops near affected NEL stations. SBS Transit has apologised for the inconvenience...

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Facebook in 2012: 5 ways its IPO changed the social giant

Now that was a year Mark Zuckerberg will never forget -- even if he didn't celebrate each moment on Facebook, as he wants the rest of the world to do. Sure, he turned 28 and married longtime girlfriend, Priscilla Chan, in a backyard ceremony at the couple's home in Palo Alto, Calif. But that's the stuff of ordinary men. Make no mistake: 2012 will go down as the year in which Zuckerberg came out from...

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Detecting Rabid Bats Before They Bite

A picture is worth a thousand words—or in the case of bats, a rabies diagnosis. A new study reveals that rabid bats have cooler faces compared to uninfected colony-mates. And researchers are hopeful that thermal scans of bat faces could improve rabies surveillance in wild colonies, preventing outbreaks that introduce infections into other animals—including humans.Bats are a major reservoir...

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Obama Invokes Newtown on 'Cliff' Deal

Invoking the somber aftermath of the school massacre in Newtown, Conn., President Obama today appealed to congressional Republicans to embrace a standing "fair deal" on taxes and spending that would avert the fiscal cliff in 13 days."If there's one thing we should have after this week, it should be a sense of perspective about what's important," Obama said at a midday news conference."I...

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Say what: The top tech quotes of 2012

Felix Baumgartner, on surviving his supersonic free fall: "It was really a lot harder than I thought it was going to be." Mark Zuckerberg might have said the same thing about taking Facebook public, or Tim Cook about Apple releasing its own maps app in iOS 6.(Credit:Red Bull Stratos)Sometimes it's what you say. Sometimes it's how you say it. What really matters is that what you said captured a moment,...

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Race Is On to Find Life Under Antarctic Ice

A hundred years ago, two teams of explorers set out to be the first people ever to reach the South Pole. The race between Roald Amundsen of Norway and Robert Falcon Scott of Britain became the stuff of triumph, tragedy, and legend. (See rare pictures of Scott's expedition.)Today, another Antarctic drama is underway that has a similar daring and intensity—but very different stakes.Three...

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Newtown Settles In for Prayerful, Somber Christmas

Residents of Sandy Hook, Conn., gather every year under an enormous tree in the middle of town to sing carols and light the tree. The tree is lit this year, too, but the scene beneath it is starkly different.The tree looms over hundreds of teddy bears and toys, but they are for children who will never receive them. The ornaments are adorned with names and jarringly recent birth...

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