Lanka Sites

The Sri Lanka Science and Engineering Fair (SLSEF) 2009 took place on the 19th of February 2010 at the Institution of Engineers Sri Lanka (IESL) auditorium. The event showcased the country’s most innovative science and research talent and also served as a platform for the selection of the local finalist who would travel to the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) which will be held in San Jose, California in USA in May 2010.

Going about their day-to-day business, bees have no need to be able to recognise human faces. Yet in 2005, when Adrian Dyer from Monash University trained the fascinating insects to associate pictures of human faces with tasty sugar snacks, they seemed to be able to do just that. But Martin Giurfa from the University de Toulouse, France, suspected that that the bees weren't learning to recognise people. "Because the insects were rewarded with a drop of sugar when they chose human photographs, what they really saw were strange flowers. The important question was what strategy do they use to discriminate between faces," explains Giurfa.

If you think that iPhone is the latest, coolest phone out there on the market, then think again. The awesomeness, the look and feel and the uniqueness of the iPhone is dead. Who are we suppose to blame? Nexus One the new iPhone killer. The main feature I like about this phone is the fact that it comes unlocked, not bundled with blood sucking wireless carriers like iPhone does. I remember the days when iPhone first came out in 8GB. There were lot of websites,

Sri Lanka has the best IT potential growth prospects in South Asia, says a reputed international organisation. The "Sri Lanka Information Technology Report Q 1 2010" from Business Monitor International recommended by Fast Market Research last Thursday (18) says that the Sri Lankan IT market indicates the best potential growth prospects in South Asia.

We'd like to think of ourselves as dynamic, unpredictable individuals, but according to new research, that's not the case at all. In a study published in last week's Science, researchers looked at customer location data culled from cellular service providers. By looking at how customers moved around, the authors of the study found that it may be possible to predict human movement patterns and location up to 93 percent of the time.

Laser weapons aren't just the realm of science fiction. The military just completed the first airborne test of a futuristic energy weapon, simulating defense against a missile attack. This could be the answer to a rapidly arming Iran -- if the government can afford it.

In the test, a modified Boeing 747 jet took off from Edwards Air Force Base carrying a Northrop Grumman designed laser in its nose. The plane used built-in infrared sensors to find and destroy an in-flight missile.

A joint venture between Boeing and the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, the tests mark the first time a laser weapon has engaged and destroyed an in-flight ballistic missile, and the first time any system has accomplished it in the missile's "boost" phase of flight.

The grand event in the Sri Lankan construction industry “The ARCHITECT 2010 Exhibition” will be held at the BMICH from the 17th to the 21st of February.The exhibition organized by the Sri Lanka Institute of Architects (SLIA) is been held for the 28th consecutive year. The Annual Sessions of SLIA comprises several key components – the Inauguration, the National Conference, the Member’s Work and Trade exhibition, the Annual General Meeting as well as the Fellowship Night

Even simple insects can generate quite different movement patterns with their six legs. The animal uses various gaits (manner of walking)depending on whether it crawls uphill or downhill, slowly or fast. Scientists from Gottingen have now developed a walking robot, which depending on the situation can flexibly and autonomously switch between different gaits. The success of their solution lies in its simplicity: a small and simple network with just a few connections can create very diverse movement patterns.

The Annular solar eclipse due on January 15th 2010 is visible to the whole country. The eclipse begins in Africa and streams through Sri Lanka to China leaving the central line of the solar eclipse close to Jaffna. This is the first time that a centre line of a solar eclipse crosses Sri Lanka since the total eclipse of June 20th, 1955 and no living person in the country has seen such annular eclipse inside Sri Lanka during their life time. Therefore, this eclipse is considered as a very important eclipse.

Tiny magnetic discs, just a millionth of a metre in diameter could be used to kill cancer cells, according to a study published on November 29.

Laboratory tests found the so-called “nanodiscs”, around 60 billionths of a metre thick, could be used to disrupt the membranes of cancer cells, causing them to self-destruct. The discs are made from an iron-nickel alloy, which move when subjected to a magnetic field, damaging the cancer cells, the report published in Nature Materials said. One of the study’s authors, Elena Rozhlova of Argonne National Laboratory in the United States, said subjecting the discs to a low magnetic field for around ten minutes was enough to destroy 90 per cent of cancer cells in tests.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – A "significant amount" of frozen water has been found on the moon, the US space agency said Friday heralding a giant leap forward in space exploration and boosting hopes of a permanent lunar base.

Preliminary data from a dramatic experiment on the moon "indicates the mission successfully uncovered water in a permanently shadowed lunar crater," NASA said in a statement.

Thirty-two new alien orbs have just been added to the growing list of exoplanets, including several that qualify as “super-Earths,” meaning they have a mass only a few times that of our planet and could potentially harbor Earth-like environments.

In the past five years, the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher, a special exoplanet-hunting device attached to a 3.6-meter telescope in La Silla, Chile, has spotted more than 75 alien planets, including 24 of the 28 known exoplanets with a mass less than 20 times that of Earth.

The world's biggest social networking site has launched a slimmed down version for people with slow or poor internet connections. Facebook has said the Lite site will be faster and simpler because it offers fewer services than the main site. Initially it is meant to support users in developing countries and where bandwidth constraints make the current version too slow to use.

High-Definition Television (or HDTV) is a digital television broadcasting system with higher resolution than traditional television systems (standard-definition TV, or SDTV). HDTV is digitally broadcast; the earliest implementations used analog broadcasting, but today digital television (DTV) signals are used, requiring less bandwidth due to digital video compression.

Got a pile of old, scratched-up coasters that you don"t really need anymore? You can repurpose them into a dock for your iPod, iPhone, or other audio player. The Geeky Gadgets blog walks you through the process of taking a stack of discs,