Tomorrow's Newspapers Online 11-06-2013 | Sc

The Mars Orbiter Mission took off at 09:08 GMT from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on the country's east coast.

The head of India's space agency told the BBC the mission would demonstrate the technological capability to reach Mars orbit and carry out experiments.

The spacecraft is set to travel for 300 days, reaching Mars orbit in 2014.

If the satellite orbits the Red Planet, India's space agency will become the fourth in the world after those of the US, Russia and Europe to undertake a successful Mars mission.

In order for the MOM to embark on the right trajectory for its 300-day, 780-million km journey, it must carry out its final orbital burn by 30 November. Some observers are viewing the launch of the MOM, also known by the informal name of Mangalyaan (Mars-craft), as the latest salvo in a burgeoning space race between the Asian powers of India, China, Japan, South Korea and others.

Prof Andrew Coates, from University College London's Mullard Space Science Laboratory, told BBC News: "I think this mission really brings India to the table of international space exploration. Interplanetary exploration is certainly not trivial to do, and [India] has found some interesting scientific niches to make some measurements in."

Those niche areas include searching for the signature of methane (CH4) in the Martian atmosphere, which has previously been detected from Martian orbit and telescopes on Earth. However, Nasa's Curiosity rover recently failed to find the gas in its measurements of atmospheric gases.

CH4 has a short lifetime in the Martian atmosphere, meaning that some source on the Red Planet must replenish it. Intriguingly, some 95% of atmospheric methane on Earth is produced by microbes, which has led some to propose the possibility of a biosphere deep beneath the Martian surface. But the gas can be produced by geological processes too, most notably by volcanism.

Definitive conclusions are likely to be elusive, but the spacecraft's Methane Sensor for Mars (MSM) instrument will aim to make measurements and map any potential sources of methane "plumes".

The barges have a four-storey structure on deck and rumours are circulating about what the company plans to use them for.

One suggestion is that they could be turned in to floating data centres powered by wave action.

Others believe they could be fitted out with new showrooms for Google Glass with a "party deck" on top.

So far Google has declined to comment on what the vessels are being used for. But the company does have a patent from 2009 for a "water-based" data centre.

"It's an interesting concept," said Nick Layzell, of Telehouse, a data centre provider.

"Cooling is the big cost for any data centre, so perhaps they're trying to take advantage of having some water on tap."

But he added that water was the biggest threat to data centres because of the damage it could cause to equipment. One of the barges is anchored at Pier 1, Treasure Island Marina in San Francisco.

The authority in charge of projects within San Francisco Bay confirmed that it had met with Google officials several times in recent months. Its chief executive Larry Goldzband said that Google had been "less than specific" about its plans.

"When they decide to let us know what they plan to do with it, or hope to do with it, then we can decide if it's allowable," he told AP.

Documents revealed following a freedom of information request by the The Day newspaper in Connecticut show Google is also linked to a barge near Maine on the eastern coast of the United States.

As slides of the paintings were shown at a news conference, an expert said the works had been seized from private individuals or institutions.

Previously unregistered works by Marc Chagall, Otto Dix, Max Liebermann and Henri Matisse were found.

Prosecutors said the issue of ownership was still being clarified. The total value has been estimated at about 1bn euros (£846m; $1.35bn).

Reinhard Nemetz, head of the prosecutors' office in Augsburg, said that 121 framed and 1,285 unframed works had been seized in the flat of Cornelius Gurlitt in Munich in March of last year. It was not yet clear if any offence had been committed, he added, stressing that the legal position was extremely complex. Investigators, he said, had turned up "concrete evidence" that at least some of the works had been seized by the Nazis from their owners or had been deemed "degenerate". Art expert Meike Hoffmann said some of the works were dirty but they had not been damaged.

'Extraordinarily good'

"When you stand before the works and see again these long-lost, missing works, that were believed destroyed, seeing them in quite good condition, it's an extraordinarily good feeling," Ms Hoffmann said.

Art expert Meike Hoffmann: "An emotional discovery" "The pictures are of exceptional quality, and have very special value for art experts. Many works were unknown until now."

Other artists whose works were found include Pablo Picasso and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, as well as Canaletto and Gustave Courbet.

The paintings were found in March of last year after Mr Gurlitt was investigated for tax evasion.

The framed pictures were stacked on a shelf, like in a museum storeroom while the unframed works were piled up in drawers, said customs official Siegfried Kloeble.

According to a report by Germany's Focus magazine, Mr Gurlitt, the reclusive son of an art dealer in Munich, would occasionally sell a picture when he needed money.

"We don't have any strong suspicion of a crime that would justify an arrest," said Mr Nemetz, adding that the current whereabouts of Mr Gurlitt were unknown. Asked at the news conference why the German authorities had taken so long to reveal the paintings, the prosecutor said it would have been "counter-productive to go public" with the case earlier.

Mr Kloeble refused to say where the artworks were being stored.

Mr Gurlitt's father Hildebrand collected early 20th Century art regarded by the Nazis as un-German or "degenerate", and removed from show in state museums.

Given that there just more than 7 billion of us on this planet, that means a planet for each of us with some spares for your picky neighbors. Or a vacation planet or two for you, maybe. And the closest may be circling a star you can see if you look up into the heavens tonight.

"When you look up at the thousands of stars in the night sky, the nearest sun-like star with an Earth-size planet in its habitable zone is probably only 12 light years away and can be seen with the naked eye. That is amazing," UC Berkeley graduate student Erik Petigura, the leader of the team that analyzed data from the Kepler, said in a press release.

To be sure, the astronomers haven't seen any of the planets themselves. They came to their conclusions like this: The Kepler telescope photographed 150,000 of the 300 billion stars in the Milky Way every 30 minutes for four years. It looked for when orbiting planets passed between the camera and the star, causing a slight change in brightness of that star. Analyzing the data, the astronomers say, they found 3,000 planet candidates.

The astronomers narrowed that number by focusing on just 42,000 stars like our sun or a bit cooler. That brought the number of planets down to 603. But only 10 of those were about the size of Earth in the so-called "Goldilocks zone," just the right distance from the star where temperatures are suitable for life as we know it.

The last of the Blackbirds flew in 1999, and the U.S. military hasn't had anything close since. Now, Lockheed-Martin, the maker of the SR-71, says the "Son of the Blackbird," the SR-72, is in the works, and it will be twice as fast as and way more lethal than its father. That's because the SR-72 will be designed to launch missiles, something the SR-71 didn't do.

"Even with the SR-71, at Mach 3, there was still time to notify that the plane was coming, but at Mach 6, there is no reaction time to hide a mobile target," Brad Leland, Lockheed Martin's program manager for hypersonics, told Aviation Week and Space Technology. The publication provided the first detailed look at the SR-72 plans last week.

"Hypersonic aircraft, coupled with hypersonic missiles, could penetrate denied airspace and strike at nearly any location across a continent in less than an hour," Leland said in a news release.

And, by the way, the SR-72 is envisioned as a drone, unlike the original Blackbird with its crew of two: a pilot and a reconnaissance officer to operate its radar jammers and spy gear.

"The SR-71 was developed using 20th-century technology. It was envisioned with slide rules and paper. It wasn't managed by millions of lines of software code. And it wasn't powered by computer chips. All that changes with the SR-72," Lockheed Martin says.

A smaller-scale model of the SR-72 could begin testing in five years and be in the air in 10, Leland told Aviation Week. The full-scale SR-72 could be operational by 2030, according to Lockheed Martin. If it comes to fruition, one thing the SR-72 won't be is stealthy. The design needed for the Mach 6 speed doesn't allow for such construction, according to the Aviation Week report.

"Speed is the new stealth," Aviation Week quoted Al Romig, engineering and advanced systems vice president at Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works division, as saying. "Speed is the next aviation advancement to counter emerging threats in the next several decades. The technology would be a game-changer in theater, similar to how stealth is changing the battle space today," Leland said in the statement.

Of course, none of this will fly without money, and that will probably be up to taxpayers. "We have been continuing to invest company funds, and we are kind of at a point where the next steps would require large-scale testing, which would significantly increase the level of investment we've had to make to-date," Leland told Aviation Week.

Pope Francis is calling bishops to Rome next October to discuss possible reform that considers modern social realities.

The questionnaire asks for local views on premarital cohabitation, birth control and gay marriage.

Correspondents say it shows a greater interest in issues previously considered taboo.

"The social and spiritual crisis, so evident in today's world, is becoming a pastoral challenge in the Church's evangelising mission concerning the family," the Vatican survey says. Among the "many new situations requiring the Church's attention and pastoral care", it lists single-parent families, inter-religious unions and divorce.

Under pressure The BBC's David Willey in Rome says says Pope Francis is under pressure from Catholics in many countries to take a fresh look at the Church's ban on contraception and its refusal to allow divorced and remarried Catholics to take Communion.

There appears to be a division of opinion on this between the Pope, who has more progressive ideas, and some of his top advisers, our correspondent adds.

The consultation is part of the preparation for the extraordinary meeting of the Synod of Bishops next year, which will focus on the subject of family.

"Concerns which were unheard of until a few years ago have arisen today as a result of different situations, from the widespread practice of cohabitation... to same-sex unions," the questionnaire says.

Pope Francis has signalled greater openness, and has said the Catholic Church is too tied up in "small-minded rules".

In an interview in September, he said the Church was too focused on preaching about abortion, gay people and contraception and needed to become more merciful.

The eavesdropping report -- published Tuesday in the British newspaper The Independent -- is the latest allegation of one close ally spying on another that is said to have come from documents leaked by former U.S. national security contractor Edward Snowden. Britain's foreign office confirmed that its ambassador to Germany met Tuesday afternoon with a senior German official at Berlin's foreign ministry.

The German government asked for a "response to current reports in the British media" and pointed out that such eavesdropping from the British embassy would violate international law, a spokesman for Germany's foreign office said.

According to The Independent, the Snowden documents suggest that Britain, with high-tech equipment on the roof of its Berlin embassy, operated a listening station to eavesdrop on German officials.

Last month, German and other European lawmakers visited the White House to discuss allegations of U.S. spying on allied leaders and citizens, including a report that the U.S. government monitored German Chancellor Angela Merkel's cell phone. Merkel said German confidence in the United States was "shaken."

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which won the Nobel Peace Prize last month, is overseeing the destruction of Syria's nerve agent stocks under a U.S.-Russian agreement reached in September.

It has so far raised about 10 million euros ($13.5 million) for the task.

"It is the assessment of the Secretariat that its existing personnel resources are sufficient for operations to be conducted in October and November 2013," said an October 25 OPCW document seen by Reuters. At the time, its account held just 4 million euros.

Syrian president Bashar al-Assad says the total cost could be $1 billion, although experts say it is likely to be lower, running into the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, depending on where and how the chemical arms are destroyed.

The United States has been the biggest contributor so far to the OPCW's fund for the Syria mission, with Britain, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland also contributing.

Washington has contributed $6 million in equipment, training and cash, split between funds with the OPCW and the United Nations, the OPCW document said.

Under the joint Russian-American proposal, Syria agreed in September to destroy its entire chemical weapons program by mid-2014. The move averted missile strikes threatened by Washington following an August 21 sarin gas attack in the outskirts of Damascus that killed hundreds of people.

RISING COSTS

Until September, Syria was one of a handful of countries that were not party to a global treaty outlawing the stockpiling of chemical arms.

Damascus's joining of the Chemical Weapons Convention creates the unique problem of safely destroying huge stockpiles of poisons in the middle of a civil war that has killed 100,000 people and driven up to a third of Syrians from their homes.

Personnel costs will be largely covered by the OPCW's regular budget, less than an annual $100 million, but the Hague-based organisation will need substantial additional resources.

By the end of next week, the OPCW and Syria must agree to a detailed plan of destruction, explaining in detail how and where to destroy the poisons, including mustard gas, sarin and possibly VX.

The previous range was $17 to $20 per share.

Twitter also said it has received a letter from International Business Machines Corp alleging Twitter infringed at least three U.S. patents held by IBM.

With Twitter selling 70 million shares in the offering, Twitter would be valued at more than $13 billion under the new price range.

Twitter's IPO is fully subscribed, meaning it has attracted more than enough investor interest, according to a source familiar with the offering.

"This is not a surprise," said Kim Forrest, senior analyst Fort Pitt Capital Group, which manages $1.5 billion in assets. "The people underwriting the IPO have a responsibility to the company selling these shares to extract the highest price it can. It has to walk a fine line to make it attractive to investors."

Twitter management has been traveling the country over the last week, speaking with potential investors.

Twitter's IPO is set to price on Wednesday, with shares trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday.

Shares of BlackBerry dropped 16.3 percent to $6.50 in premarket trading. The company said it would raise the money with a private placement of convertible debentures.

John Chen will be appointed executive chairman and will be interim CEO while the company looks for a new leader. He is the former CEO of Sybase, a database software company that SAP AG acquired in 2010.

Chen joined private equity group Silver Lake as senior adviser last year.

BlackBerry grew from a small technology startup into a multibillion-dollar company by pioneering on-the-go email, but it has lost much of its market share to Apple Inc's iPhone and devices that run Google Inc's Android software.

BlackBerry's largest shareholder, Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd, will buy $250 million of the debentures. BlackBerry said the subordinated debentures would be convertible into common shares at $10 and have a seven-year term.

The Janken robot - named after the game's Japanese name - is a faster version of one unveiled by University of Tokyo researchers in June 2012.

Version two completes its chosen hand shape almost at the same time as the human hand.

It uses high-speed recognition and reaction, rather than prediction.

Technically, the robot cheats because it reacts extremely quickly to what the human hand is doing rather than making a premeditated simultaneous action as the rules state.

Taking just one millisecond (ms) - a thousandth of a second - to recognise what shape the human hand is making, it then chooses a winning move and reacts at high speed.

Version one completed its shape 20ms after the human hand; version two finishes almost simultaneously.

The scientists at the Ishikawa Oku Laboratory, part of the University of Tokyo, specialise in a range of technologies, including "sensor fusion", which aims to replicate and improve upon the human senses using high-speed intelligent robots.

The Janken robot is so fast the human eye does not realise its is cheating But Sethu Vijayakumar, professor of robotics at Edinburgh University, told the BBC: "These robots are really fast at reaction, but there are scenarios where even a millisecond's delay is not acceptable, such as accident avoidance or virtual stock markets.

It was from NBC, which said that Obama had overpromised when he said Americans who liked their insurance could keep it, and that the president knew that many people would see their coverage change.

White House officials quickly began firing off a barrage of tweets on Twitter, which has become one of the administration's most potent and relied-upon weapons in trying to shape public opinion and media reports.

Josh Earnest, the principal deputy press secretary to Obama, began the assault with a series of tweets that said the healthcare law did protect Americans against changes in their coverage - unless insurers altered such coverage.

"NBC 'scoop' cites normal turnover in the indiv insurance market," Earnest tweeted to his 9,500 followers on Twitter.

The message was retweeted 166 times, potentially reaching another 164,000 people, according to Twitonomy, a Twitter analytics tool.

During the next hour, White House staffers would tweet and retweet messages about the story more than a dozen times, including tweets directly to the NBC reporter.

The debate continues over whether Obama has been misleading about the healthcare law. But it's clear that in many ways, Twitter has become as important in the West Wing's communications arsenal as daily press briefings. Twitter's 140-character messages are faster than a press release, with broader and more direct reach than appearances on cable television.

Under a strategy championed by Obama's senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer, the White House has doubled its footprint on Twitter since July, giving official accounts on the social media web site to more than a dozen additional communications staffers.

The White House's Twitter army is the lead player in an intense war of messaging on social media in Washington, a conflict that also involves a range of lawmakers, bureaucrats, conservatives and liberals.

Virtually every day, the White House is the focus of Twitter barbs from conservative groups such as the Heritage Foundation, online personalities such as Erick Erickson of RedState.com and Republican staffers such as Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner.

But the White House operation stands alone in its aggressiveness, analysts say.