Mozilla's new Marketplace

Article first published as Mozilla’s Marketplace for App Submission to be Launched at Mobile World Congress on Technorati.

Mozilla has announced on Wednesday that the app store, the Mozilla Marketplace, will be launched for developers at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in the end of February.

Mozilla has reported that the Mozilla Marketplace will build "open Web technologies like HTML5 and Mozilla-proposed APIs". The Marketplace will compose of games, music, media, productivity apps and much more.

The test version of Marketplace is online but as the number of testers has reached its maximum, Mozilla is not accepting new registrations. There is a link to know how to submit an app to the Developer Preview.

"The Web is the largest platform in the world. We are enabling the Web to be the marketplace, giving developers the opportunity to play on the biggest playing field imaginable," said Todd Simpson, Mozilla's chief of innovation, in a statement. "By building the missing pieces, Mozilla is now unlocking the potential of the Web to be the platform for creating and consuming content everywhere."

The Marketplace will be included in Mozilla Web Apps platform, which will also include the undisclosed APIs. Those standards of technology will be submitted to the W3C for standardization as reported by Mozilla. Mozilla also develops a "new identity system for the Web that puts users in control of their content, tying apps to the user and not the device or platform".

The app, which will be made by developers, will be featured in the launch later this year.

Colonoscopy helps to decrease deaths from cancer

Researchers from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, have found that Colon screening through colonoscopy reduces the chances of death from colon cancer by upto 53%.

Researchers worked on 2602 patients, who underwent screening from 1980 to 1990, and publihed their findings in The New England Journal of Medicine.

From SayPeople,

In colonoscopy, a camera is inserted into the intestine to check for the cautious polyps. In case, there is no family history of colon cancer and first test is normal then further tests are done every 10 years. Other forms of colon cancer screening are stool tests and sigmoidoscopy, which is almost similar to colonoscopy but doesn’t involve detailed examination of the intestine.
This study confirms that the screening of colorectal cancer is very important. According to the American Cancer Society, increased screening and improved lifestyle resulted in decline of death rates as a result of cancer.

Further Reading:
SayPeople

Apache HHTP server 2.4 version has been released

Article first published as Latest Version of Apache HTTP Server on 17th anniversary of ASF on Technorati.

Apache Software Foundation (ASF), foundation established in 1999 and working on 150 open source projects, has celebrated its 17th anniversary with the release of the new version of Apache HTTP server i.e. 2.4 version.

The foundation released the 2.2 version in 2005. Its 2.3 version was a development only version. So, this version is the first big release by the foundation in six years.

Apache web server is operating on approximately 398 million sites across the net with operation on 65% of all sites across the web as reported by web research firm Netcraft. At this time, Microsoft’s IIS (Internet Information Services) operates about 15%, Russian open source web server NGINX is at 10% and Google’s custom-built server operates about 3%.

“This release delivers a host of evolutionary enhancements throughout the server that our users, administrators, and developers will welcome”, read a statement from Eric Covener, vice president of the Apache HTTP Server Project. “We’ve added many new modules in this release, as well as broadened the capability and flexibility of existing features.”

 This version is available under the Apache 2.0 open source license and uses less system resources, less memory with more control on concurrent operations.

Combo children vaccine may result in febrile seizures

Researchers have found that combo pertussis vaccine (combined diphtheria-tetanus toxoids-acellular pertussis–inactivated poliovirus– Haemophilus influenzae type b (DTaP-IPV-Hib) vaccine) usually results in febrile seizures in babies. These seizures are not long lasting.

Researchers have worked on almost 400,000 children in Denmark and concluded,

DTaP-IPV-Hib vaccination was associated with an increased risk of febrile seizures on the day of the first 2 vaccinations given at 3 and 5 months, although the absolute risk was small. Vaccination with DTaP-IPV-Hib was not associated with an increased risk of epilepsy.

Further Reading:
SayPeople

Tellurium is a rare Earth element also present in distant stars

Article first published as Tellurium, Rare Earth Element, Observed in Three Ancient Stars on Technorati.

Researchers, including researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), have found that “tellurium” – a brittle and semiconducting, very rare element on Earth – is present in three stars that are present few thousand years away from Earth and are almost 12 billion years old.

Researchers have used the spectrograph from the Hubble Space Telescope, which enabled the light to be split into spectrum of wavelength. The dips in spectrographic data told about the presence of atoms of the rare Earth element as the atoms absorbed certain wavelengths of starlight and gave rise to dips.

This research has also supported the theory that heavier elements in periodic table originated as a result of nuclear fusion from a rare type of supernova.

"We want to understand the evolution of tellurium — and by extension any other element — from the Big Bang to today," says Anna Frebel, an assistant professor of astrophysics at MIT and a co-author on the paper. "Here on Earth, everything's made from carbon and various other elements, and we want to understand how tellurium on Earth came about."

Researchers have also observed that the ratio of barium and strontium is same in all three stars.

"If you look at the periodic table, tellurium is right in the middle of these elements that are hard for us to measure," Jennifer Johnson, an associate professor of astronomy at Ohio State University said. "If we need to understand how [the r-process] works in the universe, we really have to measure this part of the periodic table. It's really cool that they got this element in this sea of unknown-ness."

This research has been published in Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Source:

MIT

Pancreatic cancer drug by Threshold Pharma has gotten better results

Threshold Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s experimental drug has achieved good results in phase 2b clinical trials. The drug is referred to as TH-302.

"We are again very encouraged that TH-302 is conferring benefit to patients with aggressive and difficult to treat cancers," Chief Executive Barry Selick said.

The company is working with German based pharmaceutical company i.e. Merck KGaA in developing the drug.

TH-302 is used to target hypoxic conditions of the cells which are usually common in solid tumors.

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Forest hidden by ashes in China

Researchers from University of Pennsylvania have uncovered a 298 million old forest at a site near Wuda, China.

"It's marvelously preserved," says University of Pennsylvania paleobotanist Hermann Pfefferkorn.

"We can stand there and find a branch with the leaves attached, and then we find the next branch and the next branch and the next branch. And then we find the stump from the same tree. That's really exciting."

Researchers have found the six different groups of trees in an area of 1000 square meters of ash layer. They have also found the specimens of “Noeggerathiales” i.e. spore bearing trees relating to ferns. 

"This is the first such forest reconstruction in Asia for any time interval, it's the first of a peat forest for this time interval and it's the first with Noeggerathiales as a dominant group," says Pfefferkorn. "It's a time capsule."

Further Reading:
SayPeople