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The ingredients for life as we know it have been found in the Orion Nebula.

By finely separating the spectrum of incoming light, astronomers are able to detect the chemical fingerprints of molecules like water and methanol. The spectrograph that their work produces can be seen in the image above. The peaks represent the presence of the molecule indicated.

The new data was collected by the Herschel Telescope, launched into space last year by the European Space Agency. Herschel’s HiFi instrument uses a new technique to do more-sensitive spectroscopy. It will enable scientists to better understand the chemistry of space.

The Orion Nebula is located about 1,300 light-years away. No very active star-forming region is closer to Earth. M42, as the nebula is also known, is 24 light-years across.

Wired

A 101-year-old woman in China has baffled doctors after growing a huge goat-like horn on her forehead.

Zhang Ruifang claims the growth first appeared only last year and has since expanded to be more than 6cm long. Now her family in Linlou, Henan province, are concerned about a second mark on the other side of her forehead.

“[At first] we didn’t pay too much attention to it,” said Mrs Zhang’s youngest son Zhang Guozheng. ”Now something is also growing on the right side of her forehead — it’s quite possible that it’s another horn.”

9 News

Britain’s official UFO investigation unit and hotline were closed down at the start of December.

Since then reports of strange sights in the skies sent to the MoD have been kept for 30 days before being thrown out, the newly released policy document shows.

This stance was adopted so defence officials would not have to publish the information in response to freedom of information (FoI) requests or pass it to the National Archives.

The memo, dated November 11, 2009, sets out the MoD’s reasons for shutting its UFO unit and ceasing to invite the public to send in details of sightings.

It notes that the number of reports the department received soared last year, taking up extra resources and diverting staff from “more valuable” defence-related activities.

The MoD recorded 634 UFO sightings in 2009, the second highest annual total after 1978, when there were 750, according to UFO expert Dr David Clarke.

This compares with an average of about 150 reports a year over the past decade.

The memo states: “The dedicated UFO hotline answer phone service and e-mail address serve no defence purpose, and merely encourage the generation of correspondence of no defence value.

“Accordingly these facilities should be withdrawn as soon as possible.”

Source

Cisco Systems and Hewlett-Packard probably won’t force their mutual customers to take sides after the end of their partnership, though the vendors are deadly serious about competing against one another, analysts said on Friday.

Cisco said Thursday it would not renew its system integrator contract with HP after it expires April 30, which means HP will no longer be a Cisco Certified Channel Partner or Global Service Alliance partner. The company said its relationship with HP had evolved from partnership to competition. As a result, it isn’t appropriate for Cisco to continue sharing road map information with HP, among other things, the head of Cisco’s channel program said on a webcast.

As a hint of the break to come, HP earlier on Thursday had said it would expand its own reseller contract with QLogic for storage switches, a category of product that HP has resold from Cisco. In addition, there were reports earlier this week that Cisco had halted work on a future product called the Nexus 4001d blade switch, designed to fit into the Dell M1000e blade chassis. (Cisco declined to comment on unannounced products and said Dell remains a reseller of several Cisco products.)

IBM has announced its acquisition of Intelliden, a maker of network automation software that enables organizations such as telecommunications companies to configure, manage and scale their networks.

The February 16 acquisition, which comes just a week before IBM’s Pulse service management conference, is expected to further strengthen the IBM service management portfolio. IBM offers comprehensive solutions for automation and optimization of digital and physical assets. This involves full-service lifecycle management of network devices, IT, data center and physical assets as diverse as water mains, railway cars and even door locks. The Intelliden software will fall under IBM’s Tivoli brand.

Analysts estimate that more than 60 percent of network outages are caused by manual configuration errors. By acquiring this automation technology, IBM aims to help clients improve network service availability, decrease risk through compliance reporting and improve staff efficiency.

A new version of Windows Mobile will be released very soon, Microsoft made a show about it, I will say no more, here is the video

Budget airline, Easyjet, experienced issues across much of Europe today as systems crashed causing travel chaos for thousands of passengers stranded in various airports.

London’s Gatwick airport was a scene of total chaos as Easyjet staff struggled to process boarding passes for hundreds waiting at check-in points. Systems crashed at approximately 3PM GMT creating queues in their hundreds and frustrated passengers. According to eye witnesses, customers were left waiting without a word from Easyjet officials. The systems came back online at approximately 5PM whilst Easyjet staff began handing out boarding passes by hand.

London’s Luton airport suffered the same issues as Gatwick. One flight, from Luton to Barcelona, began boarding late and passengers were asked to identify their bags before boarding, even checked bags. The flight was also over booked due to Easyjet staff handing out too many boarding passes. One passenger, Will Head – a writer based in London – commented “not enough seats for everyone now on the plane. Awkward.” He also added the situation was “tense.”

Neowin has asked Easyjet officials for comment on the issues and to confirm which systems failed but at the time of writing we have not received a response from the airline.

Update: An Easyjet employee, whose identity could not be immediately identified, confirmed the company is Windows Server based but that it was a network failure that created the issues. The individual couldn’t comment further on the issues but stated it was a “horrible day for passengers and staff.”

Update 2: Easyjet have now issued an official response to the issues:

“easyJet sincerely apologise for the disruption this afternoon, this was caused by a technical fault with our reservations system, which meant that passengers had to be checked-in for their flight manually.  We are currently investigating the fault, and therefore are not in a position to make further comment at this stage.”

HM Revenue and Customs officials have warned taxpayers to beware of phishing emails sent out to take advantage of the January 31st tax return deadline. Telling recipients they are due a tax refund, the email asks the user to fill in an online form with their credit card or banking details, reports the BBC.

A spokesman for HMRC said that taxpayers will only be notified of a refund by post. “We never use e-mails, telephone calls or external companies in these circumstances,” he said, before adding that anyone who receives such an email should first forward the email to HMRC for investigation, and then delete it.

Over 20,000 fake tax refund emails have been sent out in the past week, and an increase is expected following the January 31st deadline as taxpayers wait to hear about genuine refunds.

Scammers in the UK, Austria, Mexico, South Korea, the USA, Thailand and Japan have already been shut down as a result of investigations by HMRC and law enforcement agencies within the last year.

The Obama administration announced today that the United States government will be posting a large amount of Cabinet-level department data to the Internet, with topics ranging from Medicare to Transportation, according to a report from the Associated Press.

The newly available information comes a year after President Obama promised that the United States government would be more open and transparent.

Under a December 8th directive from the White House, each department must post at least three collections of data classified as “high-value”, which have never previously been disclosed to the public.

For example, the Transportation Department will post ratings for 2,400 lines of tires for consumer safety based on tire tread wear, traction performance and temperature resistance. The Labor Department will be required to release almost 80,000 names of workplaces where injuries and illnesses have occurred over the past 10 years.

This move also means that resources which were available for a fee (such as the country’s Medicare database, available for $100 on CD-ROM) will be available to for download free from the Internet.

“We’re democratizing data,” said Vivek Kundra, Chief Information Officer for the White House in an interview on Thursday.

Under the new initiative, the following departments will be required to release information: State, Treasury, Defence, Justice, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, Energy, Education, Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security and the Environmental Protection Agency. In addition, the offices of the U.S. Trade Representative and the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and the Council of Economic Advisers will also be required to release new data.

All of the information will be made available on the government’s web site, http://www.data.gov.