Verizon Business Tuesday (May 6) joined a consortium of 16 companies building a next-generation undersea optical cable system connecting Europe, the Middle East and India.

The second discovery park of the world would be set up in this district and the project has been approved by the union ministries of information and broadcasting and science and technology.

John Wheeler, the US physicist who coined the term "black hole", has died at the age of 96. He died at his New Jersey home on 13 April of pneumonia, his daughter said. Involved in the Manhattan project that developed the world's first atomic bomb, Wheeler was one of Albert Einstein's last collaborators.

California faces an almost certain risk of being rocked by a strong earthquake by 2037, scientists said Monday in the first statewide temblor forecast. New calculations reveal there is a 99.7 percent chance a magnitude 6.7 quake or larger will strike in the next 30 years. The odds of such an event are higher in Southern California than Northern California, 97 percent versus 93 percent.

The much-awaited Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC)'s Experimental Test Reactor, which will help assess different types of proliferation resistant reactors, has been commissioned. The low power critical facility at BARC, Trombay attained first criticality last evening, a BARC release said today.

India plans to undertake 70 space missions in five years, a nearly three-fold jump from the previous half-decade, as it seeks to address requirements and develop new technologies to meet future needs.

Kerala-based Toonz Animation has entered into a contract with Sony USA for two DVD projects while its training institution has got affiliation from the prestigious European Carolus Magnus University (ECM), Brussels, for its animation courses. The two DVD projects are Playmobile, a combination of animation and games, and Santaclaus.

A camera that can "see" explosives, drugs and weapons hidden under clothing from 25 metres has been invented. The Thru Vision system could be deployed at airports, railway stations or other public spaces. It is based on so-called "terahertz", or T-ray, technology, normally used by astronomers to study dying stars.

Scientists claim to have discovered evidence that points to the existence of an ocean of water and ammonia on Saturn's moon Titan. Analysing data from the Cassini spacecraft, they found that 50 unique landmarks established earlier on Titan's surface have shifted from their expected positions by up to 19 miles, the NASA said.

NASA scientists have identified the smallest black hole ever found -- less than four times the mass of our sun and about the size of a large city. But the mini-black hole, dubbed J1650, could still stretch a person into a "strand of spaghetti" with its pull, the researchers told a meeting in Los Angeles.