Science & Technology News

By Sharon Begley NEW YORK (Reuters) – Scientists who discovered phenomena as different as the molecular mechanisms of pain, organic light-emitting diodes that illuminate mobile phones and a new quantum state of matter are top contenders for Nobel prizes next month, according to an annual analysis by Thomson Reuters. The predictions announced on Thursday come from the Intellectual Property & Science unit of Thomson Reuters (which also owns the Reuters news service). …

By Jennifer Chaussee SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Lifting a ban on blood donations from gay men would increase the amount of available blood by hundreds of thousands of pints (liters) each year and save more than a million lives a year, a California study showed on Friday. The U.S. Federal Drug Administration has banned gay men from donating blood since 1983, when it was discovered that HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, was being transmitted through transfusions. …

By Anthony Deutsch and Thomas Escritt AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Philips, the Dutch conglomerate that started life making light bulbs 123 years ago, is splitting off its lighting business in a bold step to expand its higher-margin healthcare and consumer divisions. Putting the lighting business in a separate company is part of a wider strategy that began with Philips’ move out of less profitable consumer electronics and into fast-growing healthcare markets, largely in emerging Asian markets. …

By Chuck Mikolajczak NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks were trading lower heading towards midday on Monday after China’s finance minister indicated the country will not increase stimulus measures and U.S. housing data fell short of expectations. Recent data in China has been weak, leading many analysts to lower their growth forecasts and hope for more aggressive accommodations from the government. In remarks on Sunday, Finance Minister Lou Jiwei said China wouldn’t dramatically alter its economic policy because of any one economic indicator. …

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL Fla (Reuters) – A NASA robotic spacecraft fired its braking rockets on Sunday, ending a 10-month journey to put itself into orbit around Mars and begin a hunt for the planet’s lost water. After traveling 442 million miles (71 million km), the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or MAVEN, spacecraft fired its six rocket thrusters, trimming its speed from 12,800 mph (20,600 kph) to 10,000 mph (16,093 kph). …

By Barbara Goldberg NEW YORK (Reuters) – World leaders including U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon were set to join farmers, fishermen, children and others in a massive demonstration on Sunday to demand action on climate change. Organizers are expecting 100,000 to join the People’s Climate March in midtown Manhattan ahead of this week’s U.N. General Assembly, which brings together 120 world leaders to discuss reducing carbon emissions that threaten the environment. …

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL Fla (Reuters) – An unmanned Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Sunday to deliver a cargo ship to the International Space Station for NASA. The 208-foot (63-meter) tall booster, built and launched by privately owned Space Exploration Technologies, bolted off its seaside launch pad at 1:52 a.m. EDT/0552 GMT, slicing the night-time sky with a bright plume of light as it headed into orbit. …

By Jennifer Chaussee SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Lifting a ban on blood donations from gay men would increase the amount of available blood by hundreds of thousands of pints (liters) each year and save more than a million lives a year, a California study showed on Friday. The U.S. Federal Drug Administration has banned gay men from donating blood since 1983, when it was discovered that HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, was being transmitted through transfusions. …

BARCELONA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – World leaders attending a U.N. summit on Tuesday are unlikely to offer new action on climate change that is ambitious enough to keep global temperature rise to safe levels – but opinion is divided on whether that matters. The one-day event in New York, called by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, is intended to mobilise political will for a global climate deal due to be agreed in Paris in December 2015, and to launch initiatives bringing together businesses and other groups to reduce planet-warming emissions and strengthen climate resilience. …

By Adam Jourdan and Ben Hirschler SHANGHAI/LONDON (Reuters) – China fined GlaxoSmithKline Plc a record 3 billion yuan ($490 million) on Friday for paying bribes to doctors to use its drugs, underlining the risks of doing business there while also ending a damaging chapter for the British drugmaker. A court in the southern city of Changsha also sentenced Mark Reilly, the former head of GSK in China, and other GSK executives to between two and four years in jail, according to state news agency Xinhua. …