TopNews

The U.S. Government is revising its definition of a farm. As per the new definition, some people who receive farm subsidies but do not carry out any sort of work would receive less government money.

Congress last year assigned the Agriculture Department a task of creating a new definition for what it means to be 'actively engaged' in farming, a criteria to receive subsidy.

USDA on Tuesday proposed that farms must document their managers and must put in 500 hours of substantial management work annually or 25% of the time necessary for the success of the farming operation to qualify.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said, "We want to make sure that farm program payments are going to the farmers and farm families that they are intended to help".

Google has announced that Ruth Porat, who is presently Chief Financial Officer at Morgan Stanley, will join as CFO of the technology major. The announcement was made after Google CFO Patrick Pichette expressed his plan to retire through Google+ post.

In 1987, Ruth joined Morgan Stanley and was posted at various positions at the company, together with Global Head of the Financial Institutions Group, Vice Chairman of Investment Banking and co-Head of Technology Investment Banking. During the financial crisis, Ruth handled the Morgan Stanley teams, giving advice to the US Treasury on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the New York Federal Reserve Bank on AIG.

A recent study, published in Physical Review Letters, has revealed that stars can generate sounds. The scientists said that they made this discovery by chance, when they were studying plasma.

The team of scientists was studying hydrodynamics (the motion of fluids) and while analyzing the interaction of an ultra-intense laser with a plasma target, they observed that in the trillionth of a second after the strike of the laser, the plasma flowed quickly from areas of high density to regions of low density, which led to something similar to a traffic jam.

Researchers from the University of Colorado at Boulder conducted a study to conclude that mountain pine beetles have adjusted to survive the cold months. Owing to which, the tree-killing beetles now leave behind stands of dry wood. It was feared that the situation could lead to early season of wildfires.

However, such was not the case, said researchers from the University of Colorado at Boulder. The researchers came to know the activity of the beetles have equal to negligible effect on the area burned during the three peak years of wildfires since 2002.

NASA's New Horizons mission, the SETI Institute and the International Astronomical Union (IAU) has started a new campaign in which people have been asked to suggest names for newly discovered features of Pluto and also of its satellites.

People can suggest names from the given themes of the IAU for the celestial bodies. The campaign has been started as on July 14, 2014, NASA's New Horizons probe will fly past Pluto and its largest satellite, Charon.

As it will fly past Pluto and its largest moon, it will provide first close-up look at the celestial bodies. Officials affirmed that the flyby would be so quick that the new Horizons team would not have time to name the geological features in advance.

An international team of astronomers has captured the explosive growth spurt of very young protostar named HOPS 383.

The star is located in the nebula of the constellation Orion around 1,400 light years from Earth, where plenty of other young stars are still in their birth clouds.

The earliest phase of development of the newborn star was captured by using data from orbiting observatories and ground-based facilities.

The growth spurt typically happens when the forming celestial body accumulates a lot of gas and dust relatively quickly. Stars are formed within collapsing fragments of cold gas clouds. As the cloud contracts under its own gravity, its central region becomes denser and hotter.