Munich, July 25 : Using the ESO’s (European Southern Observatory’s) Very Large Telescope Interferometer, astronomers were able for the first time to witness the appearance of a shell of dusty gas around a star that had just erupted, and follow its evolution for more than 100 days.

This provides the astronomers with a new way to estimate the distance of this object and obtain invaluable information on the operating mode of dense stars that suck material from a companion.

Seattle - Microsoft intends to invest heavily in developing its search business after being freed from the 47.5-billion-dollar bill for buying Yahoo, company chief executive Steve Ballmer said Thursday.

Ballmer's comments at Microsoft's annual meeting with financial analysts were his first detailed assessment of the software giant's plans since the deal died in May, when Yahoo rejected the offer as too low.

A Yahoo acquisition would have helped Microsoft's bid to overtake Google in search, but any current merger plans are dead, Ballmer said Thursday.

New York - American toy maker Hasbro sued two Indian programmers Thursday for launching an online copy of its Scrabble board game on the Facebook social networking site.

The game has become one of the most popular pastimes on Facebook, attracting some half a million daily visitors in the year since Facebook began letting outside developers write Web programs for the site.

New Delhi, July 24 : The Union Cabinet today allowed communication operators to construct Shared Communication Towers and other Infrastructure to extend Communication Network to Military Stations / Cantonments on Defence land.

Washington, July 24 : Titanium, a protean element with applications from pigments to aerospace alloys, could get a new role as an environmentally friendly additive for automotive oil, thanks to work by materials scientists from Afton Chemical Corporation and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the US.

In a recent paper, the researchers established that a titanium compound added to engine oil creates a wear-resistant nanoscale layer bound to the surface of vulnerable engine parts, making it a credible substitute for older compounds that do not coexist well with antipollution equipment.

Bangalore, July 24 : Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) will launch Chandrayaan-I, India''s maiden mission to the moon, in September.

Talking to ANI in an exclusive interview on the sidelights of a seminar here today, Chairman of ISRO G. Madhavan Nair said that the final tests have been on to launch the spacecraft to moon.

Chandrayaan-I will be launched atop a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), India''s workhorse rocket with a streak of nine consecutive flawless missions.