Scientists discover three new planets where life may have evolved

Scientists have discovered at least three new planets in our galaxy that could have allowed life to evolve.
The Earth-sized worlds lie in the "Goldilocks zone" of their sun, where temperatures are not too hot or cold, and are thought to be capable of having oceans of water.
They are in a group of at least seven planets orbiting a dwarf star called Trappist-1, in a newly discovered solar system 39 light years from us. A light year is the distance light travels in a year.
Researchers believe no other known star system contains such a large number of Earth-sized and probably rocky planets.
Trappist-1 lies in the Aquarius constellation and has just under a tenth of the mass of our Sun.
The research, led by NASA and its orbiting Spitzer telescope, was supported by, among others, a robotic telescope operated by Liverpool John Moores University (JMU).
The telescope, which is located in the Canary Islands off the west coast of Africa, helped detect the planets as they passed in front of their star.
Project co-leader and astronomer Dr Chris Copperwheat said: "The discovery of multiple rocky planets with surface temperatures which allow for liquid water make this amazing system an exciting future target in the search for life."
The quest to discover definitively whether life could have been sustained elsewhere in the universe has been intensifying since the first planet outside our solar system was found in 1992.
Since then, astronomers have recorded more than 3,500 worlds in 2,675 star systems.
Just last week, NASA announced it had discovered carbon-based organic material , similar to what may have been the building blocks for life on Earth, on Ceres, a dwarf planet located between Mars and Jupiter.
In November, the US space agency's New Horizons spacecraft found evidence that Pluto may have a huge ocean hidden under its frozen surface.
The vast site, containing as much water as all of Earth's seas, could also potentially be a habitat for life.

Google and Bing cracks down on piracy

Illegally streamed live football matches, pirated music and other creative material will be more difficult to search for under a plan to crack down on piracy websites.
Google and Bing have signed up to a voluntary code of practice aimed at protecting users' safety and preventing them from visiting disreputable content providers.
Demotion of illegal sites will be accelerated by the code, which is the first of its kind in the UK.
Anyone who searches for content such as music videos, digital books and football coverage will more likely be taken to bona fide providers rather than pirate sites where a user's security may be at risk.
Eddy Leviten, director general at the Alliance for Intellectual Property, said: "Sometimes people will search for something and they will end up unwittingly being taken to a pirated piece of content.
"What we want to ensure is that the results at the top of the search engines are the genuine ones.
"It is about protecting people who use the internet, but also protecting the creators of that material too."
The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) led the discussions to create the code, with the assistance of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).
Ofcom has examined in detail the way that search results are presented to internet users, and explored possible techniques and metrics that make it easier for UK consumers avoid illegitimate content.
The code, expected to be rolled out in the summer, will run in parallel with existing anti-piracy measures aimed at reducing online infringement.
These include court-ordered site blocking, work with brands to reduce advertising on illegal sites, and the Get it Right From A Genuine Site consumer education campaign, which encourages fans to value the creative process and directs them to legal sources of content.
Stan McCoy, of the Motion Picture Association in Europe, said: "Pirate websites are currently much too easy to find via search, so we appreciate the parties' willingness to try to improve that situation.
"We look forward to working on this initiative alongside many other approaches to fighting online piracy."
Geoff Taylor, chief executive of BPI, representative body for UK record labels, and the Brit Awards, said: "The code will not be a silver bullet fix, but it will mean that illegal sites are demoted more quickly from search results and that fans searching for music are more likely to find a fair site."

Comercial space flights from UK by 2020 possible

Space ports could be set up and satellites could blast off from regions across the UK under new proposals set to be unveiled this week.
The Spaceflight Bill would allow scientists to conduct experiments in zero gravity - paving the way for the development of vaccines and antibiotics, the Department for Transport (DfT) said.
Science minister Jo Johnson said the bill would "cement the UK's position as a world leader in this emerging market".
Under the proposals, the first commercial flight from a UK space port could lift off by 2020.
Mr Johnson said: "From the launch of Rosetta, the first spacecraft to orbit a comet, to Tim Peake's six months on the International Space Station, the UK's space sector has achieved phenomenal things in orbit and beyond.
"With this week's Spaceflight Bill launch, we will cement the UK's position as a world leader in this emerging market, giving us an opportunity to build on existing strengths in research and innovation."
Aviation minister Lord Ahmad said: "We have never launched a spaceflight before from this country.
"Our ambition is to allow for safe and competitive access to space from the UK, so we remain at the forefront of a new commercial space age."
Grants worth £10m would be made available to help develop commercial launch capability for spaceflight.
The commercial spaceflight market is worth an estimated £25bn over the next 20 years.
The bill will be unveiled in Parliament this week.

Your galaxy phones will soon unlock your windows 10 device

Good news for Galaxy phone owners who
use Windows 10 : Samsung plans to make its
Flow app compatible with any device that
runs Windows 10. This means that in
addition to being able to unlock your
Windows 10 computer with your Galaxy
phone's fingerprint sensor, you'll also be
able to seamlessly hand off tasks,
notifications and content to your Windows 10
PC.
Samsung has some great news for Windows
10 users.
Screenshot by Patrick Holland/CNET
As reported by SamMobile , Samsung
responded to comments on the Google Play
Store confirming future support of the Flow
app with any Windows 10 device (Samsung
or otherwise).
The Flow app, Samsung's answer to Apple's
Handoff, allows continuity between Samsung
Galaxy phones and the Windows-based
Galaxy TabPro S . The goal is to move
content (like Web articles) from a phone to
the TabPro S with minimal interaction. The
Flow app also lets you interact with your
phone notifications from a TabPro S. These
features will soon be available on any
Windows 10 device.
Samsung Flow adds continuity and
convenience to your Galaxy phone and
Galaxy TabPro S.
James Martin/CNET
Samsung didn't immediately respond to a
request for comment. But according to the
company's response on the Google Play
Store, the updated app will be available in
early April.

Why is the uk obsessed with rockets?

Phwoar, the power. Just imagine it: the pulsing, explosive power of a rocket launch. The sheer force. Tonnes of rigid metal, spewing fire, surging straight up, heading out into the final frontier. Very alpha.
Well, the Government wants some of that action. This week the Department for Transport published a draft Spaceflight Bill. It should allow spaceports to be built and satellites to be launched from British soil for the first time. All by 2020. Woof!
It's space-viagra for a flaccid, post-Brexit Britain. And it's the ultimate stimulant. Look at the euphoria that greeted Major Tim Peake's trip to the International Space Station.
Some 536 people (including Major Peake) have been to space, but his voyage, during which he watched the rugby and attended the BAFTAs, won wall-to-wall coverage. We liked it so much we're sending him back there for another go.
Why the extra-terrestrial jingoism? As part of the Government's bill, aviation minister Tariq Ahmad said: "We have never launched a spaceflight before from this country." You almost can hear the wistfulness in his voice.
Britain missed out on the space race - we were too poor, too grey, too small - and it's given us a complex. Bigger, more virile nations launched their rockets. So did France, even more humiliatingly. And now, a new generation of countries and private companies is making us feel inadequate all over again.
It shouldn't. Despite the lack of big, show-off launches, the UK has ended up with a thriving, modern space sector.
The performance anxiety is understandable; it's part of our history of decline. As the Second World War came to a close, the UK was just as keen as the US to get its hands on the Nazis' technological secrets. In particular, the V2 rocket, partly because it had terrorised London, but mainly because it held the key to the coming space age.
Allied soldiers and scientific advisers scouted ahead of the main advance, searching for documents and devices. But when they came across Mittelwerk - the underground V2 facility where thousands of slave labourers died building rockets - the Americans simply bullied the Brits and kept the V2s to themselves. Just 24 years later, they were on the moon, thanks to Wernher von Braun and his fellow Nazi scientists.
Meanwhile, our space programme was short-lived and based largely on the Isle of Wight, in Cowes. It culminated with the launch of a Blue Arrow rocket in Australia in 1971, carrying a satellite into space. The UK remains the only country to develop a satellite programme, then abandon it.
Despite that, though, the UK excels at space. We build advanced satellites in places like Stevenage and Surrey. Our scientific research opens up new fields. This was Tim Peake's contribution on the International Space Station: the science he did, not the fact he was British.
His voyage was possible because we're part of the European Space Agency, which landed a robotic spacecraft on a comet. One of the biggest satellite communications companies in the world, Inmarsat, is based on a roundabout in east London. All without the expense and bother of launching rockets ourselves.
Indeed, where the Isle of Wight failed, the Isle of Man succeeded. It focused not on rocket launches, but on space services - law, insurance, accounting. Not as sexy as a launch, but lucrative and much less risky. And the sort of thing the UK as a whole is very good at.
The Isle of Man did suffer some embarrassment, but only when it touted Manx space tourism and actual launches, with flights priced at £100m. A private company imported a 1980s Russian space station, then quietly shipped it off the island four years later.
There are better places to launch rockets than the UK: I have checked on a map and we're quite far away from the equator. (Launching satellites into polar orbits makes more geographic sense, but they aren't much use for communications satellites.) Nor do we need to launch rockets ourselves to make money from them.
Blasting off from spaceports is the status symbol of a bygone age. If we truly were a self-confident nation, we'd leave the willy-waving to others.