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Add one enzyme, and corn plants will be able to stand the cold much better, scientists have found. The finding is crucial in a situation where the price of corn - the world’s number one feed grain - is going up.

If corn’s intolerance of low temperatures could be overcome, then the length of the growing season and yield could be increased wherever they are cultivated.

Dafu Wang, Archie Portis, Steve Moose and Steve Long of the department of crop sciences and the Institute of Genomic Biology at the University of Illinois has possibly made a breakthrough on this front.

Plants can be divided into two groups based on their strategy for harvesting light energy: C4 and C3. C4 groups include many of the most agriculturally productive plants like corn, sorghum, and sugar cane. All other major crops, including wheat and rice, are C3.

C4 plants differ from C3 by the addition of four extra chemical steps, making these plants more efficient in converting sunlight energy into plant matter.

Until recently, the higher productivity achieved by C4 species was thought to be possible only in warm environments. So while wheat, a C3 plant, may be grown into northern Sweden and Alberta, the C4 grain corn cannot.

Recently a wild C4 grass related to corn, Miscanthus x giganteus, has been found to be exceptionally productive in cold climates. The Illinois researchers set about trying to discover the basis of this difference, focusing on the four extra chemical reactions that separate C4 from C3 plants.

Each of these reactions is catalysed by a protein or enzyme. The enzyme for one of these steps, Pyruvate Phosphate Dikinase, or PPDK for short, is made up of two parts.

At low temperature these parts have been observed to fall apart, differing from the other three C4 specific enzymes. The researchers examined the DNA sequence of the gene coding for this enzyme in both plants, but could find no difference, nor could they see any difference in the behaviour of the enzyme in the test tube.

However, they noticed that when leaves of corn were placed in the cold, PPDK slowly disappeared in parallel with the decline in the ability of the leaf to take up carbon dioxide in photosynthesis.

When Miscanthus leaves were placed in the cold, they made more PPDK and as they did so, the leaf became able to maintain photosynthesis in the cold conditions. Why?

The researchers cloned the gene for PPDK from both corn and Miscanthus into a bacterium, enabling the isolation of large quantities of this enzyme.

Researchers discovered that as the enzyme was concentrated, it became resistant to the cold, thus the difference between the two plants was not the structure of the protein components but rather the amount of enzyme present.

These findings will appear in the September issue of Plant Physiology.

French surgeons have successfully used keyhole laser surgery to destroy a brain tumour on a conscious patient.

Doctors at Pitie-Salpetriere hospital in Paris drilled a 3mm hole into the skull of a patient under local anaesthetic and inserted a tiny fibre-optic cable armed with a laser, which enabled them to “see” the metastatic tumour and steer the cable.

The procedure also involved magnetic resonance imaging, which uses magnetic and radio waves.

Once inside the skull, the doctors conducted a computer simulation of the treatment, and then activated the laser that heated and killed the tumour tissue for up to two minutes.

The surgeons said that the MRI scan allowed them to modify the exact energy output needed from the laser.

Throughout the procedure, the patient remained wide awake and felt nothing.

The cable was removed when all the cancer cells were dead, and the patient allowed to return home the same day.

“This is the first time that laser technology has been used inside the skull and that it is associated with a MRI giving real time data,” the Telegraph quoted chief surgeon Alexandre Carpentier as telling Le Monde newspaper.

A research article in the Neurosurgery journal says that the ground-breaking surgical trials were conducted on 15 patients over the past two years, overseen by France’’s health security agency Afssaps.

The article also reveals that none of the patients” tumours responded to conventional treatment, and their life expectancy if untreated was no more than three months.

The surgery became possible because of a revolutionary American-designed laser that is permanently chilled to avoid causing blood clots on contact with the brain or epileptic fits.

Surgeons behind this breakthrough believe that their success may pave the way for a whole new type of “interventional” MRI treatment.

They say that the results of their studies will undergo months, probably years, of further stringent tests.

General Motors Corp. says it will offer optional radios with USB ports for personal music players on some of its 2009 models.

The new radios will allow customers to play music from iPods or MP3 players while charging many of the devices through a USB port like the ones found on most computers.

The new radios are available now on the Chevrolet Cobalt and HHR and the Pontiac G5. By the middle of the model year, they will extend to the Pontiac G6 and Solstice, the Saturn Sky and Aura, and the Chevrolet Malibu.

On many of music players, including inexpensive ones, customers will be able to browse through the player’s library using the radio controls and electronic display.

GM began offering auxiliary input jacks for MP3 players and other audio devices two years ago, but those inputs didn’t allow the device to recharge or allow the vehicle’s radio to control the music player.

Several other automakers have had USB ports in their vehicles for a year or more, including Ford Motor Co.’s Sync system developed jointly with Microsoft Corp.

Pricing of the new GM radios will vary by model. Specific figures were not available.

If someone asks to borrow your cell phone, or you leave it unattended, beware!

Unless you actually watch them use it, they may be secretly grabbing every piece of your information on the device, even deleted messages. If you leave your phone sitting on your desk, or in the center console of your car while the valet parks it, then you and everyone in your contacts list may be at risk, to say nothing of confidential e-mails, spread sheets, or other information. And of course, if you do not want your spouse to see who you are chatting with on your phone, you might want to use extra caution.

There is a new electronic capture device that has been developed primarily for law enforcement, surveillance, and intelligence operations that is also available to the public. It is called the Cellular Seizure Investigation Stick, or CSI Stick as a clever acronym. It is manufactured by a company called Paraben, and is a self-contained module about the size of a BIC lighter. It plugs directly into most Motorola and Samsung cell phones to capture all data that they contain. More phones will be added to the list, including many from Nokia, RIM, LG and others, in the next generation, to be released shortly.

I recently attended and lectured at the Techno-Security conference in Myrtle Beach, Fla. About 1,500 law enforcement and security professionals participated and were briefed on the latest in cybersecurity vulnerabilities from participating federal agents, manufacturers, and cyber-consultants. The CSI Stick caught my attention because of the potential to rapidly and covertly download all of the information contained in many cell phones.

This device connects to the data/charging port and will seamlessly grab e-mails, instant messages, dialed numbers, phone books and anything else that is stored in memory. It will even retrieve deleted files that have not been overwritten. And there is no trace whatsoever that the information has been compromised, nor any risk of corruption. This may be especially troublesome for corporate employees and those that work for government agencies.

The good news: the device should find wide acceptance by parents who want to monitor what their kids are doing with their phones, who they are talking to and text messaging, and where they are surfing. It could also be valuable in secure areas where employees need to be randomly monitored to insure that sensitive information is not compromised through the use of a cell phone as a memory device.

The CSI Stick sells for $200 and requires an added piece of software to mine the data and do sophisticated processing on your computer. So now, in addition to worrying about your conversations or data being intercepted through your Bluetooth headset, there is a new threat, and it is very real.

The rule: if your phone contains sensitive data, do not leave it unattended. If you loan it to someone to use because they tell you theirs is not working, make sure you actually see them using the phone and there is nothing connected to it.

A U.S. judge has thrown out a copyright infringement case against Veoh Networks Inc, an Internet video start-up with high-profile Hollywood backers, ruling that video-sharing companies are not solely responsible for policing piracy that may take place on their sites.

The California court dismissed a copyright infringement suit by adult entertainment company Io Group Inc against Veoh and granted summary judgment to the defendants. The complaint argued Veoh had not done enough to stop site users of its site from uploading unauthorized clips of ten Io adult sex films.

Judge Howard Lloyd of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California found that Veoh worked actively to protect copyright owners and so qualified for “safe harbor” protections of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

“The DMCA was intended to facilitate the growth of electronic commerce, not squelch it,” the judge said in siding with Veoh.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) limits liability for Internet service providers that act quickly to block access to pirated online materials, once the copyright holder notifies a Web site of specific acts of infringement.

The ruling draws a line between Napster, the music-sharing service that enabled a wave of music piracy early this decade, and the new crop of video sharing services that take steps to protect against piracy of copyrighted materials.

Io had argued that Veoh should be required to prescreen videos to prevent copyright infringement. “The court finds no reasonable juror could conclude that a comprehensive review of every file would be feasible,” the judge wrote.

The court rejected a technical argument used in many Internet copyright cases in which Io claimed Veoh infringed its copyrights by automatically converting user-submitted videos into easy-to-watch Flash videos, a process called transcoding.

But Lloyd stressed that he does not intend his decision to open the flood gates of Internet video piracy.

“The decision rendered here is confined to the particular combination of facts in this case and is not intended to push the bounds of the safe harbor so wide that less than scrupulous service providers may claim its protection,” Lloyd wrote.

Among other issues with Io’s lawsuit, the judge noted that Io had filed a lawsuit against Veoh instead of first providing the video company with notification of infringement.

Veoh had decided to bar all adult sexual content from its site and taken down the infringing Io videos before the suit was filed, Lloyd noted.

“We are very happy that the judge in this case recognized our compliance with the DMCA and our efforts to respect copyrights,” Veoh spokesman Gaude Lydia Paez said.

The Io-Veoh case featured similar arguments to those used in two high-profile cases against Google Inc unit YouTube, the world’s most popular video sharing site.

Viacom Inc filed a $1 billion lawsuit in 2007 against YouTube calling it a site for “massive intentional copyright infringement” that had enabled hundreds of thousands of Viacom video clips to be pirated. A second suit filed against YouTube by English soccer’s Premier League and more than a dozen sports, entertainment and media plaintiffs is running in parallel in a New York federal court.

YouTube Chief Counsel Zahavah Levine hailed the Veoh ruling in a statement, saying that: “It is great to see the court confirm that the DMCA protects services like YouTube that follow the law and respect copyrights.”

Veoh ranked last week as the 17th most visited U.S. multimedia entertainment site according to Web measurement firm Hitwise Inc. Financial backers include former Walt Disney Co Chief Executive Michael Eisner, former Viacom and MTV Networks CEO Tom Freston, former Viacom Entertainment Group CEO Jonathan Dolgen and investment bank Goldman Sachs.

Mac clone maker Psystar officially responded to Apple’s copyright infringement lawsuit on Thursday by filing a countersuit that alleges anticompetitive business practices.

As expected, the 54-page complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, charges Apple with restraint of trade, unfair competition, and other violations of antitrust law. Miami-based Psystar, owned by Rudy Pedraza, requests that the court find Apple’s end-user license agreements (EULA) void and seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

“The present litigation is more complex than the misinformed and mischaracterized allegations of copyright infringement,” attorney Colby Springer, of antitrust specialists Carr & Ferrell, said in a statement. “The litigation involves the anticompetitive nature of the Apple EULA and similar anticompetitive tactics related to the misuse of Apple’s copyrights.”

Psystar argues that its OpenComputer product is shipped with a fully licensed, unmodified copy of Mac OS X, and that the company has simply “leveraged open source-licensed code including Apple’s OS” to enable a PC to run the Mac operating system.

Pedraza said says his company is “allowing more people to take advantage of a great operating system that Apple has created at a more accessible cost than the pricey Mac.”

Apple will have 30 days to respond to Psystar’s countersuit and so far has declined to comment on the case.

Legal experts say Psystar faces a tough legal challenge in proving Apple has engaged in antitrust behavior by loading its software on its own hardware and thereby allegedly harming consumers and competitors. Psystar’s ability to prevail on the issue of having the latitude to load Apple’s OS on its own hardware, given it has a licensing agreement with the company, may prove an easier row to hoe, legal experts note.

A newcomer to the PC scene, Psystar caused a stir when it first went online selling white-box Macs earlier this year. The site went down hours after it opened for business because the company was overwhelmed with orders for the OpenComputer, originally called the OpenMac. The site went down several more times as its payment-processing company pulled its services from the Psystar site. Psystar managed to stay shrouded in a bit of mystery for a while, until intrepid gadget-blog readers joined the press in fleshing out some details about the company.

Psystar eventually got back online with a new payment-processing service, and it continues to take orders for the OpenComputer and OpenPro Computer. When Apple finally did file suit against Psystar in July, it surprised nearly no one–except perhaps Pedraza. He said he had no contact with Apple before legal papers were filed against his company. Customarily, there is some sort of communication between companies before lawsuits are filed.

A Chinese factory worker has become an Internet sensation after a picture of her smiling and flashing a peace sign to a co-worker testing an Apple iPhone stayed on the phone that was sold to a man in Britain.

Photos of the unidentified, smiling woman were posted on the Apple discussion website MacRumours.com by a customer identified as “markm49uk” from Kingston-upon-Hull and quickly posted around other sites.

“Not sure if this is or is not the ‘norm’ but I just received my brand new iPhone here in the UK and once it had been activated on iTunes I found that the home screen (the screen you can personalize with a photo) already had a photo set against it!!!!” he wrote.

“It would appear that someone on the production line was having a bit of fun - has anyone else found this?”

Some people voiced concern that the woman could now lose her job while others joked on the website that they were considering returning their phones because they did not come loaded with a photo.

“I think its a kind of personal touch. It’s nice. Maybe every phone that gets a full quality test should have its tester’s picture taken and left on there. And the working conditions look pretty good,” wrote one.

Taiwanese company Foxconn assembles the iPhones for Apple in Shenzhen in southern China but calls to the company by Reuters went unanswered.

However Foxconn spokesman Liu Kun told the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong that the woman had been identified but her details would not be released. She had also been assured by her bosses that her job was safe.

Liu said the photos were taken in the testing department as part of a normal procedure and only one phone was known to be affected so far.

Sony’s (6758.T) joint venture with cell phone maker Ericsson (ERICb.ST) must do better, Sony’s chief executive was quoted as saying by a German newspaper on Wednesday.

Asked whether Sony is planning to end its Sony Ericsson joint venture, Howard Stringer told Die Welt: “It’s certainly been a difficult year but buying out a partner is never an easy thing.”

Sony lowered its group net profit forecast for the year to March by 17 percent, citing a slump at Sony Ericsson and weakening prospects for its electronics division amid tough price competition.

“We have to work together again as we did two years ago. Or the joint venture will have to find its own solution,” Stringer said.

He added that it was hard for a company to be as nimble as possible when it works in a joint venture.

“You’re always engaged in discussion and negotiation. We and Ericsson are always discussing ways of making Sony Ericsson as successful as it possibly can be,” he said.

Digital video recorder maker TiVo Inc (TIVO.O) is set to enter into an agreement with Time Warner’s (TWX.N) Entertainment Weekly that will allow its users to automatically record shows suggested by the magazine’s staff, the Wall Street Journal said.

TiVo expects to make the announcement on Wednesday, the paper said.

The alliance is part of a push by TiVo to differentiate itself from digital video recorders offered by cable companies, which have managed to find a bigger audience.

The financial terms of the deal are not being disclosed, the paper said.

Digital video recorder maker TiVo Inc (TIVO.O) is set to enter into an agreement with Time Warner’s (TWX.N) Entertainment Weekly that will allow its users to automatically record shows suggested by the magazine’s staff, the Wall Street Journal said.

TiVo expects to make the announcement on Wednesday, the paper said.

The alliance is part of a push by TiVo to differentiate itself from digital video recorders offered by cable companies, which have managed to find a bigger audience.

The financial terms of the deal are not being disclosed, the paper said.