Sony Xperia S hits UK, carrier Three is the first to get it

The Sony Xperia S finally completed its journey to the UK and is now available for purchase. The first smartphone to ship with the Sony branding, rather than Sony Ericsson, is already offered by Three both on a contract and on a pay-as-you-go basis.

You can have the Sony Xperia S for free if you are willing to sign a contract on The One Plan worth ?30/month or ?36/month. That would give you all-you-can-eat data, 2,000 minutes and 5,000 texts and, of course, the chance to own the latest and greatest in the Xperia world.

Alternatively, the Sony Xperia S can be had with a pre-paid card, but you'll need to pay ?369.99 upfront. You'd need to spend ?15 or ?25 extra for either an All in One 15 or All in One 30 package, but you won't have to commit to Three long term.

Sadly, the Sony Xperia S is still unavailable at the Three UK online store, so you'll have to visit one of their brick and mortar stores if you want to get it, or just wait for a few days until it comes up.

The other major UK carriers are all expected to start offering the Sony Xperia S in the following weeks, but we are yet to learn more about the specific conditions each of them is going to be offering.

Source | Via

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Women win first Kabaddi World Cup

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
5 March 2012 Last updated at 07:03 GMT India dominated the game from the start India has won the first women's Kabaddi World Cup championship, beating Iran 25-19 in a thrilling game played in Patna, in the state of Bihar.

India had the upper hand throughout the match and was 19-11 at half-time.

Kabaddi is a field sport which originated in India.

Two teams take turns to send a raider to the other's territory, or half, tag members of the opposing team, and return "home" without being blocked by defenders on the other side.

While he is "tagging" his opponents, the raider has to hold his breath and chant "kabaddi, kabaddi".

The final was played at the Patlipura sports complex on Sunday.

Earlier in the day, India beat Japan 60-21 while Iran defeated Thailand 46-26 in the semifinals to reach the final.

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Amphibian family first for India

22 February 2012 Last updated at 02:40 GMT By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News Females brood the eggs for months, apparently without feeding at all A new family of caecilians, the most enigmatic branch of the amphibians, has been discovered in northeastern India.

The animals, which at first glance resemble worms, live in forest soil and are most closely related to an African group of caecilians.

The females incubate their young for several months without eating.

Writing in the Royal Society journal Proceedings B, the scientists say the animals may be threatened by population growth and slash-and-burn agriculture.

Caecilians are very hard to spot as they live either underground or under leaf litter that lies on the soil.

The new discovery was the result of about 250 soil-digging expeditions over five years that covered every northeast Indian state.

"Caecilians are the most cryptic group of animals, and it's not possible to identify whether it's a new species or genus or family just after collecting it," said SD Biju from the University of Delhi, who led the project.

"We studied the molecules (DNA) and the morphology, both internal and external, to identify the species," he told BBC News.

When the analysis was complete, the researchers found they had not only a new species on their hands, but the first representative of a hitherto unknown family.

Continue reading the main story First true amphibians evolved about 250 million years agoThree orders: frogs (inc. toads), salamanders (inc. newts) and the limbless caeciliansAdapted to many aquatic and terrestrial habitatsPresent on every continent except AntarcticaMany metamorphose from larvae to adultsThis is the 10th caecilian family to be identified, and the team named it Chikilidae, derived from the name used in the local Garo tongue.

DNA evidence suggests the family split from its closest African relatives more than 140 million years ago, when the ancient super-continent of Gondwana fragmented, separating present-day India and Africa.

Unlike the familar frogs and salamanders, caecilians are limbless and smooth.

Their eyesight is very limited and their skulls adapted for burrowing.

Reproduction and rearing of the young are varied. The most unusual known example is a species where the babies eat the mother's skin, which she sheds for the purpose.

Chikilidae'shabits are not quite so spectacular, though the mothers stay wrapped around their developing eggs for 2-3 months at a time, apparently not eating at all during this period.

Although Chikilidae turned up in about a quarter of the survey sites and so might be quite abundant, Prof Biju believes its future is not assured.

Chikilidae eggs hatch into adult caecilians, with no larval stage in between

"We found them not only in the forest area but also very close to human settlement," he said.

"So conservation of this group is extremely challenging."

Some of the animals have reportedly been killed by villagers who mistook them for poisonous snakes. In fact, they carry no venom.

One positive point for the new discoveries is that the region seems to be free of the fungal disease chytridiomycosis, which has devastated amphibian populations in many parts of the world.

Globally, amphibians are the most threatened group of animals, with about 40% of species on the internationally-recognised Red List.

But new discoveries are regularly made, though most come from rarely-visited regions of rainforest rather than quite densely-populated areas.

Prof Biju has been involved in discovering scores of other new amphibian species in India, where he has been dubbed "FrogMan".

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