Shin Eun-hee has a unique duty in her role as a top executive. She not only supervises Korean operations of the Nielsen Company, a global information and media firm, but also Japanese operations, assuming the role of managing director for the two crucial markets in East Asia simultaneously. What’s more unusual is that Shin does most of her business here in Seoul. The convention is that regional CE

   WASHINGTON (AFP) -- The brain undergoes changes in adolescence that suppress fearful experiences learned in childhood, said a study released Monday that could explain why teenagers act so brashly at times.   Scientists studied the fear responses of mice for clues about how adolescents would react to situations that resembled prior experiences that involved pairing of electric shocks and tonal n

   HONG KONG -- The number of mobile phone subscribers in China exceeded 850 million last year as more Chinese people began to consider mobile phones everyday necessities, a government report showed Monday.   The net addition of Chinese mobile users reached a record high of more than 100 million in 2010 alone, according to the report from the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology

People who become euphoric over music unleash dopamine, a brain chemical that also induces the sense of reward that comes from food, psychoactive drugs and money, an unusual study says.   McGill University researchers in Montreal, Canada, recruited eight volunteers aged 19-24 among 217 people who responded to advertisements requesting people who experienced "chills" -- a marker of extreme pleasure

WASHINGTON — If a crying woman's red nose isn't a big enough turnoff to a man, a surprising experiment found another reason: Tears of sadness may temporarily lower his testosterone level.Those tears send a chemical signal as the man gets close enough to sniff them — even though there's no discernible odor, say researchers from Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science.It's the first such signal to be

Samsung Electronics Co., the world's largest maker of memory chips and liquid-crystal display (LCD) panels, estimated Friday that its operating profit for the October-December period fell below market estimates, as prices of its mainstay memory chips and LCD panels plunged on sluggish demand.    Samsung put its fourth-quarter operating profit at 3 trillion won ($2.67 billion), down 12.8 percent fr

Samsung Electronics Co., the world's largest supplier of memory chips, flat-screen panels and TVs, is scheduled to announce an estimate of its earnings for the October-December quarter this week, a company official said Thursday.   Samsung will report its guidance of the fourth-quarter earnings on Friday, the official said.    The company is estimated to have posted 3.39 trillion won ($3.02 billio

South Korea plans to beef up safety guidelines for "makgeolli" amid the traditional rice wine's rising popularity at home and abroad, the government said Thursday.   The Korea Food and Drug Administration (KFDA) said it plans to develop a standardized Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) model for makgeolli manufacturers during the first half of the year. HACCP is a global guideline

BEIJING -- China's exploding wealth has created a culture of secret mistresses and second wives. Now officials are putting marriage records online so lovers and spouses can check for cheaters.State media on Wednesday said Beijing and Shanghai will be among the first places to put marriage databases online this year. The plan is to have records for all of China online by 2015.But the Ministry of Ci

Building on the success in the market for premium smartphones last year, Samsung Electronics Co. hopes to make a splash in the mid-range smartphone segment, the president of its mobile business said Wednesday, as smartphones are expected to quickly become a mainstream device.   At the center of its push into the smartphone mass market will be the Android system and "bada," the company's 1-year-old

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il told a visiting South Korean businesswoman in 2009 that he had ordered the removal of a missile launch scene from his country's mass propaganda show because "Americans did not like it," according to a U.S. diplomatic cable.   The cable, found on WikiLeaks and released this week by a New York-based blogger, offered a rare look into how the aging but omnipotent leader

Samsung Electronics Co., the world's top computer memory maker, will likely spend more than 30 trillion won ($26.67 billion) in investment this year, industry sources said Tuesday.    The forecast came a day after company chairman Lee Kun-hee said that the company's investment for this year will be larger and bigger than last year's. The company earmarked 26 trillion won(US$23 billion) for investm

WASHINGTON -- The United States Monday called on North Korea to take concrete steps toward its denuclearization before reopening the six-party nuclear talks, which have been stalled for more than two years over the North's provocations.   "We have noted public statements about the potential for improved dialogue between North and South," State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said. "Obviously,

South Korea's foreign exchange reserves rebounded in December from the previous month as a weaker U.S. dollar boosted the conversion value of assets in other currencies, the central bank said Tuesday.   The country's foreign reserves reached US$291.57 billion as of the end of December, up $1.34 billion from the previous month, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK).   The foreign reserves expanded b

South Korean stocks began higher on Tuesday as overnight rallies on Wall Street boosted investor sentiment, analysts said.   The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) rose 3.77 points, or 0.18 percent, to 2,073.85 in the first 15 minutes of trading.   Shipbuilders led the climb with market leader Hyundai Heavy Industries jumping more than 3 percent and its smaller rival Daewoo Shipbu

 Samsung Electronics Co., the world's second-largest cell phone maker, said Monday that it has delivered more than 10 million Galaxy S phones to global mobile operators in about seven months of its debut.    Samsung sold 4 million Galaxy S phones in North America, 2.5 million in Europe and 2 million on its home turf, South Korea, the company said in a statement.   Samsung Galaxy S smartphone (Yonh

The Middle East-based news channel Al Jazeera will open a bureau in Seoul in the first half of this year to provide in-depth coverage of current issues on the Korean Peninsula, the station said Monday.   The Qatar-based network is currently searching for an office and checking the city's broadcasting infrastructure before launching the bureau with a correspondent, a cameraman and a producer, Al An

South Korean stocks got off to a strong start on Monday in the first trading of the year, buoyed by gains in technology shares, analysts said.   The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) gained 5.9 points, or 0.29 percent, to 2,056.9 in the first 15 minutes of trading.   Tech issues led the climb with chip giant Hynix Semiconductor adding nearly 4 percent.   Financial shares also len

South Korea's foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) has continued to spread through the central part of the country despite nationwide quarantine efforts, the government said Monday.   The farm ministry said a pig farm in Boryeong, 170 kilometers southwest of Seoul, tested positive for FMD, along with a cattle farm in Chuncheon, east of the capital city.   The outbreak in Boryeong marks the third time that

Soompi.com is the world’s biggest English-language online community dedicated to Korean pop culture. It boasts some 1.4 million visitors daily. More importantly, 90 percent of its members are non-Koreans. The website is widely regarded as a promising social network venture that has secured a solid user base on the strength of Korean cultural content. Softbank of Japan has already invested in Soomp