Girls' generation (This photo is not directly related to the article)The government said Tuesday that it will impose an R-rating on concerts, films and music videos that expose a particular part of the bodies of young idol group members.The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family announced a plan to impose an age limit on all sorts of visual programs that depict idol groups with teenaged members as

(123rf)The moon is covered with soil containing a water substructure created by the constant stream of charged particles coming from the sun, U.S. researchers say.The substructure, known as a hydroxyl, consists of one atom of hydrogen and one of oxygen, or OH, rather than two of hydrogen and one of oxygen, or H2O, the researchers from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, University of Michiga

 In a giant leap from more than 24 miles up, a daredevil skydiver shattered the sound barrier while making the highest jump ever -- a tumbling, death-defying plunge from a balloon to a safe landing in the New Mexico desert.Felix Baumgartner hit Mach 1.24, or 833.9 mph (1,342 kph) on Sunday, according to preliminary data, and became the first man to reach supersonic speed without traveling in a jet

Libya's congress elected a human rights lawyer as interim prime minister on Sunday, a week after his predecessor was sacked for failing to present a cabinet line-up that political factions could agree on. Ali Zidan, also a former independent congressman, won 93 votes, securing a majority of those who voted in a poll to determine the country's leader for a transitional period of around 20 months.Zi

South Korean golfer Park In-bee won the Sime Darby LPGA Malaysia tournament on Sunday for her third career victory.At Kuala Lumpur Golf & Country Club, Park overcame a two-shot final round deficit against compatriot Choi Na-yeon. Park fired a four-under 67 on Sunday for the four-round total of 15-under. Choi managed only a 71 to finish two shots behind Park in second place.Park picked up six birdi

The international governing body of motor sports has apologized to local organizers of the Formula One (F1) Korean Grand Prix for its use of the term "Sea of Japan" in a media release to describe the body of waters between South Korea and Japan, a South Korean official said Sunday.In its race preview document, the International Automobile Federation (FIA) wrote that F1 racing teams concluded their

Monetary easing in the developed world could cause overheating and asset bubbles in emerging economies, the International Monetary Fund's managing director said in Tokyo on Sunday."Accommodative monetary policies... could strain the capacity of those economies to absorb the potentially large flows and could lead to overheating asset price bubbles," Christine Lagarde said.Critics in emerging nation

Korean singer Psy is doing the famous "horse-riding dance" with Mark Webber of Australia (left) and Red Bull-Renault driver Sebastian Vettel of Germany (right). (AFP)South Korean pop sensation Psy admitted that he was staggered by his new-found global fame as he brought his world-famous signature horse dance to his home grand prix on Sunday.The 34-year-old, whose real name is Park Jae-Sang, rocket

(AP)British scientists say they have identified a repeating underground trigger for the largest explosive volcanic eruptions on Earth.Researchers from the University of Southampton have been studying the Las Canadas volcanic caldera on Tenerife in the Canary Islands, which has generated at least eight major eruptions during the last 700,000 years.These catastrophic events have created eruption col

The Yomiuri Shimbun concluded Friday that a Japanese researcher's claim that his team had successfully conducted the world's first clinical application of induced pluripotent stem cells was false and that its reports based on the man's accounts were incorrect.Hisashi Moriguchi, 48, who claimed to be a visiting lecturer at Harvard University, told The Yomiuri Shimbun that a Harvard University team

(123rf)An undergraduate residence hall at Massachusetts' Harvard University is drawing criticism for an in-house social event dubbed "IncestFest."Organizers said the idea behind "IncestFest" is to encourage students in the Kirkland House residence hall to hook up with other residents in the same building, the New York Daily News reported Friday."House life is incredibly close-knit, bordering on do

(FWCC- UPI)A giant eyeball that washed up on a Florida beach this week is probably that of a large squid, wildlife experts said of the softball-size peeper.The mysterious eye washed up on Pompano Beach where it was found by a beachcomber who gave it to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission on Wednesday, National Geographic reported.FWCC scientists put the impressive eye on ice and

Lotte Giants celebrate after eliminating Doosan bears in the first round of the playoffs on Friday. (Yonhap News)The two teams that clashed in the second round of the South Korean baseball playoffs last year will square off in a rematch starting this week.On Tuesday, the SK Wyverns will host the Lotte Giants at their home Munhak Stadium in Incheon, just west of Seoul, to open the second round seri

Samsung Electronics Co. plans to invest $700 million into a new mobile phone factory soon to be built in Vietnam as part of efforts to expand its global production lines, company officials said Saturday.Samsung Electronics Vietnam Co. (SEV), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the world's top mobile phone maker by revenue, is weighing two locations in northern Vietnam -- a farming region of Thai Nguyen a

A scholarship foundation set up by the late father and president of the ruling Saenuri party's presidential hopeful Park Geun-hye decades ago has surfaced as a major political issue ahead of December's presidential polls.The Jeongsu Scholarship Foundation was set up by late President Park Chung-hee in 1962, a year after he seized power in a military coup. Critics argue that the foundation came int

Korean actors Bang Eun-jin and Lee Jae-hoon hosts the closing ceremony of the 17th Busan International Film Festival in Busan on Saturday. (Yonhap News)The 10-day Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) closed Saturday after demonstrating its growing stature as Asia's largest film event.The curtains came down with the screening of "Television," a family-focused movie directed by Mostafa Farooki f

Mo Yan has focused an unflinching eye on what he calls the darkness and ugliness of 20th-century Chinese society in a prolific writing career that on Thursday landed him the 2012 Nobel prize for literature.Mo Yan, one of China's leading writers of the past half-century, became the first Chinese national and just the second Chinese-language writer to be awarded the coveted prize.The 57-year-old, wh

Mo Yan (Yonhap News)Chinese author Mo Yan on Thursday won the Nobel Literature Prize for writing that mixes folk tales, history and the contemporary, the Swedish Academy announced."Through a mixture of fantasy and reality, historical and social perspectives, Mo Yan has created a world reminiscent in its complexity of those in the writings of William Faulkner and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, at the same

This image released by NASA on October 4, 2012 shows NASA`s Mars rover Curiosity as it cut a wheel scuff mark into a wind-formed ripple at the "Rocknest" site. (AFP-Yonhap News)A mysterious object photographed by NASA's Mars Curiosity rover is a "shred of plastic material, likely benign," probably shed by the rover, engineers say.The bright object showed up on photos sent to Earth by the rover as

Spanish researchers say they've identified the exact spot in Rome where Emperor Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 B.C.Scientists at the Spanish National Research Council said the key to the discovery was a concrete structure 10 feet wide and more than 6 feet high, placed by order of Augustus, the adoptive son and successor of Julius Caesar, to condemn the assassination of his father.The locatio