GM’s ‘reinvention’ starts with $25 million battery lab

General Motors took a big step toward its reinvention as the "New G.M." today when it opened what it calls the largest automotive battery laboratory in the United States, a move the struggling company believes will hasten the development of electric vehicles. GM invested $25 million in the 33,000-square-foot Global Battery Systems Lab to develop and test the drivetrains underpinning the Chevrolet Volt and other hybrid, battery-electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles

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Why our ‘amazing’ science fiction future fizzled

At the 1964 New York World’s Fair, people stood in line for hours to look at a strange sight. They wanted to see the “Futurama,” a miniaturized replica of a typical 21st century American city that featured moving sidewalks, computer-guided cars zipping along congestion-free highways and resort hotels beneath the sea

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Researchers Hail Creation of Stem Cells Safe for Human Use

Stem-cell science is a fast-moving field. Just three years since a Japanese researcher first reprogrammed ordinary skin cells into stem cells without the use of embryos, scientists at a Massachusetts biotech company have repeated the feat, only this time with a new method that creates the first stem cells safe enough for human use

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Iran’s Missile Test: A Message to Obama and Netanyahu

Iran’s latest missile test may have less to do with advancing its military capability than with getting a last word in on Monday’s conversation between President Barack Obama and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. After all, the weapon whose test-firing was announced Wednesday by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the election campaign trail does not significantly extend the reach of others already in Iran’s arsenal. Instead, it appears to have been a ballistic message, to Iranian voters as well as to the U.S

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‘Gandhi’ star returns to India with Bollywood movie

Editor’s note: Watch The Screening Room Cannes special on CNN at the following dates and times: Wednesday 27 May: 0730, 1730, Saturday 30 May: 0730, 1800, Sunday 31 May: 0430, 1730, Monday 31 May: 0300 (All times GMT) Bollywood-produced “Teen Patti” (“Card Game”) also marks Kingsley’s first return to Indian filmmaking since playing the title role in “Gandhi,” the critically-acclaimed biopic of the Indian leader that propelled him to fame in 1982. He is the first Oscar-winning Hollywood actor ever to star in a Bollywood movie, and Kingsley believes that the future of filmmaking could lie in combining the twin talents of the world’s biggest film industries

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Welcome to the ‘weisure’ lifestyle

The line dividing work and leisure time is blurring right before our eyes, says one expert, and it’s creating a phenomenon called "weisure time." Many who haven’t already abandoned the 9-to-5 workday for the 24-7 life of weisure probably will do so soon, according to New York University sociologist Dalton Conley, who coined the word. It’s the next step in the evolving work-life culture.

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