MONTREAL—Research In Motion’s new BlackBerry Bold is designed for high-speed networks and is aimed at business professionals globally, allowing them to send and receive e-mails while also talking on the smartphone or surfing the Internet.
The announcement of the new BlackBerry helped power shares in the Waterloo, Ont.-company above the previous record.
RIM shares ended the day at $142.25—up $8.90 or 6.6 percent—and well above the previous record high of $138.18.

NEW YORK—The New York Botanical Garden may be best known for its orchid shows and colourful blossoms, but its researchers are about to lead a global effort to capture DNA from thousands of tree species from around the world.
The Bronx garden hosted a meeting last week where participants from various countries laid the groundwork for how the two-year undertaking to catalogue some of the Earth’s vast biodiversity will proceed.

JUNEAU, Alaska—Fernando Rado’s family got a whole lot bigger when he found out through the results of DNA testing that he is a descendant of an ancient man whose remains were found in a glacier nearly 10 years ago.
The news also answered a question many people ponder throughout their lives: Where am I from?
“There’s a globe of the Earth and there’s a point right there where you come from . . . it’s a lock in the picture for me,” Rado said.

CHICAGO—Sarah Brown is cautious when it comes to social networking.
The college sophomore doesn’t have a MySpace page and, while she’s on Facebook, she does everything she can to keep her page as private as she can.
“I don’t want to have to worry about all the different online scandals and problems,” said Brown, an education major at St. Joseph College in Connecticut.
She’d like to control her personal information and keep it out of the hands of identity thieves or snooping future employers.
“It’s just common sense.”

OTTAWA—The Internet has reached a milestone in Canada with the one millionth dot-ca (.ca) domain name.
The Canadian Internet Registration Authority said a Calgary lawyer registered the one-millionth dot-ca name for a website to promote his private law practice.
Brent Krause—new owner of krauslaw.ca—has practised intellectual property law for more than 10 years and says he’s registered several dot-ca sites.

OTTAWA—A Carleton University industrial design student has developed a prototype of an environmentally-friendly laptop computer that’s partially recyclable.
The eight-month project was the thesis of fourth-year student Scott Bodaly, 24, and will be on display at the school’s 30th-annual graduation exhibition this weekend.
When a friend accidentally dropped a laptop, Bodaly and three others decided to take it apart.
It took the four of them two hours to dismantle the computer—way too long for it to be easily recycled, Bodaly said.

LOS ANGELES—An international spacecraft that dove through geysers erupting from the surface of a Saturn moon found organic matter—one of many ingredients that make an environment hospitable to extraterrestrial life, scientists said Wednesday.
The discovery excited mission team members, who say it’s a marker for further research into whether the icy satellite Enceladus has such an environment.
The chemical analysis by the unmanned Cassini spacecraft revealed Enceladus’s interior is similar to that of a comet.

MONTREAL—Astronaut Julie Payette says Dextre, the new Canadian robot in space, has been fully assembled and is ready to flex its muscles.
Payette told a briefing at the Canadian Space Agency near Montreal the assembly of the $200-million robot was completed during the last of three spacewalks last night.
Payette said the robot is performing perfectly, and is ready to be used in space for services and maintenance.
She noted astronauts aboard the International Space Station are to test all 14 joints on the robot today to make sure they move in all directions on command.

HOUSTON—Astronauts flexed the giant arms of the international space station’s new robot for the first time—testing the brakes and manoeuvring the appendages into position for a spacewalk tonight.
All the brakes on the Canadian-built robot passed the test except for one in the wrist joint of its left arm.
That brake slipped a tad more than engineers wanted, but officials weren’t concerned about the performance of the robot, called Dextre.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.—Shuttle Endeavour and a crew of seven blasted into orbit today on what was to be the longest space station mission ever—a 16-day voyage to build a gangly Canadian robot and add a new room that will serve as a closet for a future lab.
The space shuttle roared from its seaside pad at 2:28 a.m. (EDT), lighting up the sky for kilometres around as it took off.
“It’s a spectacular night launch,” said federal Industry minister Jim Prentice, who attended the launch at the Kennedy Space Centre.