Amazing and Insteresting

Updated at: 1042 PST,  Friday, April 30, 2010
 LONDON: A new species of tiny moth has been discovered by an amateur naturalist who spotted its caterpillar digging through an oak leaf.

The 'micro' moth, which has a wingspan of just 6mm (0.24 inches), was discovered in Hembury Woods in Devon by local naturalist Bob Heckford who noticed tell-tale signs of 'mines' dug through the leaves of oak saplings.

The new species has not been found anywhere else in the world and has been named Ectoedemia heckfordi after Mr Heckford.

One of the specimens has been acknowledged as the 'type' for the species, against which future finds will be compared, and because of the discovery's important another has been sent to the Natural History Museum.

The amateur naturalist has found other micro moth species which were previously unknown in the UK and in 2006 found an oil beetle in south Devon which was thought to be extinct in the British Isles.

Updated at: 1041 PST,  Friday, April 30, 2010  TOKYO: Toysaurus is the creation of Japanese artist, Hiroshi Fuji, a man with a ton of patience. That’s the only way to explain how he built that thing, one toy at a time. Apparently, Hiroshi Fuji spent years collecting old toys, before he began working on this ferocious masterpiece. Toysaurus is on display, in Tokyo’s Rappongi District.

Updated at: 0736 PST,  Friday, April 30, 2010
 MADRID: University students in Spain have manufactured the biggest helmet in the world to raise awareness regarding use of helmet during labour.

As many as 200 university students from Huelva city got registered the helmet in Guinness Book of World Record, which is five meters wide and seven meters high.

The helmet cost them 43000 euros, which can house 20 people at a time.

Updated at: 1004 PST,  Thursday, April 29, 2010  LONDON: Britain's smallest mum told today how her baby son already towers above her - aged just 14 months. Proud Amanda Moore, 25, became the shortest woman ever to give birth in the UK when son Aidan was delivered by Caesarean section last year. She suffers from a rare bone disease which has left her measuring just 3ft 1in. But because the condition has left her unable to stand, Aidan already towers above her at 2ft 6in. Amanda says Aidan could end up being as tall as his father Steven Fyfe, 20 - who is a lanky 6ft 1in. She said: 'Aidan is getting so big, he takes after his dad. I always knew he would be taller than me but he's shot up. When I sit on the floor to play with him, he is taller than me already and he's only 14 months old. He's getting so big and strong that soon we'll have to tell him to be gentle with mummy. 'It's been a struggle because he's been running rings around me since he was crawling. But now he's walking he's more than a handful for someone my size. Most boys are bigger than their mums, but not after a year. He'll always be my little boy.' Amanda, of Hinckley, Leicestershire., suffers from brittle bone disorder. She was born with 14 broken bones and resigned herself to never having children because experts feared that her tiny frame could not cope with a pregnancy. But she accidentally fell pregnant and defied doctors' advice to have an abortion. Amanda said: 'Doctors advised me to have a termination and we did think about it. I didn't want to die and there was a real and likely possibility that the baby growing inside me would kill me. 'But at the same time I felt a strong love developing for our unborn child I just couldn't dismiss. We both wanted this baby so much.' She began suffering blackouts at 35 weeks and was rushed to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford after blacking out at an Asda store in Swindon, where she and Steven lived at the time. Aidan was born on February 27 last year weighing 5lb 5oz and had not inherited his mother's bone condition. At 14 months, he already tips the scales at 22lb - nearly half the four stone his mother weighs. She said: 'Soon Aidan will be bigger than me and we are working out how I can move him around the house in my chair while Steven is at work. 'Aidan is starting to say a few words and is really mobile - but he'll never be too big for a telling off from his mum.' Steven, who works for a taxi firm, said they haven't ruled out having another child even after the stressful pregnancy and the danger of passing on Amanda's condition. He said: 'It's been a struggle but Aidan is doing so well. He's a big boy and will soon be much bigger than his mother. When Amanda became pregnant doctors told us she or the baby could die, or even both of them. 'But they are both fighting fit and we are a very lucky family. We are not ruling out having another child - Aidan would make a great big brother.'

Updated at: 1005 PST,  Thursday, April 29, 2010  BERLIN: All these masterpieces of origami art are created by a 29 years old guy Sipho Mabona. Sipho Mabona started making paper planes and insects when he was only five years old. Sipho was the first-ever foreigner to be invited to the Japan Origami Academic Society (JOAS) Convention in 2008 and his work graced the cover of the official magazine.

Updated at: 1401 PST,  Wednesday, April 28, 2010  LONDON: The 232-year-old copy of the Hampshire Chronicle has been found and returned to the newspaper. It is remarkably well-preserved for a paper produced when the Hampshire Chronicle had only been going for six years. For decades it had been stored away at the home in Basingstoke of Muriel Pink, who recently died aged 97. The Hampshire Chronicle for Monday April 27 1778, cost three pence, quite expensive as newspapers were still heavily taxed at the time.

 Updated at: 0941 PST,  Wednesday, April 28, 2010
 LIMA: Six-year-old Peruvian girl Milagros Cerron celebrated her sixth birthday with a great show here at Lima's City Hall.

She blew out her birthday candle flanked by Lima Mayor Luis Castaneda and her doctor, Luis Rubio, during her birthday ceremony.

Milagros Cerron, known as the 'Little Mermaid' because of a rare birth defect in which her legs are joined together, is making good progress after being operated three times in the last five years in Peru, doctor Rubio said.

Six-year-old Peruvian girl Milagros Cerron also danced for the media during her birthday ceremony.

NEW JERSEY: New Jersey restaurateur Robert Egan barbecues meat for a living, except when he acts as a self-appointed, unofficial conduit between the United States and North Korea. In his book "Eating with the Enemy: How I Waged Peace with North Korea from my BBQ Shack in Hackensack," which will be released on April 27, Egan recounts how he forged an unlikely friendship with North Korean diplomats at the United Nations. For a decade, he courted them with racks of ribs, hunting trips and by making occasional trips to help deliver humanitarian aid to Pyongyang, the capital of the impoverished, reclusive communist state that harbors nuclear ambitions. "With diplomacy, sometimes everyone takes themselves so seriously," Egan told Reuters during an interview at his restaurant Cubby's BBQ, located a short drive from Midtown Manhattan. "You know, you have to let your hair down every once in a while." The decor of Cubby's pays tribute to its owner's second life. The walls are lined with framed photographs of Egan, a gregarious, broad-shouldered 52-year-old man with mixed Irish and Italian ancestry, posing with North Korean diplomats and newspaper articles that document their friendship. "On a local, personal level there was a breakthrough. That's a good thing," said John McCreary, a retired analyst for the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency and a North Korea expert, who counts Egan as a friend. But McCreary said it was not clear Egan had accomplished more than that. A representative reached at North Korea's U.N. mission who declined to give his name said he understood Egan had ties with the mission in the past, but "at the present time there are no people here with a connection to Bobby Egan." Egan describes himself as an adrenaline junkie who became preoccupied as a young man with U.S. prisoners of war unaccounted for in North Korea and Vietnam. Egan's father is a Korean War veteran. He said he began hanging around the Vietnamese mission to the United Nations in the late 1970s in a bid to get information about American POWs, and as a result Vietnamese diplomats became regulars at Cubby's. Egan's unlikely friendships first gained national attention in 1992 when a Vietnamese official studying at New York's Columbia University, Le Quang Khai, announced his defection at a news conference held at Cubby's. A year later, Egan said he was invited to meet a group of North Korean diplomats at a hotel near the U.N. headquarters in New York. North Korea had just announced it would pull out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and Egan said they were looking for a friendly contact. "It's ludicrous that a government that has a nuclear weapon had to stoop to the level of having a guy who flips burgers for a living be the conduit between the United States and them," Egan said. Egan said he agreed to help, and over the years his friendship with former senior North Korean U.N. diplomat Han Song Ryol blossomed. Han became a regular at Cubby's, where North Koreans can eat for free, and Egan said he would take Han on fishing trips and pheasant hunts and to New York Giants football games. The two became "like brothers," Egan said, with Egan schooling Han in profanity, the American mentality, and sharing his ideas for business ventures. Egan said he plans one day to go into business with Han, who is now back in North Korea, saying they plan to open a branch of Cubby's BBQ in Pyongyang. The relationship gave him a chance to play "in the big arena" usually occupied by heads of state and other "big shots," Egan writes in the book, co-authored by Kurt Pitzer. Egan said he also welcomed the chance to help the United States, and would regularly pass along information -- and even hair samples -- from North Koreans he befriended to U.S. intelligence officers. "Certainly, the North Koreans were aware that I was passing information to the U.S. side. They would expect nothing different," he said. Egan said most of the agents he worked with have retired and moved on, so for now he said he is focused on running his restaurant and raising his two daughters. But he is still outspoken on U.S. foreign policy, calling it counter productive to isolate a country like North Korea, which in Egan's judgment would rather have a relationship with the global community than a nuclear bomb. "The question is, how could we have let them get so desperate?" he said.

  Updated at: 1136 PST,  Tuesday, April 27, 2010
 LONDON: Les Creations de Narisawa, a restaurant in Japan with an unorthodox approach to French cuisine, has been voted the best in Asia in a leading international poll.

The Tokyo eatery came in at number 24 in the S.Pellegrino World's Best 50 Restaurants list Monday, a major event in the gastronomic calendar which is voted on by hundreds of international critics, journalists and food experts.

Les Creations de Narisawa was also named best restaurant in Asia last year, and retained that title in 2010 despite slipping four places down the overall rankings.

Chef Yoshihiro Narisawa's experimental approach has attracted diners from across the world and won him plaudits from food critics.

"He is pushing new boundaries by cooking with organic soil, charcoal and water," say the organisers of the best restaurant awards.

His signature dishes include foie gras with strawberry and lobster flavoured with tomato and vanilla.

A second Japanese restaurant, Nihonryori RyuGin, was a new entry into the world's top 50 best restaurants this year, coming in at 48.

One of Japan's most celebrated chefs, Seiji Yamamoto, serves up dishes at the Tokyo eatery with their roots in the country's culinary traditions.

Other Asian restaurants to make it into the rankings announced at a ceremony in London included Iggy's and Jaan par Andre, both in Singapore.

Two Australian restaurants, Quay and Tetsuya's, were also judged to be among the best in the world, in the awards organised by Britain's Restaurant Magazine.

Noma in Copenhagen was selected as the best restaurant in the world this year. Its Nordic specialties won over judges and ended four years in the number-one spot for famed Spanish restaurant elBulli.

ElBulli slipped from pole position after its trailblazing chef, Ferran Adria, announced in January the venue would close for two years from 2012, citing fatigue and a need to plan for the future.

Updated at: 1311 PST,  Sunday, April 25, 2010  LONDON: The fortunes of the richest people in Britain have soared by 30 percent in a year while much of the country is struggling to recover from recession, according to an annual list published Sunday. Indian steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal and his family remain top of the list with 22.45 billion pounds (34.5 billion dollars, 25.8 billion euros), more than double the 10.8 billion pounds they were estimated to have last year. Roman Abramovich, the Russian billionaire who owns Chelsea Football Club, retains his second place on the Sunday Times Rich List with wealth of 7,400 million pounds, up 400 million pounds from last year. The compilers of the 2010 list say the rise in the wealth of Britain's richest individuals is the largest since the list was first published 21 years ago. The recovering health of global stock markets and property values following the global downturn has fuelled the rise. The 1,000 richest people in the country increased their wealth by 77 billion pounds last year, bringing their total wealth to 335.5 billion pounds. Another ten individuals joined the ranks of billionaires in the past 12 months -- there are now 53 in Britain. A boom in commodity markets lifted the fortunes of the mining magnates Alisher Usmanov, up 213 percent to 4.7 billion pounds, and Anil Agarwal, up 583 percent to 4.1 billion pounds. Philip Beresford, who compiles the list, said: "The rich have come through the recession with flying colours. The stock market is up, the hedge funds are coining it. The rich are doing very nicely." Explaining the high number of foreign tycoons taking up residence in Britain, he said: "Russians like the UK because it is safe, the level of corruption is low and they can get decent services." India's super-rich also find Britain a tempting base because: "They live in an Anglophile society in the higher reaches of Delhi and Mumbai -- apart from the heat and the curry it's much the same in London. "Here there's English spoken, a good legal system, their children can go to good schools and they are welcomed into the Establishment." Top ten of Sunday Times Rich List 2010 (last year's position, fortune and percentage change is in brackets): 1. Lakshmi Mittal and family, steel - 22,450 million pounds (1, 10,800 million, up 108 percent) 2. Roman Abramovich, oil and industry - 7,400 million pounds (2, 7,000 million pounds, up six percent) 3. The Duke of Westminster, property - 6,750 million pounds (3, 6,500 million pounds, up four percent) 4. Ernesto and Kirsty Bertarelli, pharmaceuticals - 5,950 million pounds (4, 5,000 million pounds, up 19 percent) 5. David and Simon Reuben, property and Internet - 5,532 million pounds (9=, 2,500 million pounds, up 121 percent) 6. Alisher Usmanov, steel and mines - 4,700 million pounds (18=, 1,500 million pounds, up 213 percent) 7. Galen and George Weston, retailing - 4,500 million pounds (47, 900 million pounds. Note: the wealth of the two sides of the Weston family has been merged in this year's list) 8. Charlene and Michel de Carvalho, inheritance, brewing and banking - 4,400 million pounds (7, 2,960 million pounds, up 49 percent) 9. Sir Philip and Lady Green, retailing - 4,105 million pounds (6, 3,830 million pounds, up seven percent) 10. Anil Agarwal, mining, 4,100 million pounds (70=, 600 million pounds, up 583 percent)

Updated at: 1159 PST,  Sunday, April 25, 2010  PARIS: Oceanographers said on Sunday they had measured a system of mighty currents off Antarctica that are a newly-discovered factor in the equation of climate change. The system, known as Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW), is generated in clockwise movement in four big sea shelves that abut Antarctica -- the Weddell Sea, Prydz Bay, Adelie Land and Ross Sea. Extremely cold water sinks to the bottom of these shelves and slides out northwards along the continental shelf. At the edge of the shelf, some of the water mixes with a well-known ocean movement, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, which sweeps around the abyss off Antarctica. The rest of the AABW, though, makes its way northward through a maze of ridges and gullies, reaching into the southern latitudes of the Indian and Pacific Oceans and into the Atlantic as far north as southern Brazil. The study, led by Yasushi Fukamachi of Japan's Hokkaido University, is published online in the journal Nature Geoscience. Fukamachi's team used an array of eight seabed sensors, anchored at a depth of 3,500 metres (11,375 feet) for two years over 175 kilometers (109 miles) on the Kerguelen Plateau, east of Antarctica, where current exits from the Prydz Bay shelf. On average, about eight million cubic metres (280 million cubic feet) of water colder than 0.2 degrees Celsius (33 degrees Fahrenheit) were transported northwards over this narrow section, the researchers found. That is four times more than the previous record documented in an AABW flow, at the Weddell Sea, on the other side of Antarctica. Over two years, the Kerguelen monitors recorded the current's average speed at more than 20 centimetres (eight inches) per second, the highest ever seen for a flow at this depth. The findings are important because ocean currents are major players in climate change. They circulate heat, moving warm waters on the surface to the cold ocean floor. After this water is chilled, it is eventually shuttled back by currents to the surface, for warming again. Currents also help determine the success of oceans as storage of carbon dioxide (CO2), the principal greenhouse gas. Microscopic marine plants called phytoplankton take in CO2 at the surface under the natural process of photosynthesis. When they die, the phytoplankton sink, but a current will determine whether they reach the ocean floor, thus sequestering the carbon for essentially forever, or whether they are swept back up towards the surface.

Updated at: 0717 PST,  Sunday, April 25, 2010  BERLIN: Opponents of nuclear power formed a 120-km (75-mile) human chain between reactor sites in Germany Saturday to protest against government plans to extend the power plants' operation. Around 120,000 peaceful demonstrators, according to police and organizers, linked arms in a chain running between the northern towns of Brunsbuettel and Kruemmel that passed through the city of Hamburg. "Today will spark a countrywide chain reaction of protests and resistance if the government does not reverse its atomic policy," organizers said in a statement. Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right government has said it wants to extend the lives of nuclear plants, although politicians differ over how many years to add to the plants' lives beyond 32 years. Between eight and 20 years are suggested. The government is aiming to agree in October on a wider national energy plan, which will assign nuclear a role alongside other fuels and favored renewables. Protesters hope to draw attention to the issue before a May 9 regional election, after which they fear Merkel's coalition will move to extend the reactors' lifespan.

  Updated at: 1409 PST,  Saturday, April 24, 2010
 UNIVERSAL CITY: For movie goers, watching a 3-D film is a relatively easy experience. Audiences didn't need to do anything other than pay a few extra bucks and slip on a pair of special glasses to see 3-D versions of "Avatar" or "Alice in Wonderland." For gamers, however, enjoying a 3-D game requires a bigger investment on their part.

For example, to play the popular online fantasy game "World of Warcraft" in 3-D, an inhabitant of Azeroth would need hundreds of dollars worth of gear: a robust computer setup with a compatible graphics card, monitor capable of displaying 3-D and a pair of 3-D spectacles. At this early stage, it's an expense that many virtual adventurers have yet to adopt.

Dozens of game developers, business executives and other stereoscopic 3-D gaming advocates converged at a Universal City hotel this week to explore that very conundrum and witness the latest in 3-D games at the first-ever 3-D Gaming Summit. The consensus was that whether gamers push play on 3-D or not, the home 3-D revolution is already in motion.

Television makers Samsung and Panasonic are now selling 3-D TVs. Movie studios Universal and Disney have released 3-D films on Blu-ray, such as "Coraline" and "The Polar Express." Discovery Communications and ESPN previously announced they will launch their own 3-D networks, with ESPN first broadcasting FIFA World Cup soccer in 3-D this June.

"We've got to tell people about it," said Phil Eisler, general manager of Nvidia's 3-D Vision, which makes graphics cards with 3-D processing power. "Hollywood has done a fantastic job of educating consumers and marketing to them about the wonderful experience in the theater. We need to tell consumers about the wonderful experience that games are in 3-D."

For many modern games, the leap to 3-D is actually just a step. The medium is well suited for 3-D because the majority of today's games are created in three dimensions, making conversion a snap. Eisler said more than 400 current PC games, including "Battlefield: Bad Company 2" and "Resident Evil 5," can be played in 3-D with the right equipment.

"You're seeing it now," said "Avatar" producer Jon Landau. "People are going to want 3-D in their homes. I think 3-D is going to become ubiquitous in everything we do. From what I understand of the initial TV sales at Best Buy, everything went out the door. Why? Because it's of a certain quality, and I think that's what we have to make sure we protect."

The biggest hurdle for 3-D gaming is perhaps the simplest: Those glasses are just plain annoying. Michael Cai, a video game analyst at research firm Interpret, found in a recent survey of players who had experienced 3-D games that having to don shades was the overwhelming aversion to the medium. However, many had no qualms about 3-D gaming at all.

Sony and Nintendo have already unveiled their initial plans to enter the 3-D realm. Sony began updating PlayStation 3 consoles this week for future 3-D gaming features, which are expected this summer. Last month, Nintendo revealed a 3-D version of its top-selling handheld DS system — called 3DS — that wouldn't require 3-D glasses due out later this year.

"One of the big advantages of the gaming market is that it's extremely viral," said Neil Schneider, president of 3-D gaming advocacy group Meant to be Seen. "If there's a way to capture the interest of just a handful of these gamers, it's the consumers that could help drive this industry forward, perhaps more influential than a retail display at Best Buy."

Updated at: 1357 PST,  Saturday, April 24, 2010  NEW YORK: Lukas now 16, is a rescued off-the-track thoroughbred who had bowed both tendons as a young horse preparing for a life of racing. Lukas came into Karen's life when he was around 10 years of age. Lukas identifying colors, shapes, and catching a rag being tossed towards his face. Horses would not normally want something flying around their head. Lukas is motivated by carrots reassuring words, subtle hand gestures, clicks and smooches from Karen. All the while looking for that next delicious carrot. Karen and Lukas want to focus on spreading the word that horses have a great deal of potential beyond the racetrack, and those facing bleak futures.

Updated at: 1128 PST,  Saturday, April 24, 2010  SAN FRANCISCO: YouTube turned five on Friday. In the scant time since the first video was uploaded to YouTube on April 23, 2005, the website has rocketed to global stardom and become a key player in a shift to internet television. "Hundreds of millions of people around the world now use the web to connect and interact with content online," YouTube product manager Shenaz Zack said in a blog post on the eve of the website's birthday. "A huge percentage of them go even further: they express themselves via parodies, celebrate their favourite videos with mashups, and use music in educational presentations." Google is planning a series of celebratory events for closer to the fifth anniversary of the public launch of YouTube in October 2005. Google bought YouTube in a $US1.65 billion ($A1.78 billion) deal about 19 months after the online video-sharing service was founded in February of 2005. The internet giant has been carefully transforming YouTube into a money-making stage for enjoying works ranging from backyard videos to independent films. "YouTube has the potential to be a very instrumental part of Google's future TV plan," said Gartner technology analyst Allen Weiner. "In the meantime they will tweak features to be more user friendly and will carefully follow what happens to internet in living room." YouTube says more than a billion videos are seen daily on its website, which serves up money-making ads to viewers. An average of 24 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube each minute in an amount of content equal to 150,000 full length films over the course of a week. The website boasts content deals with more than 10,000 partners including entertainment titan Disney, and on Friday expanded a fledgling online movie rental service. San Bruno, California-based YouTube was the brainchild of then PayPal co-workers Steve Chen and Jawed Karim. "YouTube was started to solve a very specific problem," said Weiner. "Early bloggers had a difficult time putting video in their blogs. I was one of them." Bloggers flocked to YouTube, which let them seamlessly embed video commentaries in their websites, according to the analyst. "Then it became a video community without a lot of business model to it," Weiner said. "They weren't charging anybody anything and it was hard to see how they were going to make money." YouTube became a natural spot for users to upload controversial content, such as pornography or pirated snippets of television shows or films. It also became a springboard for unknowns to become international stars with home made videos showcasing wit, talent or just the incredibly odd. Among videos that became sensations was one of explosive results caused by mixing Mentos mints with Coca Cola. YouTube stars include ukelele maestro Jake Shimabukuro who went on to tour internationally and even performed for the Queen of England at a charity concert in December. YouTube was quickly targeted by the owners of rights to films and television shows angry about copyrighted material being posted to the website. "They have made a lot of progress at weeding out illegal content," Weiner said. "They are serious about it. Their future depends on it." YouTube is out to win the trust of content makers as it modifies its service to stream professional films and capitalise on a trend toward internet television. "In the last year YouTube has really evolved," Weiner said. "The big question is where YouTube plays in the TV 2.0 space of Hulu and Boxee." YouTube has the potential to be an instrumental part of a Google "media cloud" where people can access films, books, magazines, television shows and other digitised content. "That is clearly part of Google's grand vision," Weiner said. YouTube has added live content to its attractions and said this week that fans of Indian Premier League cricket in the United States will be able to watch the semi-finals and final of the season live on YouTube. Many new models of internet-enabled televisions feature built-in links to YouTube. "You will have Apple, Google and Amazon competing in the space to buy movies from them and watch them on whatever screen you desire - personal computer, laptop, iPad, smartphone, TV," Weiner said.

NEW DELHI: Baffled doctors are trying to unravel the mystery of an Indian village boasting more than 220 sets of twins born to just 2,000 families. Experts who have visited the remote tropical village of Kodinhi, in Kerala, have been left scratching their heads over the phenomenon that has seen almost six times as many twins born than the global average. In 2008 alone 15 pairs of twins were born in the village out of 300 healthy deliveries and this year is expected to top that number. In the last five years alone up to 60 pairs of twins have been born - with the rate of twins increasing year-on-year. Local doctor and twin enthusiast Dr Krishnan Sribiju has been studying the medical marvel of Kodinhi for the past two years. Although 220 sets of twins have been officially registered in the village Dr Sribiju believes the real number to be far higher.

MOSCOW: Russian prosecutors said Wednesday that dozens of texts and recordings by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard had been ruled "extremist" and would be banned in Russia. "Materials on Scientology by Ron Hubbard have been found extremist and will be banned from distribution in Russia," the Russian prosecutor general's office said in a statement. The ban relates to 28 books and audio-video discs containing lectures by Hubbard, a US science fiction author who founded Scientology in 1954, the statement said. The ruling was the latest blow to the Church of Scientology, an organisation that some countries treat as a legitimate faith but that others consider a cult designed to trick members out of large sums of money. The ban on the Scientology materials was imposed by a court in the city of Surgut in eastern Siberia, which decided they should be added to a list of literature banned in Russia for extremist content, the statement said. The list of extremist literature includes numerous texts by Islamist groups and Russian ultranationalists, as well as some brochures distributed by Jehovah's Witnesses. Local transport prosecutors in Surgut confiscated the Scientology materials after they were mailed there from the United States, then asked the court to declare them extremist, the statement said. The materials contained calls "to commit crimes motivated by ideological and religious hatred" and "ideas justifying violence in general and in particular any methods of resistance against critics of Scientology," it said. "This is some kind of mistake or misunderstanding," Yury Maksimov, a Moscow-based spokesman for the Church of Scientology, said. "The materials cited are distributed all over the world." The Church of Scientology, which says it is seeking a world free of "war, crime and insanity" and counts Hollywood stars Tom Cruise and John Travolta among its members, won the status of a religion in the United States in 1993. But it is regarded with suspicion in many European countries, including France, Germany, Belgium and Greece, where opponents accuse it of manipulating members for financial ends. It has repeatedly encountered problems with Russian officials. Russia has twice been fined by the European Court of Human Rights for refusing to register Scientology churches as religious organisations.

Updated at: 1154 PST,  Thursday, April 22, 2010
 BEIJING: Greenpeace activists are going to fall in love with the genius invention, curtains made of living plants.

Chinese inventor, Li Fan, has come up with a brilliant way to support the environment, and help people say “adios” to cleaning and washing curtains. Her living curtains are actually self-sufficient plants, on a supporting mesh.

Li Fan’s curtains filter light, like regular curtains, but also suck all the impurities out of the air, and smell fresh all the time. Living plants curtains are the hottest thing in Beijing home-design, right now, and Li Fan says business is booming.

KUALA LUMPUR: A lungless frog, a frog that flies and a slug that shoots love darts are among 123 new species found in Borneo since 2007 in a project to conserve one of the oldest rainforests in the world. A report by the global conservation group WWF on the discoveries also calls for protecting the threatened species and equatorial rainforest on Borneo, the South China Sea island that is the world's third-largest and is shared by Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. “The challenge is to ensure that these precious landscapes are still intact for future generations,'' said the report released Thursday. The search for the new species was part of the Heart of Borneo project that started in February 2007 and is backed by the WWF and the three countries that share the island. The aim is to conserve 85,000 square miles (220,000 square kilometers) of rain forest that was described by Charles Darwin as “one great luxuriant hothouse made by nature for herself.'' Explorers have been visiting Borneo for centuries, but vast tracts of its interior are yet to be biologically explored, said Adam Tomasek, leader of WWF's Heart of Borneo project. “If this stretch of irreplaceable rain forest can be conserved for our children, the promise of more discoveries must be a tantalizing one for the next generation of researchers to contemplate,'' he said. The scientists' discoveries include the world's longest known stick insect at 56.7 centimeters, a flame-colored snake and a frog that flies and changes its skin and eye color. In total, 67 plants, 29 invertebrates, 17 fish, five frogs, three snakes and two lizards and a brand new species of bird were discovered, said the report. Borneo has long been known as a hub for monster insects, including giant cockroaches about 4 inches (10 centimeters) long. Notable among the species discovered are: _ a snake that has a bright orange, almost flame-like, neck coloration that gradually fuses into an extraordinary iridescent and vivid blue, green and brown pattern. When threatened it flares itsnape, revealing bright orange colors. _ A frog that breathes through its skin because it has no lungs, which makes it appear flat. This aerodynamic shape allows the frogs to move swiftly in fast flowing streams. Although the species was discovered in 1978, it was only now that scientists found the frog has no lungs. _ A high-altitude slug found on Mount Kinabalu that has a tail three times the length of its head. They shoot calcium carbonate “love darts'' during courtship to inject a hormone into a mate. While resting, the slug wraps its long tail around its body. The Heart of Borneo, the core island area the conservation effort targets, is home to ten species of primate, more than 350 birds, 150 reptiles and amphibians and a staggering 10,000 plants that are found nowhere else in the world, the report says.

SAN FRANCISCO: Facebook wants to pervade the Internet, turning every website into a de facto page at the world's leading online social network. Facebook rolled out a series of features on Wednesday in what was pitched as an inevitable evolution to people taking online identities and friends with them wherever they roam on the Internet. "Until recently, most things (online) aren't social or don't use your real identity," said Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. "This is really starting to change." Zuckerberg outlined his vision of an "open graph" after making a rock star entrance to applause at the California firm's annual "f8" developers conference in San Francisco. "Today, the Web exists as a series of unstructured links between pages," said Zuckerberg, whose social network boasts more than 400 million users around the globe. "The open graph puts people at the center of the Web." As an example he described how a Facebook user could go to Internet radio station Pandora or sports-focused ESPN online and automatically share musical tastes or game news with their pals in the world's leading online community. "Pandora will be able to start playing music from bands you have liked all across the Web," Zuckerberg said. "It can show you which friends like music similar to what you are listening to, then you can click and listen to their collections." Facebook vice president of engineering Mike Schroepfer compared the broader opportunities to share experiences and interests to "the restaurant where the maitre d' knows your name and that you like window tables. "It is an inherently better experience," he told media.

Updated at: 1516 PST,  Wednesday, April 21, 2010  KUALA LUMPUR: A rare Borneo rhino, thought to be pregnant, has been caught on camera in Malaysia, and wildlife experts said Wednesday a new calf would be a lifeline for the near-extinct species. Just 30 rhinos remain in the wild in Borneo island, which is shared by Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei, and researchers are only able to monitor the population through images captured on remote camera traps. Images of the rhino, "believed to be a pregnant female, estimated to be below 20 years" were captured by a camera trap in February, the Malaysian arm of World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) - said in a statement. "There are so few Sumatran rhinos left in the world that each calf represents a lifeline for the species," international rhino expert Terry Roth said. The Borneo sub-species is the rarest of all rhinos, distinguished from other Sumatran rhinos by its relatively small size, small teeth and distinctively shaped head. The Sumatran rhinoceros is one of the world's most endangered species, with few left on Indonesia's Sumatra island, the north of Borneo island and peninsular Malaysia. Laurentius Ambu, wildlife director for Malaysia's Sabah state, where the female rhino was spotted, said two rhino calves had also been seen in a similar area and urged the government to do more to enforce laws against poaching. "Habitat protection and enforcement have been recognised as the main strategies in ensuring the survival of the rhino population in forest reserves," he said. The WWF said the rhino's future on Borneo island would depend on preserving sufficient forest reserves for the animal. Raymond Alfred, head of the WWF's Borneo Species programme said data from an ongoing rhino monitoring survey programme showed the animal's home range was affected by the expansion of palm oil plantations. Malaysia is the world's second-largest exporter of palm oil after Indonesia, and the two countries account for 85 percent of global production.

BEIJING: Shen Xiaojing was the woman with the largest feet in the world, she has the world longest foot in the world. Shen Xiaojing hopes that she could enter the Guinness Book of records for her Largest Feet. Shen Xiaojing, 21, lives in Nong’an County. When she was born, her feet were unusually large. Her right foot is 32 centimetres long and 12 centimetres wide; her left foot is 30 centimetres long and 11 centimetres wide. The big toe of her right foot is as large as a baby’s foot of a baby at 7.5 centimetres long and 4.5 centimetres; her second toe is 9 centimetres long and 3.5 centimetres wide. What is intriguing is that the big toe of her left foot is completely normal, while the other toes are unusually large. For 21 years, all her shoes were made by her mother. Shen Xiaojing is now 170 centimetres tall and has reached the age to marry. However, most young men have been frightened away by her giant feet. Shen has two wishes: to see the world and to get into the Guinness Book of Records.

  NEW DELHI: Taboos are tumbling in India as new notions of sex, relationships and personal liberty displace traditional values. Nowhere are these changes more visible than on the myriad reality TV shows.

Programmes like Emotional Atyachar (Emotional Torture) and Sach Ka Samna (Face The Truth) seem designed to shock the older generation in a country rooted in tradition but whose television schedules increasingly resemble the United States or other Western countries.

Previously, middle class Indians were glued to family dramas in tame daily soaps that usually revolved around the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationship -- a crucial yet often tension-filled one in Indian families.

Though these remain popular, most private channels now dedicate a nightly slot to reality shows that shock and titillate, featuring brash youngsters who flirt, argue and shamelessly self-promote.

They are a force for social change, for better or for worse, and are drawing thousands of fans but making plenty of enemies along the way.

"Negative emotions have always been around in India but were hidden or well-covered," says Raghav Jha, a sociologist in Mumbai.

"By bringing it in the open, reality shows have found a way to justify them and have made them acceptable," said Jha, who works for a private media-research organisation.

"Reality shows are making millions of Indians believe that it is good to abuse, cool to misbehave, openly share their sexual encounters and justify any act by yelling," he said.

In the last five years, production companies have broadcast Indian versions of popular American and European shows, such as American Idol, The Moment of Truth, Big Brother, the Fear Factor and I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here.

The genre was propelled to the forefront of Indian popular culture three years ago when Shilpa Shetty, a Bollywood star at home but relatively unknown to the wider world, entered Britain's Big Brother house.

Shetty was the victim of racist bullying led by British reality TV stalwart Jade Goody -- who died of cancer 13 months ago -- in a global scandal that led to responses from the British and Indian governments and the show's suspension.

Since then indigenous concepts and productions have been growing fast.

In one, Rahul Mahajan, a 30-something from a political family who was arrested in a 2006 drug abuse case, chose a wife on the big budget Rahul Dulhaniya Lejayange (Rahul Will Take The Bride) after dating more than a dozen contestants on the show.

In Emotional Torture, men and women watch their partners when attractive "honey traps" are sent round to flirt with them.

In a country where parents traditionally select and suggest partners for their children and extramarital sex is taboo, both shows were bound to run into criticism.

In another show that challenged the rigid caste system, children from rich families in Mumbai try out slum-dwelling with the low-caste "untouchables" in scenes that would revolt conservative Hindus.

The winner of the Big Switch, a month-long contest, took home prize money of 21,000 dollars after charming viewers while shining shoes, selling books at traffic lights and doing other menial tasks normally reserved for the poor.

Najma Heptulla, a member of parliament from the western state of Rajasthan, has campaigned against reality shows, some of which she says are vulgar and un-Indian.

She has particularly targeted the Indian version of "The Moment of Truth", which sees participants asked questions such as whether they had slept with a prostitute or with a girl younger than their daughter.

"We are not Britain and we are not America. We are in India," said Heptulla, who has demanded the show be pulled off air. "We have different values and we have a different kind of living system.

"And I think, looking at our society, it doesn’t match with it at all," she said.

Whether it matches or not, the desire to take part is undeniable as aspiring actors and college students, many from remote villages and towns, rush for the chance to take part.

During one audition held in March on the outskirts of New Delhi for the show Indian Idol, there was a stampede when contestants fought to enter the audition venue, which left 12 wannabe contestants injured.

Reality television actors agree that the shows might not be edifying viewing, but they defend their role.

"These shows are having a wonderful impact because I think people are opening up. They're moving along with the times," says Revika Desai, a contestant for an upcoming show scheduled for April this year.

Producers say reality TV is bound to stir objections given that the format is predicated on the idea of revealing personal and often embarrassing secrets in public -- anathema to many in India.

Meanwhile, viewing figures go from strength-to-strength.

"After just five years, the reality genre now holds over 13 percent of the general entertainment space," said Siddhartha Mukherjee, a senior official at Television Audience Measurement, a TV viewership monitoring agency.

Mukherjee said family dramas still held a majority share of viewing figures but the growth of reality shows was "phenomenal".

Critics, however, say people are being duped in huge numbers.

"Very few people in India understand that a larger format of these shows are scripted and the chaos is pre-planned too," said P.N.Vasanti, director of Centre for Media Studies in New Delhi.

"The concept is here to stay though and it is for certain taking a toll on Indian culture," she said.

 PARIS: An international designer has designed unique tiles in which world’s most expensive crystals have been used.

The collection features a series of pixels style patterns that have been "bejeweled with crystals".

WELLINGTON: A New Zealand father was convicted by a court Monday for leaving a baby with a heart condition locked in a car while he visited a strip club. Wayne Schwamm, 42, left his 18-month-old son in the car for about 40 minutes before a passer-by alerted police who broke a window and rescued the baby, who was taken to hospital. They found his father in the nearby strip club. Schwamm pleaded guilty in court to leaving the child without reasonable supervision in Wellington on April 13 and was fined 200 dollars (142 US). The baby was not reported to have suffered any serious harm. Lawyer John Tannerhill said Schwamm had gone to the strip club about 2.30 am to pick up a friend who worked there, but he found out the friend had to work overtime. Although he stayed longer than intended, Schwamm had not indulged in "fantasies of desire", Tannerhill said. "On the surface this appears quite sinister but it is not," he said.

 SYDNEY: A 1200kg hammerhead shark caught off the coast of Australia could become a tourist attraction in Queensland.

Fisherman Claude Williamson caught the 5m monster last month but has since sold it to renowned Queensland shark hunter Vic Hislop, a local newspaper reported.

Mr Hislop runs a shark museum but would not say whether the monster would be on display.

With the size indicating the shark is around 40 years old, the beast ate a smaller shark hooked by the fishing boat, getting snared in the process.

Despite its massive size, Mr Hislop has claimed that he has seen hammerhead sharks even bigger. The species is endangered worldwide.

WELLINGTON: A New Zealand father was convicted by a court Monday for leaving a baby with a heart condition locked in a car while he visited a strip club. Wayne Schwamm, 42, left his 18-month-old son in the car for about 40 minutes before a passer-by alerted police who broke a window and rescued the baby, who was taken to hospital. They found his father in the nearby strip club. Schwamm pleaded guilty in court to leaving the child without reasonable supervision in Wellington on April 13 and was fined 200 dollars (142 US). The baby was not reported to have suffered any serious harm. Lawyer John Tannerhill said Schwamm had gone to the strip club about 2.30 am to pick up a friend who worked there, but he found out the friend had to work overtime. Although he stayed longer than intended, Schwamm had not indulged in "fantasies of desire", Tannerhill said. "On the surface this appears quite sinister but it is not," he said.

WASHINGTON: An ocean census has revealed a "new world" of richly diverse marine microbe life that could help scientists understand more about key environmental processes on Earth, a study said. Scientists participating in the International Census of Marine Microbes (ICoMM) said they had uncovered an astonishing array of hard-to-see marine lifeforms, including microbes, zooplankton and larvae. Traditional research methods have already isolated some 20,000 marine microbes, but new data suggests the true numbers are much higher. "The total number of marine microbes, including both bacteria and archaea (single-cell microorganisms), based on molecular characterization, is likely closer to a billion," said ICoMM's scientific advisory council chair John Baross, of the University of Washington. The marine microbes in fact constitute somewhere between 50 to 90 percent of all ocean biomass, and by volume weigh the equivalent of 240 billion African elephants, according to the researchers. "In no other realm of ocean life has the magnitude of Census discovery been as extensive as in the world of microbes," said Mitch Sogin, of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Massachussetts. Determining the number, variety and role of different forms of marine microbes provides key insight into "the size, dynamics and stability of the Earth's food chain, carbon cycle and other planetary fundamentals," researchers said. This marine life is responsible for over 95 percent of respiration in the oceans, thereby helping to maintain the conditions humans need to survive on Earth, they added. They function as key recyclers, turning atmospheric carbon dioxide absorbed by the ocean into carbon that goes back into the ground. They perform similar functions for nitrogen, sulfur, iron, manganese and other elements. Among other discoveries made by the research was the location of massive "mats" of microbes that carpet areas of sea floor. One located off the west coast of South America covers a surface comparable in size to Greece and is among Earth's largest masses of life, researchers said. The study also found that some microbes and bacteria formed symbiotic relationships with marine animals, living on their skin or in their guts. The revelation could uncover hundreds of millions of new microbial species and provides "a huge frontier for the next decade," Baross said. The research was conducted at more than 1,200 sites worldwide, allowing scientists to amass 18 million DNA sequences of microbial life. The latest finding is part of the decade-long research involved in the ocean census, which will conclude October 4 with closing ceremonies in London. Involving more than 2,000 scientists from more than 80 nations, the census is one of the largest global scientific collaborations ever undertaken, according to organizers.

KUALA LUMPUR: Researchers said Sunday they have captured the first images of a spotted leopard in Malaysia, putting to rest a decades-old debate over the existence of the endangered cat in the country. The images were taken by camera traps set up in the Endau-Rompin national park as part of a 10-year project in southern Johor state, Wildlife Conservation Society Malaysia programme director Melvin Gumal said. "Out of the 11,500 images taken on the ground, only three were of the spotted leopard and this goes to prove that the spotted leopard does exist in Malaysia," he said. "It now gives the impetus for greater conservation in the Endau-Rompin area and greater collaboration to protect this extremely biodiverse site." The spotted leopard has a prominent rosette pattern on its skin, unlike the black leopards, which make up the majority of such cats in Malaysia. Gumal said the leopard was one of six species of big cats documented along with tigers and marbled cats from the 70 camera traps set up under the project. Leopards are found in much of Africa, across the Middle East and in Asia. Several of its subspecies, like the spotted leopard, are considered endangered.

WASHINGTON: Most people view the iPad as a slick multi-media entertainment platform, but Gregg Vanderheiden, a university professor, sees other potential uses for Apple's new touchscreen device. "Say you have somebody who's had a stroke, for example, and they wake up and they can't communicate," said Vanderheiden, director of the Trace Research and Development Center at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. "Instead of buying a 5,000-dollar communications aid you take out your iPad and download an app and -- bam! -- they can communicate," he said. The Trace Center helps people who are unable to speak and have disabilities to communicate and Vanderheiden is one of a number of researchers and others excited about the iPad as a relatively low-cost communications tool. "There's a lot of interest in the iPad," said Karen Sheehan, the executive director of the Alliance for Technology Access, a California-based group that seeks to expand the use of technology by children and adults with disabilities. Stroke victims, people with spinal cord injuries, cerebral palsy or ALS, a paralysing nerve disease, and children or adults with autism are seen as just some of those who could potentially benefit from the iPad. "Anyone who's non-verbal and needs a device to speak for them," said Sheehan. "People with Alzheimer's who do better with graphic-based communication boards instead of trying to search for a word. "People with traumatic brain injury, soldiers coming back from Iraq or people who've been in automobile accidents." Sheehan said "there are a lot of powerful communications devices out there, some very good companies, but they tend to run into the thousands of dollars, which can be prohibitive for a lot of people. "You can take the iPad and turn it into a communications device very inexpensively," she said. The cheapest iPad costs 499 dollars and the most expensive 829 dollars. A company called AssistiveWare has already adapted for the iPad a communications application called "Proloquo2Go" it designed for the iPhone and the iPod Touch and is offering it for 189.99 dollars in Apple's App Store. "Prologuo2Go" allows people who have difficulty speaking to communicate using symbols to represent phrases or by typing in what they want to say and having it converted by text-to-speech technology into a natural sounding voice. Sheehan said the iPad's large touchscreen makes it potentially more useful to a wider range of people than the iPhone or the iPod Touch. "They're such a small area and for someone who has limited fine motor it's hard to hit small icons," she said. "It's easier on the iPad to just click on an icon to say 'I want juice,' or 'I want to watch a movie.'" Joanne Castellano, the director of New Jersey-based TechConnection, which provides "assistive technology" solutions to people with disabilities, said the "avid Mac users" in her office are "chomping at the bit" for an iPad. "They keep asking me 'When are we getting one?'" she said. "I'm sure we'll get one," Castellano said. "It seems like it would be something very useful to the community that we serve." "For anybody who has a reading challenge it's useful because it has a nice feature where it reads books out to you," she said. Castellano agreed that the touchscreen controls are part of the attraction of the device but said some of the gestures could prove challenging to some. "The way you have to pinch some things with your thumb and your forefinger -- that movement might be a problem for some people," she said. "But to turn the page of a book you just have to swipe it so that could be very helpful." Dan Herlihy of Connective Technology Solutions said he would be adding the iPad shortly to his "treasure chest" of hardware and software tools he uses to address the needs of people with disabilities. "And I can already think of about half a dozen things I'll run on it," he said, touting its potential use, for example, as an educational device for children with dexterity issues. "For some kids it's a lot easier to just put your finger on something and drag it than it is to have to click and drag and drop with a mouse," he said. The Trace Center's Vanderheiden said the iPad is a "great platform -- small, inexpensive, a lot of power, a long battery," but its greatest contribution to the needs of the disabled may be from the applications built for the device. "They offer the opportunity for just tremendous, unprecedented innovation," he said. "The really key part is that it's a development platform that allows people to be creative. That's where the power comes from."

MADRID: Dark chocolate reduces damage to the blood vessels in patients who have suffered scarring on the liver due to excessive drinking or disease, new studies have found.

It also reduces blood pressure in the liver as it contains high levels of anti-oxidants which mop of damaging particles from the body.

Dark chocolate has been hailed as a superfood because of its anti-oxidant properties which have been linked to a reduced risk of heart disease and stroke.

The latest findings were presented at the International Liver Congress 2010, the Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Liver in Vienna, Austria.

Prof Mark Thursz, Vice Secretary of EASL and Professor of Hepatology at Imperial College London, said: "As well as advanced technologies and high science, it is important to explore the potential of alternative sources which can contribute to the overall wellbeing of a patient.

"This study shows a clear association between eating dark chocolate and portal hypertension (high blood pressure in the liver) and demonstrates the potential importance of improvements in the management of cirrhotic patients, to minimise the onset and impact of end stage liver disease and its associated mortality risks."

After eating blood flow to the liver increases but in patients with cirrhosis this can be dangerous as blood pressure in the liver is already raised and any further significant rise may cause blood vessels to rupture and bleed.

In the study, 21 patients with end stage liver disease were randomised to receive a liquid meal containing white chocolate or one containing dark chocolate. Various measurements were taken before the meal and 30 minutes afterwards.

The dark chocolate meal caused a smaller rise in blood pressure in the liver than the white chocolate meal.

White chocolate does not contain any cocoa flavonoids which have the anti-oxidant properties, the conference was told.

 COPENHAGEN: Guests of a Danish hotel can get free meals by exercising on pedal-power generators and providing enough electricity for the 366-room building.

The Crowne Plaza Copenhagen Towers is installing two generator-hooked exercise bicycles, which will be used by guests to produce the most possible amount of electricity.

"Anyone producing 10 watt hours of electricity or more for the hotel will be given a locally produced complimentary meal encouraging guests to not only get fit but also reduce their carbon footprint and save electricity and money," the hotel said in a statement.

The meal will include any of the main courses on the hotel restaurant or lobby bar's menu worth USD 44, media reported.

The hotel will launch the bikes from April 19 to test the idea for a year and hoping to expand it to more Crowne Plaza hotels — part of the InterContinental Hotels Group.

POYNETTE: The Wisconsin owner of a 6-foot, 10.75-inch horse said the animal is being officially recognized as the tallest of its species by the Guinness World Records.

Jerry Gilbert, co-owner of Smokey Hollow Farm near Poynette, said Big Jake the 9-year-old Belgian gelding, standing at 20 hands, 2.75 inches from the bottom of his hooves to his withers, will be officially presented to the public Friday as the world's tallest living horse, the Portage (Wis.) Daily Register reported Thursday.

The previous record holder was a Clydesdale horse from Texas standing 20 hands tall.

Gilbert said he received word of Big Jake's certification from Guinness in late March. He said the horse will be crowned Friday at the Midwest Horse Fair in Madison.

"He's not guaranteed to be in the book," Gilbert said, referring to the Guinness Book of World Records. "The 2010 edition may have already gone to press, but maybe he'll be in the 2011 edition."

SYDNEY: It's a tiny misprint, but an Australian publisher has had to pulp a cookbook after one recipe called for "salt and freshly ground black people" to be added to the dish.

Penguin Group Australia pulped and reprinted about 7,000 copies of "Pasta Bible" after the typographical error was found in the ingredients for spelt tagliatelle with sardines and prosciutto, The Sydney Morning Herald reported Saturday.

"We're mortified that this has become an issue of any kind, and why anyone would be offended, we don't know," head of publishing Bob Sessions was quoted as saying.

Penguin said almost every one of the more than 150 recipes in the book called for salt and freshly ground black pepper but a misprint occurred on just one page, probably as a result of a computer's spellchecker programme.

"When it comes to the proofreader, of course they should have picked it up, but proofreading a cookbook is an extremely difficult task. I find that quite forgivable," Sessions said.

He said it would be extremely hard to recall the stock but if anyone complained about the "silly mistake" they would be given the new version.

LONDON: Cricket could be facing a world shortage of bats as a result of a European Union directive, according to a report in England.

The bizarre crisis follows an EU decision to outlaw before export the chemical methyl bromide, which is an insecticide used to treat the wood in bats, because it is said to damage the ozone layer.

Each year around 100,000 raw blades made of willow, known as clefts, are exported from England to India and Pakistan where they are made into the finished product.

But the wood cannot leave the country without a fumigation certificate and India and Pakistan do not accept any alternative treatment for the wood apart from methyl bromide.

It is feared the 10 million pounds a year industry could go bust within three months unless a solution is found - potentially plunging cricket into chaos.

Geoff Watling of Anglian Willow Services told a newspaper: "We have just been following procedures introduced many years ago by the Ministry of Agriculture. Now our entire future is under threat because of an EU directive.

"We were told a form of heat treatment can be used as an alternative but it just doesn't work. It was not a helpful solution.

"Unfortunately the Indian Government cannot allow our willow to be imported without a treatment certificate. On that basis I give our industry 12 weeks to survive. We alone have 1,400 prepared trees ready to go.

"Unless something is done we are going to run out of cricket bats. The worldwide supply of Test standard and Twenty20 bats for the national and county sides could dry up within two years."

A Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs spokesman confirmed to the newspaper: "Under the Montreal Protocol methyl bromide was banned from 2005 in the developed world, except for quarantines, pre-shipment and critical uses.

"Methyl Bromide is no longer allowed at all from March 19, 2010."

PARIS: Big volcanic eruptions have had a cooling effect on Earth's climate, but the Icelandic event is too small to provide any such respite from manmade global warming, scientists said.

The benchmark cooling event of the past 20 years was in 1991, when Mount Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines.

It cooled Earth's surface by 0.5 degrees Celsius (0.9 degrees Fahrenheit) over the next year, enough to offset the impact of greenhouse gases from 1991 to 1993.

A smaller cooling episode occurred in 1980, when Mount St. Helens in the US state of Washington blew its top, an event that while impressive disgorged only a tenth of the material of Pinatubo.

The chill comes from a simple formula: The volcano spews out a huge amount of fine volcanic ash and sulphur dioxide, which are transported into the high altitude layer known as the stratosphere.

There, chemistry and physics combine, creating a fine layer of whitish particles that for months or years are blown around the Earth and reflect some of the Sun's rays rather than let the radiation reach the ground.

"Basically, it's like putting a reflector shield over the windscreen of your car -- you're stopping the inside of the atmosphere getting too warm," said Colin Macpherson of Durham University, northeastern England.

But he and others said the eruption at Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull glacier so far was too small, did not have sufficient sulphur content and its plume circulated at too low an altitude to make an impact.

Any effect will be "very insignificant," said Scylla Sillayo of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) in Geneva.

"At the moment, we are looking at something that's about 100 times smaller than Mount St. Helen's. At the scale it's at now, it's relatively unlikely that it will have any perceptible effect on climate," explained Kathryn Goodenough of the British Geological Survey (BGS).

Emmanuel Bocrie of the French weather service, Meteo France, added: "With Pinatubo, ash rose to 18,000 metres (58,500 feet), in the tropics.

"It's not at all the same situation in this case, where the plume is at an average of 6,000 metres (20,000 feet), with peaks of 11,000 metres (35,750 feet). In addition, this is in a zone of the atmosphere [the troposphere] where there are powerful winds, which have a huge dispersing effect."

The scientists said the Eyjafjallajokull eruption could have a regional effect on Europe's climate -- but only provided it went on for a matter of years.

"Back in the 1780s, a large eruption in southern Iceland went on for a couple of years and generated a lot of sulphur," said Macpherson.

"It caused a smog that was really rather nasty, there was a failure of crops as a result of acid rain, the air quality was really very poor. But that took the better part of two years to cause that kind of effect and certainly we are not looking at anything like that right now."

Another is a theory -- but no more than that -- that the present eruption could touch off a far larger, neighbouring volcano called Katla.

From 1821-1823, the present volcano erupted on and off, and at the end of the cycle, Katla erupted.

"People have suggested there may be links between them, through fissures, but it's important to emphasise there is no proof the one would trigger the other," Goodenough said.

LONDON: A rare 17th Century Persian carpet fetched a world record £6.2 million at London’s auction house.

An anonymous overseas bidder bought the carpet to rapturous applause in the saleroom.
The price eclipsed the previous world best of £2.3m for a silk Isfahan rug, thought to have been made in the early 1600s, in New York in June 2008.

LONDON: Getting the kids to brush their teeth everyday can be a bit of a chore, but there is a simple and easy solution to it by a British company.

These encourage kids to brush their teeth. As the name implies, these caps can be kept on the usual sized toothpaste tubes, replacing the standard cap that it came with. There are two to choose from - Pete the dog, and Oscar the cat. These work with most of the toothpastes. Once you fix it on your toothpaste, the toothpaste flows easily through their mouths. Once you are done, there is a paw that closes their mouth so that the cap gets closed. With these, getting the kids to brush their teeth becomes a lot easier and is more fun.

ADDIS ABABA: People who visit Dallol, Ethiopia certainly don't do it for the weather: for a time the mining ghost town held the record for the hottest inhabited place on the planet, with an average year-round temperature of 94 degrees Fahrenheit. Daily heat in the region, known as the Danakil Depression, regularly climbs past 115 degrees.

But for those who brave the searing equatorial desert, amazing visual wonders await.

Dallol lies in northeastern Ethiopia close to the disputed Eritrean border. This, and the at times somewhat hostile Afar tribesmen, make the area somewhat unstable and several armed attacks on tourist convoys have occurred in recent years, somewhat hemming touristic development of the area.

Nevertheless, tourists increasingly are drawn to the springs to see the stunning yellow and red hydrothermal deposits.

Dallol's hot springs are mostly located on a large mound that has formed due to magma pushing upward and locally lifting the over 1 kilometer (0.6 mile)-thick salt deposits. Heated by the molten rock, groundwater carries dissolved salts to the surface where the sun's relentless heat quickly does away with moisture.

Dallol is also interesting for its mining history. Near the beginning of the last century, intrepid explorers discovered significant potash deposits at the site, which is used for fertilizer.

Much of the history of Dallol remains a mystery since hardly any records survived.

 LONDON: The ill-fated Titanic wasted more than 45 minutes before sending out distress signals after it had hit an iceberg, just four days into the luxury liner’s maiden voyage, a new book has claimed.

The largest passenger steamship in the world hit an iceberg on her maiden voyage from Southampton, United Kingdom, to New York in April 1912, and sank with loss of 1,517 lives.

Now, in his book, noted author Tim Maltin has said that the Titanic spent a lot of time assessing the damage from the iceberg when nearby ships could have been steaming to the rescue.

The book, ‘101 Things You Thought You Knew About The Titanic... But Didn’t’, claims that no alert was sent from the ailing vessel for some 47 minutes because the ships’ officers wanted to keep the disaster quiet.

Maltin said: “ The ship’s authorities may have been considering the public relations aspect of it and was it going to sink or not because then they would have rather kept it quiet, there may have been a slight bit of delay.”

He said the order to go to the lifeboats was given at the same time as the distress signal.

“It may be that it took them that long to look at the damage but it seems likely to me that they were unwilling to send out a distress message.”

BIG SANDY, MT: BigBud 747, a custom built agricultural Tractor is 28½ feet long, 14 feet high, 21 feet wide and has a wheel base of 16 ½ feet; it weighs in at 45 tons with a full diesel and hydraulic oil tank setting the new world record for the Largest Farm Tractor.

BigBud 747, the world's Largest Farm Tractor was built in Havre, Montana USA in 1977 by Ron Harmon of the Northern Manufacturing Company, for a cost of $300,000.

The Largest Farm Tractor in the world is a 16 cylinder behemoth powered by a 24.1 litre Detroit V16 92Turbo engine delivering 900hp; it has 6 forward and 1 reverse gear driving all eight foot tall wheels

With hydraulic powered steering and air brakes, similar to those on a semi, and a 1000 gallon diesel tank with a 150 gallon hydraulic reservoir tank, BigBud is big enough and has the endurance for any job.

The world's Largest Farm Tractor can work more than one acre per minute, at speeds up to 8 mph. Except its new paint job, chrome stacks, and a whopping 900 plus horsepower - the Big Bud looks like it did when it rolled out of the Northern Manufacturing Company building back in 1977.

LONDON: Taxi was known as a public transport in many countries taxi or sometime call it as cab has a different type in several countries.

Taxi is a type of vehicle for hire, with a driver, for a single passenger, or small group of passengers, typically for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choice. In modes of public transport, the pick-up and drop-off locations are determined by the service provider, not by the passenger, although demand responsive transport and share taxis provide a hybrid bus/taxi mode.

WASHINGTON: The world’s largest motorcycle comes with a $300,000 price tag and stands at 11 feet high and measures 20 feet long. Created by Greg Dunham, this monster motorcycle could actually drive.