B4U India

Now, Stephanie Rice copies ex by going on a marathon booze bender!

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 11:13:00 -0400

It seems that Stephanie Rice is following in her ex-beau Eamon Sullivan’s footsteps – as she enjoyed her single status with long booze sessions.

The 20-year-old swimming sensation was seen enjoying long boozing sessions in Bungalow 8 and Loft bars at King Street Wharf.

Yesterday only reports had surfaced that Sullivan had dived into Scubar and Kinselas and picked up a barmaid pal – all in one night.

Now, in case of Rice, she enjoyed dinner and drinks with friends below deck at Bungalow until closing time at 11pm, then kicked on upstairs till the wee hours at Loft, according to reports.

"The guys behind the bar thought she was gorgeous and is welcome back any time," the Daily Telegraph quoted a source, as saying.

Meanwhile, Rice is all set to make her small screen debut with Seven''s Make Me A Supermodel this week. (ANI)

Software that lets a chopper learn aerial tricks by watching another

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 11:12:00 -0400

Just like birds learn to fly by watching other birds, helicopters can also learn complex aerial tricks and manoeuvres by looking at each other, thanks to a piece of software written by Stanford University computer scientists.

The researchers have revealed that their software could learn and flawlessly replicate more than 20 years of radio-controlled helicopter expertise in just 10 minutes.

Though the software is not specific to choppers, the researchers have revealed that they have been approached by private companies to make helicopters choppers that can monitor humanitarian disasters, track wildfires or locate land mines.

"The goal was to take an off-the-shelf helicopter and write a program to fly it as good as an expert," Discovery News quoted Adam Coates, one of the scientist involved in the project, as saying.

"We are now more accurate and consistent than an expert human-piloted helicopter," added Pieter Abbeel, another Stanford scientist involved with the project.

The researchers have revealed that they decided to work with helicopters because they are inherently unstable.

"The dynamics of helicopter flight are incredibly complicated; blades are flexing, air is churning, etc. It''s simply too complex for us to map out mathematically," said Coates.

The researchers have revealed that instead of directly teaching a helicopter, their software lets the computers teach themselves with the aid of data gathered through a host of sensors and equipment.

The helicopters themselves are equipped with accelerometers, gyroscopes and magnetometers that monitor a helicopter''s speed, acceleration, direction and a host of other variables. Ground-based video and positioning instruments gather more data about the helicopter''s performance.

The data collected from ground and air are later fed into a computer for analysis.

According to the research group, a larger helicopter could carry the entire instrument and analysis package.

While the cameras rolled and instruments recorded, Garett Oku, an expert radio-controlled helicopter pilot, sent one helicopter into a series of flips, rolls, twists and other complex maneuvers.

The researchers say that their software can even let a helicopter to learn "tic toc", a difficult aerial trick where the helicopter''s nose points straight up and it swings side to side like a pendulum.

During the tests conducted to determine the efficacy of the software, a helicopter flew the same 10-minute routine several times.

Ten minutes after the final demonstration flight, the computer had turned the helicopter’s 20 years of training and experience into data that another helicopter then used to create flawless flights, one after another.

"For an expert helicopter pilot to fly the same exact path over and over is very impressive. Some of them spend years trying to do it," said Coates.

Professor Eric Feron of Georgia Tech, who worked on autonomous helicopters several years ago when he was at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), says that the Stanford team has pushed the limits of autonomous helicopter flight and computer programming.

"What I''m most impressed with is the learning part, the ability of the algorithm to learn and to fly and then to reproduce that in another aircraft. No one had done that before," he said.

The computer algorithm can only copy the moves of a human pilot, and it cannot think independently or creatively.

However, still, both Coates and Abbeel believe that that is certainly a possibility for the future. (ANI)

Unilateral US strikes in Pak won’t help war against terror: Pak envoy to US

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 11:10:00 -0400

Pakistan Ambassador to the United States Hussain Haqqani has said that Angoor Adda like actions by US forces in Pakistani territory would not be of any help to the war against terror, instead it would spark wrath and fury among the people.

“It doesn’t behoove America taking such unilateral actions especially, when no terrorist was caught,” The News quoted Haqqani as saying.

He underscored the need of making the Pakistani people understand the US stance at this hour, as such actions could breed hatred among the people.

We do not want any such action denting the ties between the two countries, Haqqani added.

On Wednesday, US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan had carried out a pre-dawn helicopter-borne raid that killed at least 20 people in a village in South Waziristan.

Meanwhile, US military officials have reportedly said that strikes in Pakistan’s FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) will increase in the coming months as “such cross-border raids were necessary” to counter increasing violence in Afghanistan.

Reacting to the attack, Gen Tariq Majid, the Chairman of Pakistan Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC) has said that his country reserves the right to appropriately retaliate against unilateral attacks by coalition forces from Afghanistan.

Condemning the attack by US forces at Angoor Adda, the CJCSC said that such cross-border strikes would alienate locals. He also said that Afghanistan was leveling allegations against Pakistan to “cover its failures”.

Earlier, Pakistan''''s Senate on Thursday adopted a unanimous resolution strongly condemning the attack. The resolution mentioned that the raid undermined the basic norms of international law.

The Senate resolution further said that any incursion inside the Pakistani territory and resulting loss of innocent lives was “unacceptable” and that this matter may be taken up strongly with member countries of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), the coalition forces in Afghanistan.

The Senate called upon the government of Pakistan to take all necessary measures to protect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country and repel such attacks in the future with full force.

The same day, the country’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi also strongly condemned the attack describing it as “shameful and unprovoked”. He warned that such actions “could endanger Pakistan''''s cooperation with the coalition forces”, and added that Pakistan has set up to 1000 check posts along its border with Afghanistan to check movement of militants.

He said that there was no known terrorist when the U.S.-led coalition forces attacked the Pakistani area and killed innocent people including women and children. (ANI)

Woman locked in 15 square-metre cabin for nine years in Sweden

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 11:09:00 -0400

A woman suffering from multiple sclerosis was imprisoned for nine years in a small cabin in south-central Sweden, the police has reported.

The woman is believed to have been held by her 58-year-old partner in a cabin measuring 15 square metres in Eksjo, in south-central Sweden since 1999.

The man has been ordered by a court to be held in custody, local media reported, reports the Mirror.

He has, however, denied all charges.

The woman weighed less than 40 kilos when she was admitted to hospital earlier this week, Swedish television channel SVT reported on its website.

A prosecutor told news agency TT there was no indication this was due to ill treatment, but rather to her illness.

In a further twist to the case, authorities have not been able to verify the identity of the 58-year-old. The identity he provided to the police was that of a man who was declared dead eight years ago, according to official records. (ANI)

NASA’s Cassini images ring arcs among Saturn’s moons

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 11:08:00 -0400

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has detected a faint, partial ring orbiting with one small moon of Saturn and confirmed the presence of another partial ring orbiting with a second moon, which provides further evidence that most of the planet’s small, inner moons orbit within partial or complete rings.

Recent Cassini images show material, called ring arcs, extending ahead of and behind the small moons Anthe and Methone in their orbits.

The new findings indicate that the gravitational influence of nearby moons on ring particles might be the deciding factor in whether an arc or complete ring is formed.

Both Anthe and Methone orbit Saturn in locations, called resonances, where the gravity of the nearby larger moon Mimas disturbs their orbits.

Gravitational resonances are also responsible for many of the structures in Saturn’s magnificent rings.

Mimas provides a regular gravitational tug on each moon, which causes the moons to skip forward and backward within an arc-shaped region along their orbital paths, according to Nick Cooper, a Cassini imaging team associate from Queen Mary, University of London.

“When we realized that the Anthe and Methone ring arcs were very similar in appearance to the region in which the moons swing back and forth in their orbits due to their resonance with Mimas, we knew we had a possible cause-and-effect relationship,” Cooper said.

Scientists believe the faint ring arcs from Anthe and Methone likely consist of material knocked off these small moons by micrometeoroid impacts.

This material does not spread all the way around Saturn to form a complete ring, because of the gravitational resonance with Mimas. That interaction confines the material to a narrow region along the orbits of the moons.

This is the first detection of an arc of material near Anthe. Cassini’s Magnetospheric Imaging Instrument previously detected the Methone arc, and the new images confirm its presence.

Cassini has also previously observed an arc in the G ring, one of Saturn’s faint, major rings.

“This is the probably the same mechanism responsible for producing the arc in the G ring,” said Matthew Hedman, a Cassini imaging team associate at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

Hedman and his Cassini imaging team colleagues previously determined that the G-ring arc is maintained by a gravitational resonance with Mimas, much like the new, small moon arcs.

Additional analysis by scientists indicates that, while the gravitational influence of Mimas keeps the Anthe, Methone and G-ring arcs in place, the material that orbits with the moons Pallene, Janus and Epimetheus is not subject to such powerful resonant forces and is free to spread out around the planet, forming complete rings without arcs. (ANI)

How sexually transmitted diseases up HIV infection risk

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 11:08:00 -0400

The Netherlands-based scientists have for the first time described a way whereby sexually transmitted diseases — such as genital herpes, gonorrhea, syphilis, and chlamydia — increases an individual’s risk of becoming infected with HIV through sexual contact.

Teunis B.H. Geijtenbeek and colleagues at VU University Medical Center showed the way in which STDs can increase acquisition of HIV-1 infection in an ex vivo human skin explant model.

The researchers say that though immature immune cells known as Langerhans cells (LCs) captured HIV in the ex vivo human skin explant model, they did not efficiently transmit the virus to T cells, something that is essential for the initiation of full disease.

However, when the cells were activated by inflammatory stimuli, efficient virus transmission was observed.

Based on this observation, the researchers came to the conclusion that the triggering of the same inflammatory stimuli in vaginal and skin explants by agents that cause the STDs may activate LCs, and thereby increase an individual''''s risk of becoming infected with HIV.

The researchers say that their study also suggests that anti-inflammatory therapies may provide a way to prevent HIV transmission. (ANI)

Zardari elected 11th President of Pakistan

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 11:07:00 -0400

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) co-chairman, Asif Ali Zardari has been elected as the 11^th President of the Pakistan.

Zardari was elected through a secret ballot by the two chambers of its Parliament, the National Assembly and Senate, and the four Provincial Assemblies.

The other contestants in the Presidential election were Justice Saeed-uz-Zaman Siddiqui of Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) and Mushahid Hussain Syed of Pakistan Muslim League- Quaid (PML-Q).

The Electoral College for the Presidential election, comprising of members from both the Houses, Senate and National Assembly, cast their votes to elect the President at the Parliament House.

Chief Election Commissioner, Justice Qazi Muhammad Farooq conducted the proceedings as Returning Officer for election to the office of the President.

Meanwhile, security across Pakistan has been beefed up as the newly elected President is expected to take oath today. (ANI)

Oldest sheep make larger contributions to population growth when conditions are harsh

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 11:06:00 -0400

A new research has shown that the oldest individuals in a group of sheep contribute most to population growth when climate changes makes conditions harsh.

Carried out by researchers at Imperial College London and Universite Claude Bernard Lyon, the research has shown how a sheep population on a remote island off the west coast of Scotland responds to two consequences of climate change: altered food availability and the unpredictability of winter storms.

According to Dr. Thomas Ezard, lead author of the study, “When times are good and food is plentiful, lambs contribute almost twice as much to changes in population size than when times are hard.”

“On the flip side, the oldest sheep contribute most to population growth when conditions are harsh,” he added.

The work, published in the September issue of The American Naturalist, suggests that the dynamics of populations are influenced not only by the weather, but also by the ability of individuals to respond to it.

New mathematical breakthroughs have made it possible to show how environmental change affects populations, like these sheep.

The key is appreciating how weather affects individual sheep and how the weather changes from one year to the next.

If consecutive years have similar weather, the dynamics of the population will be very different than if conditions are unrelated from one year to the next.

According to Professor Tim Coulson, “A thorough understanding of the likely effects of climate change on the ecology of wild populations requires linking populations to their environment. This demands application of innovative mathematical methods, as used here.” (ANI)

New research to examine role of aerosols in climate change

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 10:44:00 -0400

A group of scientists affiliated with the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) have proposed a new framework to account more accurately for the effects of aerosols on precipitation in climate models.

The increase in atmospheric concentrations of man-made aerosols—tiny particles suspended in the air—from such sources as transportation, industry, agriculture, and urban land use not only poses serious problems to human health, but also has an effect on weather and climate.

Recent studies suggest that increased aerosol loading may have changed the energy balance in the atmosphere and at the Earth’s surface, and altered the global water cycle in ways that make the climate system more prone to precipitation extremes.

It appears that aerosol effects on clouds can induce large changes in precipitation patterns, which in turn may change not only regional water resources, but also may change the regional and global circulation systems that constitute the Earth’s climate.

The proposed framework improves scientists’ ability to simulate present and future climates by integrating, for the first time, the radiative and microphysical effects of aerosols on clouds.

The radiative effects of aerosols on clouds mostly act to suppress precipitation, because they decrease the amount of solar radiation that reaches the land surface, and therefore cause less heat to be available for evaporating water and energizing convective rain clouds.

Microphysical effects of aerosols can slow down the conversion of cloud drops into raindrops, which shuts off precipitation from very shallow and short-lived clouds.

Model simulations suggest that this delay of early rain causes greater amounts of cloud water and rain intensities later in the life cycle of the cloud.

This suggests that rain patterns are shifting, leading to possible drought in one area and flooding downwind in another area. In addition, greater cooling below and heating above leads to enhanced upward heat transport.

Model simulations have shown that greater heating in the troposphere enhances the atmospheric circulation system, shifting weather patterns due to changes convective activity.

Investigations of aerosol/precipitation effects are especially relevant to policy issues, as effects on the hydrological cycle may affect water availability, a great concern in many regions of the world.

The IPCC, in its latest climate change assessment report, declared aerosols to be “the dominant uncertainty in radiative forcing”.

Therefore, aerosols, clouds and their interaction with climate are still the most uncertain areas of climate change and require multidisciplinary coordinated research efforts.

To that end, the team of scientists is participating in a new, international research project designed to study the connections between aerosols, clouds, precipitation and climate (ACPC project). (ANI)

Acute shortage of fruits, vegetables during Ramazan in Pakistan

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 05:19:00 -0400

People observing Ramazan fasts in Pakistan are facing an acute shortage of fruits and vegetables and inadequate supply of wheat flour. In Lahore it seems as if onions have been non-existent at the Ramazan bazaars, and potatoes and tomatoes being available at rates higher than those approved by the government.

While bananas are not available, grapes are available only at Rs 190 per kg, reported the Daily Times.

Wheat flour is available at the Shadman, Model Town and Islampura Ramazan bazaars, but people have to wait for several hours at the Shalimar, Gulshan-e-Ravi, Johar Town and Shahdra Ramazan bazaars to get their share.

The shopkeepers said that even the wholesalers were not selling the commodities at the government approved rates. They urged the government to pay attention to the wholesalers instead of the Ramazan bazaars, as they were not able to provide the commodities at cheaper rates due to the high wholesale rates.

They claimed that if they sold the commodities at the government approved rates than they would face heavy losses, as they also have to pay for transportation from the wholesale market to the Ramazan bazaars.

If the government did not start paying attention to the wholesale markets, than as the holy month progresses the shortage of necessary commodities would only rise, the paper quoted the shopkeepers as saying. (ANI)