Toyota unveils high-tech concept car

TOKYO: Toyota's president unveiled a futuristic concept car resembling a giant smartphone to demonstrate how Japan's top automaker is trying to take the lead in technology at the upcoming Tokyo auto show.

Toyota Motor Corp. will also be showing an electric vehicle, set for launch next year, and a tiny version of the hit Prius gas-electric hybrid at the Tokyo Motor Show, which opens to the public this weekend.

But the automaker's president, Akio Toyoda, chose to focus on the experimental Fun-Vii, which he called "a smartphone on four wheels" at Monday's preview of what Toyota is displaying at the show.

The car works like a personal computer and allows drivers to connect with dealers and others with a tap of a touch-panel door.

"A car must appeal to our emotions," Toyoda said, using the Japanese term "waku waku doki doki," referring to a heart aflutter with anticipation.

Toyota's booth will be a major attraction at the biannual Tokyo exhibition for the auto industry. Toyota said the Fun Vii was an example of what might be in the works in "20XX," giving no dates.

The Tokyo show has been scaled back in recent years as U.S. and European automakers increasingly look to China and other places where growth potential is greater. U.S. automaker Ford Motor Co. isn't even taking part in the show.

Toyota's electric vehicle FT-EV III, still a concept or test model, doesn't have a price yet, but is designed for short trips such as grocery shopping and work commutes, running 105 kilometers (65 miles) on one full charge.

The new small hybrid will be named Aqua in Japan, where it goes on sale next month. Overseas dates are undecided. Outside Japan it will be sold as a Prius.

Japan's automakers, already battered by years of sales stagnation at home, took another hit from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, which damaged part suppliers in northeastern Japan, and forced the car makers to cut back production.

The forecast of demand for new passenger cars in Japan this year has been cut to 3.58 million vehicles from an earlier 3.78 million by the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association.

Toru Hatano, auto analyst for IHS Automotive in Tokyo, believes fuel efficient hybrid models will be popular with Japanese consumers, and Toyota has an edge.

"The biggest obstacle has to do with costs, and you need to boost vehicle numbers if you hope to bring down costs" he said. "Toyota has more hybrids on the market than do rivals, and that gives Toyota an advantage."

Toyota has sold more than 3.4 million hybrids worldwide so far. Honda Motor Co., which has also been aggressive with hybrid technology, has sold 770,000 hybrids worldwide.

Toyota is also premiering a fuel-cell concept vehicle, FCV-R, at the show.

Zero-emission fuel cell vehicles, which run on hydrogen, have been viewed as impractical because of costs. Toyota said the FCV-R is a "practical" fuel-cell, planned for 2015, but didn't give its price.

"I felt as though my heart was going to break," Toyoda said of the turmoil after the March disaster. "It is precisely because we are in such times we must move forward with our dreams." REUTERS

Early humans fished deep sea

PARIS: The world's earliest known fish hooks reveal that humans fished the open sea for much longer than previously thought, science journal LiveScience reported.

Past studies have revealed that early humans were capable of crossing the open ocean as far back as 50,000 years ago, such as they did to colonize Australia. Until now, however, evidence that such mariners could fish while in the open sea dated back only to 12,000 years ago.

"In most areas of the world, evidence for our early ancestors' coastal exploitation is now submerged - it was drowned by rising sea levels," researcher Sue O'Connor, an archaeologist at Australian National University in Canberra, told LiveScience.

Now O'Connor and her colleagues have found evidence of prehistoric fishing gear and the remains of large fish such as tuna at a cave shelter known as Jerimalai, located in the Southeast Asian island nation of East Timor.

Their discovery uncovered fishing hooks made from bone that date back to about 42,000 years ago, making them the earliest definitive evidence of such tools in the world.

"It is possible that people caught the tuna in the deep channel that lies off the coast of the Jerimalai shelter," O'Connor said.

Mexico City 'zombies' set record gathering

MEXICO CITY: Nearly 10,000 people dressed as zombies marched in Mexico's capital for a "Zombie Walk," breaking a Guinness record for the largest gathering of undead, organizers said.

The more than 9,600 participants gathered at Mexico City's Monument to the Revolution on Saturday, with blood on their faces and burnt or torn clothing, before marching silently to Zocalo square.

Guinness World Records currently recognizes the October 30, 2010 "New Jersey Zombie Walk" in Asbury Park, New Jersey, as the record holder. But a group from Brisbane, Australia is also seeking Guinness recognition for gathering 8,000 people there last month.

The shark, a predator turned prey

BERGEN: Sharks may strike terror among swimmers at the beach but the predators are increasingly ending up as prey, served up in fish-and-chips shops, sparking concern among environmentalists.

The great white shark, the one that most frequently comes to mind, is a protected species -- though that hasn't prevented its stocks from declining -- but tens of millions of other sharks are caught each year by fishermen.

Why are they in such demand? Their fins are the main ingredient in shark fin soup, a prestigious dish in traditional Chinese cuisine, and even in Europe shark meat is often served to consumers, usually without their knowledge.

"People don't realise they're eating shark because it's not called shark, but they are," Sonja Fjordham, the head of Shark Advocates International, told on the sidelines of an international conference this week on migratory species in Bergen, Norway.

The name can be misleading: "rock salmon" often sold in fish and chips shops in Britain, Australia and elsewhere is actually a small type of shark called spiny dogfish.

Ecologists' main concern is the practice known as "finning", when fishermen cut the fins off of sharks and then throw the fish back in the water, usually still alive and leaving them to a certain death by drowning, suffocation, blood loss or to be devoured by other fish.

In Asia, where shark fin soup is a sign of status and social standing, a fin can cost several hundred dollars (euros).

"It's as if you cut the arms and the legs off of a person. It's just a torso. Without fins, they can't swim, they can't breathe, they can't eat, they just sink to the bottom," explains Rebecca Regnery, the deputy director of the Humane Society International.

Finning, which is often carried out on by-catches but also targeted ones, weighs heavily on species that have slow reproduction patterns.

Bans on the practice exist in many countries but are often ignored.

In a bid to help put an end to the practice, the European Commission recently proposed to tighten its legislation by requiring boats fishing in EU waters and EU-based ships fishing anywhere in the world to "unload sharks with the fins attached to their bodies."

"Banning finning is a no-brainer because it's such a huge waste," said Fjordham. However, she added, "not finning alone is not going to save the sharks. We need to reduce the catches."

At the top of the food chain, sharks are indispensable for keeping the oceans' ecosystems in check. Scientists don't even dare consider the consequences if the animals were to disappear entirely, a fate faced by 20 percent of shark species, according to Fjordham.

Palau, a small archipelago in the Pacific, has set a good example, making the most of its shark population by creating a sanctuary that has become a popular ecotourist site.

Diving with sharks now accounts for eight percent of Palau's gross domestic product (GDP), each animal bringing in 1.9 million dollars throughout its lifetime, according to the Australian Institute of Marine Sciences.

Palau remains however an isolated example. Elsewhere, the trend is alarming.

The giant manta ray, a cousin of the shark, has also fallen victim to a similar fate: prized in Asia, it is turned into a powder used in traditional Chinese medicine.

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Association, catches of manta rays have more than tripled in recent years, from 900 tonnes in 2000 to 3,300 tonnes in 2007.

In Bergen on Friday, the UN Convention on Migratory Species added giant manta rays to its lists of protected species.

Manta rays could generate some 100 million dollars in ecotourism revenue worldwide each year, according to experts. (AFP)

Vending machine offers DIY banners at Dutch airport

AMSTERDAM: Ever wanted to meet and greet your loved ones at the airport to be sure they don't miss you in the crowds?

Then try Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, which now has the world's first vending machine capable of printing out personalized giant canvas banners in just a few minutes.

You can pick your message, whether that is "Missed you Mummy," "I love you," "Will you marry me?," or anything else that makes you stand out from the crowd, choose the font and background design, pay between four and 15 euros ($19.98) depending on the length of the banner, and hit the button.

"We came up with the idea because when we were at the airport we'd see all these people welcoming their friends and family with their own banners made of bed sheets and we thought what a hassle using sheets, wouldn't it just be easier to make the banner at the airport," BannerXpress's co-founder Thibaud Bruna told Thursday.

Bruna's first machine, which was three years in the making, made its debut at Schiphol Thursday. If the waterproof banners prove popular, he hopes to install the vending machines in other locations.

"We hope have them in other airports, but also in stadiums for sporting and music events," Bruna said. (Reuters)

Whales in the desert: Fossil bonanza poses mystery

SANTIAGO: More than 2 million years ago, scores of whales congregating off the Pacific Coast of South America mysteriously met their end.

Maybe they became disoriented and beached themselves. Maybe they were trapped in a lagoon by a landslide or a storm. Maybe they died there over a period of a few millennia. But somehow, they ended up right next to one another, many just meters (yards) apart, entombed as the shallow sea floor was driven upward by geological forces and transformed into the driest place on the planet.

Today, they have emerged again atop a desert hill more than a kilometer (half a mile) from the surf, where researchers have begun to unearth one of the world's best-preserved graveyards of prehistoric whales.

Chilean scientists together with researchers from the Smithsonian Institution are studying how these whales, many of them the size of buses, wound up in the same corner of the Atacama Desert.

"That's the top question," said Mario Suarez, director of the Paleontological Museum in the nearby town of Caldera, about 700 kilometers (440 miles) north of Santiago, the Chilean capital.

Experts say other groups of prehistoric whales have been found together in Peru and Egypt, but the Chilean fossils stand out for their staggering number and beautifully preserved bones. More than 75 whales have been discovered so far - including more than 20 perfectly intact skeletons.

They provide a snapshot of sea life at the time, and even include what might have been a family group: two adult whales with a juvenile between them.

"I think they died more or less at the same time," said Nicholas Pyenson, curator of fossil marine mammals at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. Pyenson and Suarez are jointly leading the research.

As for why such a great number perished in the same place, Pyenson said: "There are many ways that whales could die, and we're still testing all those different hypotheses."

The scientists have yet to publish their findings about the fossil bed and the extensive remains, which began to emerge in June last year during a highway-widening project that is now on hold.

So far, the fossils have been found in a roadside strip the length of two football fields - about 240 meters (260 yards) long and 20 meters (yards) wide.

Pyenson said the spot was once a "lagoon-like environment" and that the whales probably died between 2 million and 7 million years ago.

Most of the fossils are baleen whales that measured about 8 meters (25 feet) long, Pyenson said.

The researchers also discovered a sperm whale skeleton and remains of a now-extinct dolphin that had two walrus-like tusks and previously had only turned up in Peru, he said.

"We're very excited about that," Pyenson said in a telephone interview. "It is a very bizarre animal."

Other unusual creatures found elsewhere in the fossil-rich Atacama Desert include an extinct aquatic sloth and a seabird with a 5-meter (17-foot) wingspan, bigger than a condor's.

Erich Fitzgerald, a vertebrate paleontologist at Museum Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, emailed that the latest find is very significant.

"The fossils are exceptionally well preserved and quite complete - a rare combination in paleontology and one that will likely shed light on many facets of the ... ecology and evolution of these extinct species," Fitzgerald said.

He said it's possible "these fossilized remains may have accumulated over a relatively long period of time."

Hans Thewissen, an expert on early whales, agreed. Another scenario, he said, is that the whales might have gathered in a lagoon and then an earthquake or storm could have closed off the outlet to the ocean.

"Subsequently the lagoon dries up and the whales die," said Thewissen, a professor of anatomy at Northeast Ohio Medical University. He said the accumulation of so many complete skeletons is "a very unusual situation."

"If this were a lagoon that dried up, you might see signs that ocean water evaporated," such as crystallized salt and gypsum in the rock, said Thewissen, who is not involved in the research. "On the other hand, if a giant wave or storm flung the whales onto shore, it would also have pushed the ocean floor around, and you would see scour marks in the rocks."

Dating fossils is complicated, experts said, and it will be very hard to distinguish dates precisely enough to determine whether the whales all died simultaneously.

The researchers have been told to finish their onsite studies so that fossils can be moved out of the path of the widened Pan American Highway, or Route 5, which is Chile's main north-south road.

Many of the fossils have been transported in plaster coverings to the museum in Caldera. Researchers from Chile's National Museum of Natural History are also studying the fossils.

Pyenson and his team are working quickly under tents to document the intact skeletons. With funding from the National Geographic Society, the Smithsonian team is using sophisticated photography and laser scanners to capture 3D images of the whales that can later be used to make life-sized models of them.

Suarez, the paleontologist, had long known about the whale bones just north of Caldera - they could be seen jutting out of the sandstone ridge alongside the highway at the spot known as Cerro Ballena, or Whale Hill. When the road work began last year, the construction company asked him to monitor the job to avoid destroying fossils.

"In the first week, about six or seven whales appeared," Suarez said. "We realized that it was a truly extraordinary site."

The Chilean government has declared the site a protected zone, and Pyenson said he hopes a museum will be built to showcase the intact skeletons where they lie, in the same way fossils are displayed at Dinosaur National Monument in Utah and Colorado.

Suarez thinks there are probably fossils of hundreds of whales waiting to be uncovered - enough to keep him working at this one spot for the rest of his life.

"We have a unique opportunity to develop a great scientific project and make a great contribution to science," he said. (AP)

Text message obscenity banned

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's telecommunications regulator has ordered cellphone companies to monitor text messages and block any that contain anything on a list of more than 1,100 words and phrases that could be considered swear words, references to sex acts or terms of abuse.

The prohibited phrases and words include more than 50 using "the f-word," and 17 that contain "butt."

Many of them involve homosexuality, including the words "lesbian" and "gay," and some of them are not in and of themselves obscene, including "pimp," "stroke," "stupid" and "flatulence."

While admitting that Pakistan's constitution guaranteed free speech, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority told mobile phone companies that such freedom was "not unrestricted" under court rulings and they had obligations under their licences to prevent "obnoxious communication."

‘Faster-than-light' experiment yields same results

PARIS: A fiercely contested experiment that appears to show the accepted speed limit of the Universe can be broken has yielded the same results in a re-run, European physicists said on Friday.

But counterparts in the United States said the experiment still did not resolve doubts and the Europeans themselves acknowledged this was not the end of the story.

On September 23, the European team issued a massive challenge to fundamental physics by saying they had measured particles called neutrinos which travelled around six kilometres (3.75 miles) per second faster than the velocity of light, determined by Einstein to be the highest speed possible.

The neutrinos had been measured along a 732-kilometre (454-mile) trajectory between the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland and a laboratory in Italy.

The scientists at CERN and the Gran Sasso Laboratory in Italy scrutinised the results of the so-called OPERA experiment for nearly six months before cautiously making the announcement.

In October, responding to criticism that they had been tricked by a statistical quirk, the team decided they would carry out a second series of experiments.

This time, the scientists altered the structure of the proton beam, a factor that critics said could have affected the outome.

The modification helped the team identify individual particles when they were fired out and when they arrived at their destination.

The new tests "confirm so far the previous results," the Italian Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN) said in a press release. (AFP)

Man stacks 3118 coins on a single dime

TUCSON: A man has settled for the record holder of the most coins stacked on a single dime.

Tai Star, from Tucson, Arizona, spent seven hours building a tower of 3,118 coins on a dime.

The impressive structure consisted of 600 quarters, 501 dimes, 313 nickels, 1699 pennies and five foreign coins.

Toilet maker flush with pride after biogas bike run

TOKYO: Enter the Neo. Part motorcycle and part toilet, it runs on eco-friendly biogas produced from sewage -- and recently completed a journey of more than 1,000 km (600 miles) across Japan.

The three-wheeled vehicle, developed by Japanese toilet maker Toto, features a toilet for a seat and has a giant roll of toilet paper mounted on the back that flutters in the breeze as the bike cruises along.

But there are no plans to put the bike on sale. Toto intends to put it on display.

The biogas used as fuel for the Neo is produced from a combination of household sewage and livestock waste, broken down and fermented, company spokesman Kenji Fujita said.

"Although the seat of the bike is indeed a toilet, it is not for actual use. The fuel is eco-friendly biogas, stored in the tanks on the back," he said.

"It's a surprisingly nice way to travel."

The 380 kg (837 lb) motorcycle can run for a total of 300 km and reach speeds of up to 70 km an hour (45 mph).

Ichie Tanaka, one of six people who rode the Neo across Japan during the three-week, 1,400 km (870 miles) tour to promote biofuels, said she was relieved the journey was over.

"At first when I saw the bike, I was taken aback. But after riding it, I found it quite interesting," the 28-year-old said.

"It doesn't hurt at all and is actually quite comfortable to sit on." (Reuters)

Doctor turned serial killer in WW2 Paris

TOKYO: Nazi-occupied Paris was a terrible place to be in the waning days of World War Two, with Jews, Resistance fighters and ordinary citizens all hoping to escape.

Disappearances became so common they often weren't followed up. And one man used the lawlessness for his own terrible purposes, killing perhaps as many as 150 people and dismembering and burning their bodies.

It wasn't until thick black smoke seeped into buildings in a fashionable part of the city that firefighters and police found body parts scattered around an elegant townhouse — setting off a manhunt that led them, eventually, to Marcel Petiot. (Reuters)

Steve Jobs is most used name in media, 2011

LOS ANGELES: "Arab Spring" and "Royal Wedding" were on Wednesday deemed the top phrases of 2011, while late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs is the year's top name, according to a global survey of the English language.

"Occupy" - be it Iraq or Wall Street - and "deficit" were the two single top words of the year in a list that reflected global turmoil, the Texas-based Global Language Monitor said. (Reuters)

'Cave painters were realists'

LOS ANGELES: Cave painters during the Ice Age were more like da Vinci than Dali, sketching realistic depictions of horses they saw rather than dreaming them up, a study of ancient DNA finds.

It's not just a matter of aesthetics: Paintings based on real life can give first-hand glimpses into the environment of tens of thousands of years ago. But scientists have wondered how much imagination went into animal drawings etched in caves around Europe.

The latest analysis published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences focused on horses since they appeared most frequently on rock walls. The famed Lascaux Cave in the Dordogne region of southwest France and the Chauvet Cave in southeast France feature numerous scenes of brown and black horses. Other caves like the Pech Merle in southern France are adorned with paintings of white horses with black spots.

Past studies of ancient DNA have only turned up evidence of brown and black horses during that time. That led scientists to question whether the spotted horses were real or fantasy.

To get at the genetics of equine coat color, an international team led by the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Germany analyzed DNA from fossilized bones and teeth from 31 prehistoric horses. The samples were recovered from more than a dozen archaeological sites in Siberia, Eastern Europe, Western Europe and the Iberian peninsula.

It turned out six of the horses had a genetic mutation that gives rise to a spotted coat, suggesting that ancient artists were drawing what they were seeing. Brown was the most common coat color, found in 18 horses.

Researchers who were not part of the study praised the use of genetics, saying it supports their observations.

Paleoanthropologist John Shea of Stony Brook University in New York said he was not surprised that cave artists were in tune with their surroundings since they needed to know all they could about their prey to hunt them.

"These artists were better observers of their natural environment than many humans are today," Shea said in an email.

Just because cave art was rooted in reality doesn't mean Ice Age painters lacked creativity.

Archaeologist Paul Pettitt of the University of Sheffield in England said ancient artists were "immensely creative," using techniques such as charcoal shading that are still found in modern art. (AP)

Large asteroid makes rare fly-by of Earth

WASHINGTON: A big asteroid made its closest fly-by of Earth in 200 years on Tuesday, but there was never a chance of a crash landing as it zipped past our planet, NASA said.

Astronomers around the world aimed their telescopes to catch a glimpse of the 2005 YU55 asteroid, which is the size of an aircraft carrier but was not visible to the naked eye when it passed by at its closest point at 2328 GMT.

"This is going to be really hard to see. This is 100 times more dim than what the human eye can see. You need a good telescope," NASA spokeswoman Veronica McGregor said before the fly-by.

The near-spherical asteroid, 1,300 feet (400 meters) in diameter, often travels in the vicinity of Earth, Mars and Venus, but NASA said this fly-by was the closest the asteroid had come to Earth in at least 200 years.

Other asteroids of this size pass by Earth frequently, though the last such event happened in 1976 and the next will not take place until 2028, when an asteroid called 2001 WN5 will skim about halfway between the Moon and Earth.

NASA said at the point of closest approach Tuesday, the 2005 YU55 asteroid "was no closer than 201,700 miles (324,600 kilometers), as measured from the center of Earth" -- roughly 85 times the distance of the Moon to the Earth.

The space rock drew closest to earth at 3:28 pm (2328 GMT), when it soared by some 350 miles (560 kilometers) southwest of Guatemala City, over the Pacific, said DC Agle, a spokesman at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The asteroid "is one of the potentially hazardous asteroids that make close approaches from time to time because their orbits either approach or intersect the orbit of the Earth," said Robert McMillan, an associate research scientist at the University of Arizona.

McMillan discovered the asteroid in 2005 as part of the university's Spacewatch Project, a solar system-scanning group of scientists near Tucson, Arizona.

However, astronomers knew from analyzing the trajectory of the asteroid that it would not hit Earth this time.

The asteroid's next closest pass is set to take place in 2094, at a distance of 167,000 miles, according to forecasts.

"The observations will give us a piece of the puzzle, one we don't get many chances to see," said Don Yeomans of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "At one time, we thought these were the asteroids that delivered carbon and other elements to the early Earth, so they are pretty important."

NASA said the Arecibo Planetary Radar Facility in Puerto Rico tracked the asteroid as it closed in.

Astronomers at the Clay Center Observatory in Brookline, Massachusetts also trained their 25-inch (64-centimeter) telescope to track the asteroid and capture images of it.

NASA's Deep Space Network antenna in Goldstone, California grabbed radar images of the asteroid looking like a large gray egg, which were posted on NASA's website late Monday.

While the charcoal-colored asteroid's visit saw eager scientists striving for a closer look, most people on Earth probably did not notice it.

"The gravitational influence of the asteroid will have no detectable effect on Earth, including tides and tectonic plates," NASA said. (AFP)

Quandary of the kilo triggers a weighty reflexion

PARIS: The guardians of the world's most important standards of weights and measures have turned to the weird universe of quantum physics to try to resolve a dilemma.

To the bafflement of scientists, a cylinder of metal sitting in a closely-guarded strongbox that is the global benchmark for the kilogram is changing mass.

The enigma doesn't affect anyone who wants to buy 500-milligramme tablets of aspirin, half a kilo of carrots or a 50,000-tonne cruise ship.

But it poses a hefty theoretical challenge to physicists, and complicates the work of labs which need ultra-precise, always-standard measurement.

Since 1889, the kilogram has been internationally defined in accordance with a piece of metal kept at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (known by its French acronym of BIPM), in the Paris suburb of Sevres.

Ninety-percent platinum and 10-percent iridium, the British-made cylinder was proudly deemed at its founding to be as inalienable as the stars in the sky.

It is kept under three glass cases in a safe in a protected building, the Pavillon de Breteuil.

In 1992 came a shock: the famous kilo was no longer what it should be.

Measurements made over a century showed that the prototype had changed by around 50 microgrammes -- the equivalent of a tiny grain of sand 0.4 millimetres (0.015 inches) in diameter -- compared to six other kilos also stored in Sevres.

"Actually, we're not sure whether it lost mass or gained it," Alain Picard, director of the BIPM's Mass Department, told AFP.

"The change may be to due to surface effects, loss of gas from the metal or a buildup of contaminant."

The skinnier (or fatter) kilo became more than a scientific curiosity.

-- Kilo will still be a kilo --

It is a bedrock of the International System of Units (SI), the world's most widely-used system of measurement units for daily life, precision engineering, science and trade.

The SI has seven "base units" -- the kilo, metre, second, ampere, kelvin, mole and candela -- from which all other units are derived.

But unlike its counterparts, the kilo is the last unit that is still defined by a material object.

There used to be a platinum ruler that was the world's standard metre until its role was replaced by a fundamental constant, the time that light takes to travel 100 centimetres. The metal metre still resides in Sevres, but as a museum piece.

Moving at a pace best described as ponderous, the masters of the SI have now decided to phase out the kilo cylinder.

If all goes well, it will be replaced by a fixed value based on the Planck Constant, named after Max Planck, the granddaddy of quantum physics, who
discovered it in 1899.

The Planck Constant, which uses the letter "h" in equations, corresponds to the smallest packet of energy, or quanta, that two particles can exchange.

On October 21, the General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) agreed to use the constant to calculate the value of the kilo.

But adopting this "will not be before 2014," after experiments to assess the accuracy of measurement techniques to ensure accuracy to within 20 parts per billion.

If the Planck Constant is adopted, nothing in everyday life will change. The kilo will still be a kilo.

"However, the changes will have immediate impact in the excruciatingly accurate measurements carried out by highly specialised laboratories," the conference said in a press release. (AFP)

Mars crew "lands" after 520 days in isolation

MOSCOW: Pale-faced but smiling, the crew of a long-duration isolation study emerged bleary-eyed to daylight and applause Friday after 520 days locked away in windowless, cramped cells to simulate the length of a journey to Mars.

The $15 million Mars500 experiment aims to answer one of the big unknowns of deep-space travel: can people stay healthy and sane during six months rocketing to the Red Planet?

The six male volunteers were allowed to briefly embrace family and friends before being ushered into a three-day quarantine period at the end of an experiment to recreate the psychological strain of a real Mars mission as closely as possible.

Clothed in blue jumpsuits, the would-be astronauts from Europe, Russia and China grinned and waved as the heavy metal door was shut on their home of the last 17 months in a mock spaceship at a Moscow research institute.

"It's really, really great to see you all again, rather heartwarming," said Diego Urbina, an Italian-Colombian participant, who was shaky and red-eyed.

"On this mission we've achieved the longest isolation ever so that humankind can go to a distant but reachable planet."

Psychologists fear a return to the noise and activity of ordinary life will come as a shock to the men.

"Time seems to have flown by since we closed the hatch last year. But how time really felt to the crew we'll soon know. Probably we'll have a very big difference of opinion," said Igor Ushakov, head of the Russian Institute for Biomedical Problems, which runs the "spaceship."

The crew were firmly anchored by gravity, despite the pretence of long months shuttling through space. But that did not stop them from feeling thousands of miles from home.

"I really felt a physical distance between our crew and the people in Mission Control. My reason knows that they're just 20 m (65 ft) away from us but my mind can't accept it," Frenchman Romain Charles wrote to Reuters on the eve of his return.

The men have fed on rations like those of real astronauts, rarely showered, taken daily urine and blood samples all while under 24-hour surveillance everywhere but in the toilets, earning the study comparisons to a reality TV show. (Reuters)

Teen in recovery from accidental hanging

ST. LOUIS: A teenager who was accidentally tangled in a hangman's noose while acting at a Halloween haunted house was out of intensive care on Wednesday and recovering from the incident that left her briefly not breathing and unconscious, police said.

The 17-year-old, who was not identified because of her age, was found hanging with her neck in the noose Thursday night by a maintenance worker and a supervisor at Creepyworld in the St. Louis suburb of Fenton, Missouri. (Reuters)

British 'dead man' caught in Australia

SYDNEY: A British man who allegedly faked his own death and made off with the life insurance payout has been arrested in Australia, police said Thursday.

Hugo Jose Sanchez, 47, also known as Alfredo, was taken into Australian Federal Police custody overnight in Sydney, the force told, ending a six-year manhunt.

Ecuadorian-born Sanchez's wife Sophie was last year sentenced to two years in jail over the scam, in which the couple allegedly faked his death to claim more than one million pounds ($1.6 million) in life insurance in 2005.

She was arrested after returning to Britain for her sister's wedding last September, with their plot reportedly unravelling after Sanchez's fingerprints were found on his own death certificate.

Police refused to comment on media reports that Sanchez was facing extradition to Britain to face fraud charges, saying it was now a matter for Sydney's Central Local Court, where he was due to appear later Thursday. (AFP)

Joy as conjoined Philippine twins separated in US

SAN FRANCISCO: US surgeons on Tuesday successfully separated conjoined two-year-old girls born in the Philippines, bringing tears to the eyes of their mother who praised God for keeping them alive.

A team of 20 doctors helped by 15-20 operating staff at the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital worked for 10 hours to separate Angelina and Angelica Sabuco, who had spent all of their lives so far joined at the chest and abdomen.

"I thank God for everything; words cannot express how the family feels for the successful separation of our twins, Angelica and Angelina," said their crying mother Ginady Sabuco.

Lead surgeon Gary Hartman at the hospital in the northern Californian city of Palo Alto, said they expected the girls to make a "complete recovery."

"We're very pleased .. It could not have gone better," he said.

The twins were in intensive care and sedated, but may begin to be woken up on Wednesday and are likely to spend a week in the ICU and another week in hospital if all goes well, the hospital said.

Hartman told reporters the surgery took slightly longer than anticipated, with the riskiest part, dividing the girls' livers, going slowly but smoothly.

"There was really no blood loss during that part of the procedure," he said, adding: "We were able to close the abdominal muscles without a graft, and the chest closure also went better than we anticipated."

Plastic surgeon Peter Lorenz, who led the reconstruction procedures, said there would be relatively little sign of the twins' past, after the operation.

"They will have a long scar from the middle of their chests down to the belly button, a straight line," the surgeon said, adding: "That's all that will show."

The girls, who turned two in August, were joined at the chest and belly but had separate brains, hearts, kidneys, stomachs and intestines.

Before the operation doctors said they expected to take six hours to separate the girls and two to three hours more to conduct reconstruction work. (AFP)

It’s 11.11.11 today!

ISLAMABAD: Appearing once in 100 years, the date of 11.11.11 on today's calendar has created quite a frenzy worldwide, while adding more amazement people can witness a unique moment at 11.11am and 11.11pm.

The rare palindrome of single digits appeared 100 years ago on 11.11.1911 and will surface again on 11.11.2111 only.

Superstitious people are planning their weddings, baby births and other special moments to mark the unique day and make the day special for their lifetime.

Scientists, however, dismissed associating adjectives of good or evil with the date, describing the rarity as a mere classroom curiosity.

Rare early Smurf drawings on sale

PARIS: Rare original drawings of the Smurfs, blue-skinned cartoon characters created by Belgian artist Peyo, are set to fetch up to 120,000 euros ($167,000) each on Saturday in the first auction of the late artist's work.

The highlight of a sale of 33 full-page Peyo comic strips at the Artcurial auction house on the Champs-Elysees in Paris will be a black-and-white sketch -- "The Smurfs and the Magic Flute."

It is the first time Peyo's family has sold original Smurf artwork, although some drawings given as gifts has been sold, and the sale is drawing interest from enthusiasts worldwide.

"It was a stroke of genius on Peyo's part to have made the Smurfs blue because everyone -- whether they're Chinese or European -- can identify with them," said Eric Leroy, Artcurial's comic expert said.

The Magic Flute drawing was the basis for the cover of Peyo's 1960 "Johan and Peewit" comic, a precursor of the Smurf series in which the diminutive figures, who sport white pants and pointy hats, first appeared before becoming stars in their own right.

Smurfs -- or "Schtroumpfs," as they are called in French -- went on to achieve worldwide fame, appearing in widely syndicated television cartoons, advertising spots and movies.

"The whole world knows the Smurfs from TV, and children think it's an animated show, but the original was a comic strip," said Leroy.

The auction, and a recent exhibition of more than 200 original comic sheets and personal items belonging to Peyo, follows this year's successful release of the 3D movie "The Smurfs," which has grossed more than half a million dollars.

Prices for the signed cartoon panels run from 5,000 euros up to 120,000 euros, not an unusually high price for comic art given that in 2008 Artcurial sold a Tintin comic for around $1 million. Some proceeds will go to UNICEF.

Peyo -- whose real name was Pierre Culliford -- came up with the word "Schtroumpf" over a meal when he forgot the word for salt and asked a friend to pass him the "schtroumpf."

The two started to use "schtroumpf" to replace other words in a playful form of conversation that was to become the basis for the cartoon Smurfs' language.

Conceived for children, the Smurfs were all males, lived in mushroom-like houses in a cooperative community, rode storks for transport and derived names from their trades or personalities, such as Lazy Smurf, Jokey Smurf and Doctor Smurf.

The cartoon prompted its share of controversy this year when French sociologist Antoine Bueno wrote a book alleging that the Smurfs' world represented a totalitarian Communist utopia and their gold-loving villain Gargamel was a caricature of a Jew.

Peyo's son Thierry Culliford defended his father, saying that the late cartoonist was completely apolitical.

Since Peyo's death at age 64 in 1992, Thierry Culliford has led Studio Peyo, which still produces comics under Peyo's name. (REUTERS)

NASA launches weather-climate satellite

WASHINGTON: The US space agency on Friday launched a first of its kind satellite that will send back data on weather and climate to help forecasters predict major storms and other changes in the environment.

"Liftoff of the Delta II with the NPP satellite, blazing the way in new technology for climate research and weather forecasting," said NASA commentator George Diller.

The $1.5 billion National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project (NPP) took off aboard a Delta II rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 5:48 am (0948 GMT).

The satellite will carry five instruments to study temperature and water in the atmosphere, how clouds and aerosols affect temperature, and how plants on land and in the ocean respond to environmental changes.

It is one of 14 Earth observation missions currently being managed by NASA. Project managers said they hope it will operate for about five years. (AFP)

Malaysia seizes 450 protected snakes, turtles

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian authorities have seized nearly 450 protected snakes and turtles - many already dead - that may have been destined for dining tables in neighboring Thailand, an official said Friday.

Authorities raided a house in northern Kedah state, which borders Thailand, on Wednesday and found the animals confined in small cages and boxes, said Celescoriano Razond, a senior wildlife department official.

A total of 302 cobras and five Malayan box turtles were taken into the custody of wildlife officials who plan to release them into the wild later, Razond said.

Another 141 turtles were found dead.

He said two men were arrested for keeping animals that are protected under Malaysian law, an offence punishable by several years in jail.

Authorities were still investigating the case but the animals may have been destined for restaurants in Thailand, he added.

Malaysia has pledged to fight wildlife smuggling, which activists say is rampant in the Southeast Asian nation due to regional demand for exotic dishes, pets, or traditional medicines derived from animals. (AFP)

Ghanta Ghar clocks start ticking after 26 years

MULTAN/Pakistan, The three clocks of over a century old clock tower building have started ticking after decades of dysfunction, officials said.

Time is treasure and Multanites have started getting a sight of Pakistan Standard Time (PST) on the three big clocks.

Two clocks were made operational earlier this month and the third one on Tuesday last.

The clock tower building was built during the British rule, around 130 years ago.

An official said that he had been noticing these clocks dysfunctional since 1985, the year of his first posting in Multan.

Each clock has a five feet diameter. Their dial is original, however, the old traditional machinery behind has been replaced by electronic equipment powered by solar power. Needles have also been replaced by new ones. (APP)

Neglected zombies get their time in the shade

TOKYO: Zombies, the ugly cousin of more popular creatures such as werewolves and vampires, are experiencing a boost of fame that will finally get them some attention, according to Otto Penzler.

The editor of a recent anthology devoted solely to zombies believes they have been overlooked for too long.

"Vampires that we've seen from 'Dracula' to Anne Rice's Lestat, to the Stephenie Meyers characters -- they're well-dressed. They're articulate. They're educated. They have good manners. They just happen to have this little quirk of biting people in the neck and drinking their blood," Penzler said in a telephone interview.

"Zombies are really ugly; they don't look good in evening clothes. They're a different thing altogether. They're more extreme."

His anthology, "Zombies! Zombies! Zombies!" looks at zombie stories from as early as those by Edgar Allan Poe and Sheridan Le Fanu to tales published within the last two decades, including one by Stephen King.

But as Penzler read through hundreds of stories, he realized there had been a fundamental shift in how the creatures were perceived with 1968 and George Romero's iconic "Night of the Living Dead" as the turning point.

"I had to expand the common usage these days, which now means bloodthirsty risen from the dead, want to eat brains and human flesh," said the writer who has also worked on a collection of vampire tales.

"But that's not always what zombies were, they were simply dead people -- dead people brought back to life. So many of the stories in the book are about that kind of zombie, not just the gory, brain-eating terrorists."

He said the trend, especially in recent years, was for stories to become more bloody, more gory and more disgusting, but he tried to include a range of styles from the more subtle and meditative early tales to the modern ones full of fear and violence.

Pulp magazines of the mid-20th century were a key source for the tales, including often obscure publications.

"A lot of them are really scary, but without too much of watching the crunching of the skull, and the sucking out of the eyeballs and the brains," he said.

The number of zombie stories is limited because they are far less versatile than ghosts or vampires, and Penzler said that while the zombie boom is likely to continue for a while, it will eventually run its course.

What will be next? Perhaps werewolves or there will be a revival of interest in aliens. (REUTERS)

Popular tattooed Barbie causes controversy

NEW YORK: With pink hair and tattoos across her shoulders and neck, U.S. toymaker Mattel's latest collector's edition Barbie doll could be compared more to the edgy female heroine of author Stieg Larrson's best-selling Millennium trilogy than to the more traditional Barbies.

Since its release earlier this month online, the $50 (31 pound) limited edition doll designed by Los Angeles-based fashion company tokidoki and aimed at adult collectors, has sold out but not before causing controversy.

"Is the New 'Tokidoki' Tattoo Barbie Inappropriate for Children?" the magazine U.S. News & World Report asked in a recent headline.

Some parents in the United States also questioned whether the toy company that launched the original Barbie in 1959 should be promoting body art.

"It's teaching kids to want tattoos before they are old enough to dress like that," Kevin Buckner, of Virginia, told a local television station.

No one was available from Mattel to comment on the issue but not all the feedback has been negative. Some adults said the doll reflected modern fashion and pop culture.

"Have you seen Lady Gaga, Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry, Rihanna?" Candace Caswell, a 30-year-old mother from New York asked in an email interview, adding that the pop stars have tattoos and wear wigs and crazy clothes.

"They are capturing a snapshot of pop culture the way it really is. Barbie is not raising my daughter. I am," she added.

For Heather Gately Stoll, of Colorado, tattoos are not the issue.

"What is inappropriate for kids are her measurements," she said about the shapely doll. "If she can change personalities why can't she change her shape and size?"

And while New York mother Sue Dennis would not spend $50 on the doll, she is not offended by it.

"I have a 16 month-old son and the tokidoki Barbie is more the diverse image of women I would like to present to him versus more traditional ones," she said.

The tokidoki Barbie is not the first to sport tattoos. In 2009, some stores pulled Mattel's Totally Stylin' Tattoos Barbie following complaints, and a year earlier Mattel collaborated with motorcycle manufacturer Harley Davidson to produce a Barbie with wings tattooed on her back.

Production of tattooed Butterfly Art Barbie was halted in 1999 after parents voiced their concerns.

Gayatri Bhalla, 41, of Washington D.C, who writes a blog about experiences for tween girls, sees it as a marketing issue.

"One the one hand, the company likes to hold Barbie up as the iconic American toy for girls and use her to promote things that most parents wouldn't object to, such as Take Your Daughter To Work Day," she said.

"But they also create Barbie in images that a lot of parents wouldn't choose to hold up as a role model for their young daughters, and a full-body tattooed doll falls into this camp." (Reuters)

Millions of escaped bees shut down highway

SALT LAKE CITY: A flatbed truck carrying hundreds of beehives overturned near a construction zone on a Utah highway, freeing millions of bees and forcing authorities to temporarily close Interstate 15, officials said on Monday.

"The driver lost control, hit the concrete barrier and rolled over. Of course, we then had bees everywhere," said Corporal Todd Johnson with the Utah Highway Patrol.

The highway in southern Utah was shut down for several hours on Sunday evening and Monday morning, officials said.

Local beekeepers worked through the night to gather the escaped bees. Officials said there was a net over the beehives but bees still managed to escape after the truck overturned.

The truck driver and two law enforcement officers responding to the accident were stung by bees but the stings were not life-threatening, Johnson said.

"There were about 450 colonies on the load and probably about 45,000 bees to the colony," said Richard Adee with Adee Honey Farms in Bruce, South Dakota.

That would translate to more than 20 million bees.

Adee said the bees were headed to Bakersfield, California for almond pollination next spring.

"We stacked the equipment back together, put them back on trucks and trailers and whatever we could find to move them out of there," said beekeeper Melvin Taylor of Santa Clara, Utah.

"Then we tried to move them as far out of the metropolitan area as we could. Because when those bees come alive today they are going to be mad that their house is all (broken) apart," Taylor added.

Taylor said bees not gathered and removed likely perished in the accident and cleanup. (Reuters)

Nextdoor launches neighborhood social networks

SAN FRANCISCO: Internet startup Nextdoor launched a social network Wednesday designed to strengthen communities by connecting real world neighbors.

The US launch of Nextdoor.com was touted as a modern age variation on the town square or backyard fence where neighbors get to know each other and keep tabs on what was happening around their homes.

"Good things happen when people know their neighbors," Nextdoor co-founder and chief executive Nirav Tolia said while showing the service.

Nextdoor is free. The only caveat is that users must verify who they are and that they live in the real-world location that comports with the boundaries of the online neighborhood they wish to join.

"When you have a physical address, you have a high level of trust," Tolia said. "This way you can get to know your neighbors and, more than anything, bring back a sense of community."

Nextdoor has been in private test mode for less than a year and has already spread to more than 175 neighborhoods in 26 states.

"Nextdoor takes the best of social media, adds a spoonful of intimacy, and envelopes it in a blanket of privacy and comfort," said Anne Clauss, whose neighborhood in Hamilton, New York, staked out a place at the service.

The website layout is reminiscent of social networking king Facebook, but news feeds focus on local topics ranging from movie DVDs being given away or lost pets to recommendations for babysitters or ice cream shops.

"Nextdoor is the virtual backyard fence or front-porch conversations of years ago," said Verlinda Henning, part of the online version of her neighborhood in Memphis, Tennessee.

Maps atop Nextdoor pages show layouts of a neighborhoods, with green plots symbolizing members and red showing non-members. Members can click on any plot to see who lives there and have Nextdoor send them an invitation postcard.

"This is very similar to Facebook, but it is really your neighborhood identity," Tolia said.

"We heard users don't want to mix their social lives and local community lives. They want Facebook for friends and family, and a neighborhood."

He likened the model to that of LinkedIn, a thriving social network centered on advancing careers, jobs and business prospects.

"We need specific social networks for specific use cases," Tolia said. "If we put it all together into one social network, it is going to be overwhelming."

Being part of Nextdoor is free and the website doesn't post advertisements. The startup is focused on attracting users, expecting revenue will follow, likely in the form of working with local businesses.

Only those with passwords can get into the pages of a virtual neighborhood, and information can't be indexed by Google or other search engines, according to Nextdoor.

"Nextdoor is different from other networking sites because it was built from the ground up to help neighbors come together in a trusted environment," said board member Bill Gurley of Benchmark Capital, which is backing the startup.

"We have been blown away by the positive response to Nextdoor and believe it is a natural evolution of social networking." (AFP)

Serbian police recover two stolen Picasso paintings

BELGRADE: Serbian police have recovered two works by Pablo Picasso stolen from a Swiss cultural centre in 2008, police said on Wednesday.

The two oil-paintings "Tete de Cheval" from 1962 and "Verre et Pichet" from 1944, valued at 3.1 million euros ($4.3 million) in total, were discovered in a joint operation by Serbian and Swiss police, a police statement said.

The two paintings, one showing a horse's head in blues, greys and whites and the other a still life of a glass and pitcher in red and green, belong to the Sprengel museum in Hanover, Germany, but were stolen from the cultural centre in Pfaeffikon, near Zurich, while on loan in 2008.

Serbian authorities said an investigation into how the paintings came to be in Serbia and how they were hidden had been launched. (AFP)

Future planes could travel five times speed of sound

LONDON: The passenger plane of the future could travel at five times the speed of sound, according to a report published in British newspaper.

According to the British daily, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IME) in its report said state-of-the-art technology will allow airlines to travel in a V-shaped group formation similar to migrating geese by the end of the century.

The report adds that, regardless of the aircraft type, passenger jets could save on fuel by flying in formation and following in each others' slipstream. A "blended wing" shape, where the wing and fuselage meld into one, will also make the planes more fuel-efficient and aerodynamic, the IME claims.

5,000 have breakfast together in Australia

SYDNEY: More than five thousand people had breakfast together Sunday  October 23, 2011 morning on Sydney’s Bondi Beach. The famous Australian beach transformed into the biggest breakfast table in the world.

An orchestra even played classical music throughout the meal.
Sydney holds the huge breakfast party every year, as part of the annual October "Sydney International Food Festival."