‘It was amazingly cool that I was going to live abroad’

I was surprised when I first heard about the Generation Emigration series in The Irish Times , because Irish people have always emigrated, regardless of the economic circumstances. Ireland is small, and opportu-nities in certain industries will always be limited due to its geographic location and population size.

I knew from the very beginning of my degree in fashion design that I would probably have to emigrate, because the industry is so small in Ireland. After my graduation, I spent a year travelling and a year working in the Dell factory in Limerick to save some money, before I left Ireland for an internship with Gaspard Yurkievich, a fashion designer in Paris. It was 2006 then, the middle of the boom.

I worked for seven months for that company without pay. It was a really exciting introduction to the fashion industry, working in one of the most fashion-forward cities in the world, and participating in Paris fashion week from the inside.

When that internship came to an end, it took a while to find paid employment. I worked for free for a website and then for another designer, but I wasn’t happy in the job.

I did some freelance work, taking photos of window displays and street fashion in Paris but the work was irregular and it wasn’t enough money to survive on. There were many times when I felt like giving up and going home, but I knew I had to keep at it.

Unpaid work is something that is expected in this business. Now, people are complaining about the widespread exploitation of young people through unpaid internships, and while I don’t agree with the practice, graduates in professions like mine have always been expected to do it.

I eventually landed a job as a copywriter in a trend forecasting agency. It was a shift away from what I thought I wanted to do, but it was a good job, and still in the fashion industry.

Last year, the company decided to move its offices to London. After four years in Paris, I was ready to move on, so the relocation was a

great opportunity for me to start again in a new place without having to organise everything myself.

I now work with a 30-strong team of 13 different nationalities. I live with a German and a Norwegian and I have friends from all over the world. I feel privileged to be afforded the opportunity to explore different cultures and to meet lots of different people at a time when it is acceptable, even desirable to be Irish.

In the past few weeks, I have been to a Premier League football match and a West End musical after work. There is so much to do here in London, and the Olympics are only a few months away, which will be really exciting.

As an emigrant, I have the best of both worlds. I can come home quite frequently while still maintaining a very vibrant life in London. I miss my friends and family, and the Irish countryside, and I would like to go back to live there eventually, but for the moment it wouldn’t make sense, career-wise.

Over the past few decades, many Irish people have gone abroad for a short time and come back, but now there seems to be this mass panic that emigration is more definite and you won’t be able to come back if you leave. I think it is hysteria; things are not the same as they were in the 1950s, and switching careers and working in several different countries is now more commonplace. Flights are cheap, and people can keep in closer contact with home through Skype and the internet.

My younger brother is 23, and a lot of his friends are in Australia. I wasn’t much older when I emigrated, and everybody thought it was amazingly cool that I was going to live abroad. His friends are young, they don’t have mortgages or kids, and they are looking at the move as an adventure. Instead of affording them the same excitement I had, people are viewing their circumstances as tragic examples of the economic fallout. Suddenly, we have forgotten about the positive aspects of emigration.

Latvians reject Russian as national language

RIGA: Latvian voters resoundingly rejected a proposal to give official status to Russian, the mother tongue of their former Soviet occupiers, though the defeated referendum Saturday is expected to leave scars on an already divided society. Russian is the first language for about one-third of the Baltic country's 2.1 million people, and many of them would like to accord official status to the language to reverse what they claim has been 20 years of discrimination. But for ethnic Latvians, the referendum was a brazen attempt to encroach on Latvia's independence, which was restored two decades ago after a half-century of occupation by the Soviet Union following World War II. Many Latvians still consider Russian “the lingua franca of the Soviet Union” as the language of the former occupiers. They also harbor deep mistrust toward Russia and worry that Moscow attempts to wield influence in Latvia through the ethnic Russian minority. “Latvia is the only place throughout the world where Latvian is spoken, so we have to protect it,” said Martins Dzerve, 37, in Riga, Latvia's capital. But Russian is everywhere. With over 93 percent of ballots counted, 75 percent of voters said they were against Russian as a national language, according to the Central

Election Commission results. However, in the eastern region of Latgale, which straddles the border with Russia, a majority of voters approved changing the constitution to make Russian a national language. The region is Latvia's poorest and has a high percentage of ethnic Russians and other minorities.  “Society is divided into two classes, one half has full rights, and the other half's rights are violated,” said Aleksejs Yevdokimovs, 36. “The Latvian half always employs a presumption of guilt toward the Russian half, so that we have to prove things that shouldn't need to be proven,” he said. The referendum sparked high voter participation, with more than 70 percent of registered voters casting ballots, considerably higher more than in previous elections and referendums. Long lines were seen at many precincts both in Latvia and abroad, with voters in London reportedly braving a three-hour wait. In Chicago, Mara Varpa, 57, said she voted against the proposal since Latvian is an integral part of the national identity and should therefore remain the sole official language. “I don't think there should have been a referendum to begin with because it's already in the constitution, but since there was I had to vote,” Varpa said. Though the Russians who spearheaded the

referendum admitted they had no chance at winning the plebiscite, they at least hope the approximate 25 percent of support will force Latvia's center-right government to begin a dialogue with national minorities. Hundreds of thousands of Russians, Belarussians and Ukrainians moved to Latvia and the neighboring Baltic republics during the population transfers of the Soviet regime. Many of them never learned Latvian and were denied citizenship when Latvia regained independence, meaning they don't have the right to vote or work in government.  According to the current law, anyone who moved to Latvia during the Soviet occupation, or was born to parents who moved there, is considered a noncitizen and must pass the Latvian language exam in order to become a citizen. There are approximately 300,000 noncitizens in Latvia. Politicians and analysts said the plebiscite will widen the schism in society and that the government will have to undertake serious efforts to consolidate the country's two groups. Many fear the disgruntled minority will keep up the pressure by calling for more referendums to change Latvia's constitution for minorities' benefit.

Oxford University receives £26m donation

The donation was made by Mica Ertegun, the widow of Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun, and will be used to set up humanities scholarships for graduate students. The Mica and Ahmet Ertegun Graduate Scholarship Programme in the Humanities will see students worldwide compete for an award to study subjects including literature, history, music, art history, Asian studies, Middle Eastern studies and archaeology. There will be 15 scholarships to start with, and eventually at least 35 will be awarded each year.

Mrs Ertegun said: "For Ahmet and for me, one of the great joys of life has been the study of history, music, languages, literature, art and archaeology. In these times, when there is so much strife in the world, I believe it is tremendously important to support those things that endure across time, that bind people together from every culture, and that enrich the capacity of human beings to understand one another and make the world a more humane place."

The donation is the biggest made to the humanities faculty in Oxford's history, and one of the largest overall. Oxford's vice-chancellor Andrew Hamilton said it was a "significant moment" for the study of the humanities.

"At a time when, in the UK, government support for the humanities is under intense pressure, vision and generosity like this is going to be what saves the field for future generations," he said.

Alongside the scholarships, the donation will fund a full-time Ertegun Senior Scholar in Residence who will mentor those on the scholarship scheme, and oversee a programme of lectures, seminars, concerts and other activities. The students will have exclusive use of the Mica and Ahmet Ertegun House for the Study of the Humanities, a building in the centre of Oxford which will serve as their base for study and research.

“Already we’ve had over 1,000 applicants,” Mrs Ertegun says. “Can you imagine? Ahmet was Turkish. I’m Romanian. And I think the more you mix different people, the more you

get a little further. I would be interested to get as many people as possible from outside England. I would love to see people coming from Afghanistan, the Middle East, Africa – Muslims, Christians, all races and creeds.” She adds that she will not be party to the selection process. “It’s the Oxford people who decide that. I can’t judge how much somebody knows, because I probably know less. We were very, very comfortable. I have no children. What else am I going to do – buy diamonds? A lot of people give money to hospitals and so on, but to me this is more interesting.”

Mrs Ertegun is a droll, purposeful and immaculately groomed woman with a guttural mittel-European accent undiminished by having lived for more than 60 years in North America. Her father, George, was a doctor, a minister in the court of the Romanian royal family, who was imprisoned when the Communists took over the country in 1947. At his insistence, to secure her safe passage from the country, Mica married an aristocrat, Stefan Grecianu. She was just 16; her husband was 31. They arrived in Switzerland penniless, making their way first to Paris, where Mica worked briefly as a model for Dior, and then to Canada, where – somewhat improbably – they bought a farm on the shores of Lake Ontario with a loan from a friend. In 1960, she travelled to New York, in an attempt to lobby for the release of her father, who was dying of cancer. Her efforts failed. He would die in prison. But at a dinner, she was introduced to Ahmet Ertegun.

The impetus for the gift was unusual. In 2007, Led Zeppelin reunited for the first time in 27 years to play at London’s 02 Arena in tribute to Ahmet Ertegun. Ahmet had signed the group to the Atlantic label in 1968, at a time when they were playing to audiences of 300 people in clubs. By the time they disbanded in 1980, they had sold more than 300 million records around the world. To honour Ertegun, the group donated $2.5 million of the revenues from the concert to

Mrs Ertegun for an education fund in her husband’s name. The money was divided, with some going to Ertegun’s alma mater, St John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland, and £1

million to Oxford to fund two scholarships in perpetuity – the seed for the Graduate Scholarship Programme in the Humanities.

Father collapses in Toys R Us after UK’s most poisonous spider bites him ten times

A father has told how the UK’s most dangerous spider bit him ten times while shopping for toys with his daughter. Chris Galton, 31, collapsed after the false widow spider repeatedly bit into his back and neck at the Toys R Us store in Hampshire on Saturday afternoon. The exotic creature is believed to have nestled in his hooded top after dropping from a bush near his home in Southampton. It wasn’t until hours later when he was shopping in the toy store with his wife, Zoe, and his one-year-old daughter, Imogen, that the poison started to take effect. Suddenly feeling unwell, Mr Galton collapsed to the floor. He was rushed to hospital where doctors discovered the ten 50-pence-sized marks on his body. The father-of-one was given painkillers and was released the same day.

Speaking about the horrifying ordeal, Mr Galton said: “The bite was like a really sharp pin-prick and very painful. The next thing I knew I was feeling hot, queasy and light-headed and collapsed. “I had been stung earlier but assumed it was a bee and took some anti-histamine pills. I didn’t think any more of it until I was shopping for my daughter’s first birthday and felt more stings.” A store worker said: "It was a very scary big spider. I’ve never see one like it before.” The eight-legged attacker, which is closely-related to the black widow and originates from the Canary Islands, was eventually caught in the store and sent for formal identification. Mr Galton added: “I’m just thankful it never jumped out and got on to my daughter.”

Deaf couple 'too noisy'

A deaf couple in Germany has been forced to move out of their flat after being deemed too noisy by neighbours. Mike Dumrose and Natascha Neitzel – who were both completely unable to hear from birth - communicate predominantly through the medium of sign language but enjoyed feeling vibrations on their walls and floors when they play loud

music in their apartment. After neighbours complained about their noisy antics, the couple were so devastated to learn they had caused a problem that they packed up all of their belongings and reportedly set up a tent in a local park. Landlord Achim Hengesbach said: "They're too loud. The other renters have constantly complained."

Meet the Mizo man who has 39 wives and 94 children!

LONDON: A man from the Baktawng village in the Indian state of Mizoram is said to have 'The World's Biggest Family' with 39 wives, 94 children, 14 daughter-in-laws and 33 grandchildren. Ziona Chana, who is also head of a sect that allows members to take as many wives as they want, doesn't at all appear to be fazed by the size of his apparently happy family and doesn't claim any benefits for their upkeep. Although Chana's home is a 100-room, four-storey house set in the hills of the village, some of his wives sleep top-to-tail in

communal dormitories, and the family compound has its own school, playground, carpentry workshops, piggery, poultry farms and a vegetable garden big enough to supply the whole family. The dinner for 'The World's Biggest Family' is usually 30 chickens, 132lb of potatoes and 220lb of rice. "I feel like God's special child. He's given me so many people to look after," the Daily Mail quoted Chana as saying. "I consider myself a lucky man to be the husband of 39 women and head of the world's largest family," he said. The family is

organised with almost military discipline, with the oldest wife Zathiangi, 69, drawing up schedules for her fellow partners to take turns performing household chores such as cleaning, washing and preparing meals. Chana keeps the youngest women near to his bedroom with the older members of the family sleeping further

away, and there is a rotation system for who visits his bedroom. Chana, whose polygamous religious sect has 4,000 members, says he has not stopped looking for new wives. "To expand my sect, I am willing to go even to the U.S. to marry," he added. 

The tattoos that tattoo artists love and hate

More people have more tattoos in more places than ever before.  If you're considering getting inked, choosing the design is now the hardest part, and we've spoken to some of the world's top tattoo artists to find out more about the tattoos they love and the ones they're not so keen on. Tribal feuds. "I'm not a big fan of doing Tribal work and cover ups," says top tattoo artist  Louis Molloy, the star of TV show London Ink." Also, because of some of the work I've done on celebrities, I've gained a good reputation for doing religious-themed work but I feel that I've done so much over the past years that it no longer holds the same appeal. I most often get requests for religious-inspired work, not because people are overtly religious but more that they like the 'look'." Colour codes. Indeed, while that Celtic cross or tribal etching may have seemed like a good idea at the time, in ten years time will you really feel the same?  The colour, position and size of your tattoo will all affect the ease with which it can be removed, if, God forbid, you decide that your visit to the tattoo parlour was one you'd rather forget. Part of the reason more people are opting to get inked is the wider range of colours available - black is no longer the only option. The bad news? "Red, green and blue are the hardest colours to remove from a tattoo," says Louis. "The reason for this is that the current laser technology works on the light spectrum. These colours are the ones that the laser has trouble "seeing" because the wavelengths of the colour spectrum are all different and most lasers can only work at certain wavelengths. It may seem strange but black is the easiest colour to remove." The name game. It pays to be equally cautious when it comes to names. You may well have met his parents, moved into his house and even snuck your make up into his bathroom cabinet, but is a permanent piece of body art really the best way to declare your undying love for your other half? If things turn sour, the tattoo will be a painful reminder of a failed relationship. This doesn't just mean tattoos of his name either. "Any form of "love" declaration should not be taken lightly," warns Louis. "Even if it's some form of cryptic image, if the couple split up there will always be a reminder." So what type of tattoo does Louis love to do most? "My favourite style of work is Japanese because the

designs work very well on the body - I'm currently looking at work that was done in the Meiji period of art in Japan (1860 - 1912). This was the time when the art in Japan was a big influence to artists and I'm trying to create works that come somewhere in between the two worlds." No pain, no gain. We all have different pain thresholds, but when it comes to tattoos, those with lower ones might consider avoiding certain areas, although Louis admits that there are also those who love the endorphin-induced high they experience while getting a tattoo done. "Generally, bony areas are the most painful to work on. However, no tattoo could ever be described as painless - for the most part the pain is bearable and sometimes with the release of endorphins people will often describe the experience as pleasurable." If you've got a friend with multiple tattoos, there's a good chance the following thought has popped into your head as you've admired his or her body art: "But what about when you get old?" In reality, no tattoo is going to stay the same, whether it's due to pregnancy, weight gain or loss or age-related sagging, but them again, if you truly love your tattoo, the fact that it's changed shape slightly probably won't be too much of a concern. "I think the truth is that most old people who are tattooed couldn't care less because the tattoos become a part of you," says Louis. "If you're worried about this, areas to avoid would be breasts and the stomach on men and women. The best places would be the arms and shoulder blades." What to consider before you get inked. For the same reasons, it's also worth avoiding tattoos which express personal opinion (you may well currently love the Wanted, but will you really feel the same when you're ninety?). Remember that the tattoo artist wielding the needle is there to create your desired tattoo, and isn't obliged to tell you that you might be about to make the worst decision of your life. "Extreme tattoos being done are down to the discretion of the artists," says Louis. "We are supposed to live in a free society where people can express their views or opinions however they wish but doing it as a tattoo is not always a wise thing to do. Just because a tattooist does this kind of work does not mean that they agree with the views in question."

How many friends is enough?

He’s adored by women, envied by men and boasts a celebrity lifestyle others can only dream of. Yet as David Beckham confesses he can count his true friends on less than one hand, the question poses itself: how many pals do we actually need? This week, the footballer revealed in an interview with US Men’s Health: “I’ve got three really good friends. It’s all you need. I’d rather have three really good friends than 20 good friends.” It comes just months after fellow global heartthrob Justin Timberlake confessed his best friend was a childhood school chum, adding: “I grew up in a small town and I could count my friends on one hand and I still live that way.”

So when most of us might boast we have mates into the triple figures on Facebook, an army more on Linkedin and still others swilling about on Twitter, what’s the truth about our real friendships and do we really need many to be content in life? According to Professor Robin Dunbar, head of Oxford University’s Institute of Anthropology, the maximum number of people with whom we can realistically hold personal relationships is 150 – a limit set “by the size of our brains”. But these will include relatives and casual acquaintances – plus people on your Christmas card list that you don’t speak to from year to year. As for intimate friends, most of us will boast only five – a number backed by an old Portugese proverb: “You only have five true friends, and the rest is landscape.”

Says Prof Dunbar: “Although there has been a fashion for competitively adding 'friends' to one's social network internet site… most exchanges are directed at the small inner core. “This seems to be because, ultimately, relationships survive only if you reinforce them by occasional face-to-face contacts.”

A recent study from Cornell University, meanwhile, is more conservative still: it claims that, these days, most of us have just two dearest confidants. Its author, Jim Brown, says this is not a cause for alarm but simply a sign that we are careful about classifying which friendships are “suitable for important discussions”. It doesn’t mean we are any less social, he insists – just that we reserve our deepest confidences for a very few closest chums.

Mark Vernon, author of The Philosophy of Friendship, agrees that the term “friend” may cover a whole host of relationships, but good friends are

rarer. “Aristotle said friends must have eaten salt together and what he meant is there's a sense that people have lived a significant part of their life together. They've sat down and shared meals and the ups and downs of life. "You really have to have mulled over things with them to become really good friends and there's only so many people you can do that with.” Vernon adds that we are often too fixated with the number of friends we have: "Ask yourself about the quality of your friendships, not about the quantity."

According to the Stanford Encyclopaedia, friendship is a “distinctively personal relationship that is grounded in a concern on the part of each friend for the welfare of the other, for the other's sake, and that involves some degree of intimacy”. The reality is that most of us have successive ‘circles’ of friends – the inner core of people we can call on day or night, then friends we socialise fairly regularly with, then colleagues and casual pals, and on the outer fringes acquaintances and people we stay in only sporadic contact with. Surveys show that our number of friendships peak at the age of 21 – typically with 13 ‘best’ friends, 17 ‘close’ friends and 70 acquaintances. Plus the average 22-year-old claims to have as many as 1,000 friends on social networking sites. But as we get older we tend to become more selective about the people we let in to our inner circle: often friends slip by the wayside simply because lives diverge and the demands of work and family life mean less time to maintain all our relationships. Some studies show that as men and women age they lose tolerance for friendships that “must” be maintained out of social responsibility – and those friendships that have not deepened into closer connections are often shed. That doesn’t mean that friendship gets less important as we get older, however: research suggests that the less time people in their 60s, 70s and 80s spend engaged in social activity the faster their physical decline. In fact, one study by Australian scientists found that having and maintaining a strong network of friends could help people over 70 to live longer. The moral of the story? Don’t get hung up on totting up your Facebook friends – but spend time nurturing the handful or so of relationships with people you can really confide in. David Beckham may be right.

New amphibian family found in northeast India

Researchers digging through mud in north-east India have discovered a new family  of legless amphibians in a rare scientific break-through detailed in a study released on Wednesday. The family of burrowing, tailless creatures was identified by scientists working for five years in remote Indian states including Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland.

"DNA analysis has confirmed that this is an entirely new family,"S.D. Biju, a professor at the University of Delhi who led the project with team members from Britain and Belgium, told AFP. "Habitat destruction is a big problem for amphibians worldwide, and discoveries like this prove that we must protect the environment to save parts of the natural world we know little about," he said.

Biju said that it had been a challenging physical job digging with spades at 250 locations looking for the worm-like creatures, which are about 20 centimetres (eight inches) long and often 25 centimetres deep into the earth. The new family, the 10th from the caecilian group of amphibians, has been called Chikilidae after the name used by the local Garo tribal language. "This discovery has shown that northeast India is uniquely rich in wildlife and eco-systems," said Biju. "We have to understand more about the region."

One threat to harmless amphibians in India is from locals who kill them believing they are venomous snakes, the study said. The findings have published by the Royal Society of London journal Proceedings B.

99-year-old man files for divorce over wife's 1940s affair

LONDON: An Italian couple in their 90s will become the world's oldest divorcees, after the husband found out about an affair his wife had in the 1940s. The 99-year-old man, identified by lawyers only as Antonio C, was going through an old chest of drawers when he made the discovery about his 96-year-old wife of 77 years, named as Rosa C. He immediately confronted her and demanded a divorce. She reportedly confessed to everything but was unable to persuade him to reconsider his decision. According to court papers released in Rome this week, Rosa C wrote the letters to her lover during a secret affair in the 1940s, the Telegraph reported. The couple is now preparing to split, despite the ties they forged

for nearly eight decades - they have five children, a dozen grandchildren and one great-grand child. The couple met during the 1930s when Antonio was posted as a young Carabinieri officer to Naples. The discovery of the letters was the final straw for a marriage which had already run into difficulty - 10 years ago the husband briefly left their house in Rome and moved in with one of his sons, only to return a few weeks later. The case appears to set a new record, at least for the age of the oldest protagonist - the previous oldest couple to divorce were Bertie and Jessie Wood, both aged 98, from the UK. The pair ended their 36-year marriage in 2009 when they were both two years away from their 100th birthdays.

Women tell 468 diet lies a year

LONDON: A woman tells 468 lies a year about what she has eaten, how much she has eaten and how much she drank, a new study has found out. The study, commissioned by Timex, found that she lies about her diet nine times per week. Common classic lies include: 'It was only a small portion', after consuming a large dish or 'I'll have a big lunch so I won't eat much after this', when in fact they know they will, the Daily Express reported. Others to be wheeled out regularly include 'I only treat myself once in a blue moon', while munching on treats all day, and 'I always eat my five-a-day'. The study was conducted to launch Timex's Health Tracker watch, designed to help people to enter calories consumed into a daily food diary and show how many - or how few - are burnt off throughout the day.

Foreigners not knowing English clear driving tests in Britain

LONDON: Over 10,000 people of various nationalities have cleared driving tests in Britain without having knowledge of basic English, according to government documents. Documents obtained by the Daily Express under the Freedom of Information Act showed that the 10,330 learner drivers passed the test with interpreters sitting in the back seat relaying instructions in their native tongue. Even though such foreign drivers are not capable of reading instructions written in English on road signs, ministers say they may be powerless to force a change because of human rights legislation. The theory part of the test is now translated into 19 languages,

allowing thousands of foreigners without a proper grasp of English to take the tests. Transport minister Mike Penning said: "I find it incredible that Labour (the previous government) thought it was a good idea to let people without basic English loose on our roads. Road safety should be our priority, not political correctness." One driving instructor said it was possible for an interpreter to give a learner hints and advice in their own language. "I suppose it wouldn't be impossible for the translator to add on the word 'mirror' or 'signal' after every instruction, without the examiner knowing," he said.

5 most annoying Facebook habits

Don’t get us wrong, we love Facebook, but there’s some status updates and online interaction with friends that really wind us up. Whether you’re single or in a relationship, avoid these callous Facebook traits or risk being de-friended. 1. The gushing couple. Not content with being in a happy and stable relationship, this couple feel the need to rub our noses in it on a daily basis by posting gag making status updates like: “I woke up next to the most beautiful woman in the world this morning. My wife. I am the luckiest man alive.” Seeing as he woke up next to her, couldn’t he have just told her that himself without making the rest of us feel queasy? Worse still, she responds with “David darling, I’m the lucky one. You’re amazing.” And so on ad nauseum. De-friend.2. The bitter venter. “That’s it, I’m giving up on women, they’re all crazy.” “All men are liars. Prove me wrong.” Okay so it sounds like they’re not having much luck on the dating and relationships front at the moment, but venting about it on Facebook isn’t going to help their cause much. There’s just no excuse for bad mouthing an entire gender. Besides, have they not realised they’ve just alienated around half of their friends? 3. Baby bore. Pregnancy and parenting is an amazing and wonderous journey apparently, but we’re really not sure what we supposed to

say when someone posts a photo of their 12 week old foetus in utero. It just looks like some fuzzy white blobs on a black background to us. Worse still, we’re already bracing ourselves for what’s to come. Endless photos of baby’s first everything. Yawn. And crowing posts about how motherhood is the best job in the world without a thought for any friends who may have not have met the right person yet, are having trouble conceiving or who just aren’t into babies. Thanks but no thanks. 4. Bridezilla. “3 sleeps until the big day.” “Spa day for me and the bridesmaids – woo hooo!” “Excited about dress fitting tonight!!” “Honeymoon in the Carribean or Greece? Any advice?” Hey, is someone getting married then? We’d never have guessed. We hope you have a lovely day and everything but spare a thought for those of us who are single and stop flaunting the upcoming nuptials in our news feed please.  5. The bragger. “Cocktails on the beach tonight with my hot new Brazillian boyfriend. I knew this gap year was a good idea!” Thanks very much. While we’re slaving over a hot computer with the heating turned up to max, they’re off living it up somewhere hot and sandy with the beautiful people. Call us petty, but we don’t wanna hear about it unless we’re invited. It just serves to highlight everything that’s wrong with our own lives.

Dead for 32,000 Years, an Arctic Plant Is Revived

This would be the oldest plant by far that has ever been grown from ancient tissue. The present record is held by a date palm grown from a seed some 2,000 years old that was recovered from the ancient fortress of Masada in Israel. Seeds and certain cells can last a long term under the right conditions, but many claims of extreme longevity have failed on closer examination, and biologists are likely to greet this claim, too, with reserve until it can be independently confirmed. Tales of wheat grown from seeds in the tombs of the pharaohs have long been discredited. Lupines were germinated from seeds in a 10,000-year-old lemming burrow found by a gold miner in the Yukon. But the seeds, later dated by the radiocarbon method, turned out to be modern contaminants. Despite this unpromising background, the new claim is supported by a firm radiocarbon date. A similar avenue of inquiry into the deep past, the field of ancient DNA, was at first discredited after claims of retrieving dinosaur DNA proved erroneous, but with improved methods has produced spectacular results like the reconstitution of the Neanderthal genome. The new report is by a team led by Svetlana Yashina and David Gilichinsky of the Russian Academy of Sciences research center at Pushchino, near Moscow, and appears in Tuesday’s issue of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. “This is an amazing breakthrough,” said Grant Zazula of the Yukon Paleontology Program at Whitehorse in Yukon Territory, Canada. “I have no doubt in my mind that this is a legitimate claim.” It was Dr. Zazula who showed that the apparently ancient lupine seeds found by the Yukon gold miner were in fact modern.But the Russians’ extraordinary report is likely to provoke calls for more proof. “It’s beyond the bounds of what we’d expect,” said Alastair Murdoch, an expert on seed viability at the University of Reading in England. When poppy seeds are kept at minus 7 degrees Celsius, the temperature the Russians reported for the campions, after only 160 years just 2 percent of the seeds will be able to germinate, Dr. Murdoch noted. The Russian researchers excavated ancient squirrel burrows exposed on the bank of the lower Kolyma River, an area thronged with mammoth and woolly rhinoceroses during the last ice age. Soon after being dug, the burrows were sealed with windblown earth, buried under 125 feet of sediment and permanently frozen at minus 7 degrees Celsius. Some of the storage chambers in the burrows contain more than 600,000 seeds and fruits. Many are from a species that most closely resembles a plant found today, the narrow-leafed campion (Silene stenophylla). Working with a burrow from the site called Duvanny Yar, the Russian researchers tried to germinate the campion seeds, but failed. They then took cells from the placenta, the organ in the fruit that produces the seeds. They thawed

out the cells and grew them in culture dishes into whole plants. Many plants can be propagated from a single adult cell, and this cloning procedure worked with three of the placentas, the Russian researchers report. They grew 36 ancient plants, which appeared identical to the present day narrow-leafed campion until they flowered, when they produced narrower and more splayed-out petals. Seeds from the ancient plants germinated with 100 percent success, compared with 90 percent for seeds from living campions.The Russian team says it obtained a radiocarbon date of 31,800 years from seeds attached to the same placenta from which the living plants were propagated. The researchers suggest that special circumstances may have contributed to the remarkable longevity of the campion plant cells. Squirrels construct their larders next to permafrost to keep seeds cool during the arctic summers, so the fruits would have been chilled from the start. The fruit’s placenta contains high levels of sucrose and phenols, which are good antifreeze agents. The Russians measured the ground radioactivity at the site, which can damage DNA, and say the amount of gamma radiation the campion fruit accumulated over 30,000 years is not much higher than that reported for a 1,300-year-old sacred lotus seed, from which a plant was successfully germinated. The Russian article was edited by Buford Price of the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Price, a physicist, chose two reviewers to help him. But neither he nor they are plant biologists. “I know nothing about plants,” he said. Ann Griswold, a spokeswoman for the National Academy of Sciences, said the paper had been seen by an editorial board member who is a plant biologist. Tragedy has now struck the Russian team. Dr. Gilichinksy, its leader, was hospitalized with an asthma attack and unable to respond to questions, his daughter Yana said on Friday. On Saturday, Dr. Price reported that Dr. Gilichinsky had died of a heart attack. Eske Willerslev, an expert on ancient DNA at the University of Copenhagen, said the finding was “plausible in principle,” given the conditions in permafrost. But the claim depends on the radiocarbon date being correct: “It’s all resting on that — if there’s something wrong there it can all fall part.” If the ancient campions are the ancestors of the living plants, this family relationship should be evident in their DNA. Dr. Willerslev said that the Russian researchers should analyze the DNA of their specimens and prove that this is the case. However, this is not easy to do with plants whose genetics are not well studied, Dr. Willerslev said. If the claim is true, then scientists should be able to study evolution in real time by comparing the ancient and living campions. Possibly other ancient species can be resurrected from the permafrost, including plants that have long been extinct.

The Bouffant is back

Popular in New York - and then the rest of the world in the 1960s - a bouffant is a style, where the hair is pushed back in a large bulge at the back of the head, and styled to look extremely straight. 

The hairdo is meant specially to give volume to your hair and was extremely popular among working women about 50 years ago. This was because a bouffant was a good way of having a professional hairstyle, without losing out on femininity. Women who wore this style  back then used to spend hours trying to position their hair perfectly. They used to sleep with curlers in their hair so that the bouffant would be nearly ready to go in the morning when they woke up. To preserve the style they achieved in the beauty salon, women would wrap toilet paper around their heads before bedtime. They purchased satin pillows to allow their hair to "slide" on the pillow and not crumple it. The windows were never rolled down in the car, and heaven forbid should you be asked to attend a beach party! 

Bouffant to bee hive

Around 1964, high school girls took the bouffant to new heights with the 'bee hive'. Girls would set their hair every night in huge rollers with a gel solution called Dippity Do. Hairpieces were added to the beehive to make it even bigger. Pastiches, 'cascades' and 'falls' were worn with adornment to add a quick fix. Synthetic hair surfaced in the US and was named Dynel. In 1966, a big fashion craze was to blend a Dynel with your hair and have a hairstylist braid it,

wound it around a stuffing, or pin it to the top of the head. 

Marie Antoinette's contribution

The bouffant was originally styled for the (in)famous queen of France, Marie Antoinette, because she didn't think her hair had enough volume and it made her look like someone from a lower social class. Since then, the bouffant has been in and out of style. 

Types of bouffants:

- Bouffant hairstyles can only really differ in terms of volume, length, and front-end styling. - You could opt for a rigid fringe, a centre-parting or a more swept-back look. - It's also worth considering how much volume you want in your hair. It's perfectly possible to create a bouffant style without having huge swathes of hair at the back; it's more about the contrast between the front and back of your hair. - This can be done by not blowing your hair so hard when you dry it, since this is where the volume is mainly added. - You could choose to have fairly short hair and then try to turn it into a bouffant style. This will not give you a full-blown look, but will look much more contemporary and is more suited to our times. - While we're used to seeing an extremely rigid bouffant with every single hair perfectly positioned, this isn't completely necessary, and you can use it as a sort of semi-bouffant style. 

Man fled jail only to be caught 15 years later in China

BEIJING: A man who escaped from a jail in China by tunnelling his way out with bare hands has been nabbed after nearly 15 years, police said. Li Junlin, 41, was arrested after his location was traced by tapping the phone of a relative in Hebei province. He had escaped from jail in 1997 by tunnelling 13 metres, police said. He was residing with his wife and four children in the northwestern city of Yan'an, reported Xinhua. He had been arrested in December 1996 as part a 13-member gang that police say had committed 22 armed robberies, one murder and over ten burglaries and rapes. Four of the gang members were

later convicted and executed. In January 1997, Li was being held in a detention cell in handcuffs and shackles awaiting trial with 10 other inmates, one of whom used to be a miner. Police said the 11, using only their bare hands, dug a 13-metre tunnel from the corner of the cell to outside of the prison walls in just one night. While 10 fugitives were held within three months, Li managed to elude police for nearly 15 years. Li said he changed his name and worked at a quarry. Eventually, he made his way to Yan'an where he married a local woman and started a family.

Indian with 39 wives, 94 kids is the strangest story of 2011

WASHINGTON: An Indian man with 39 wives, 94 children and 33 grandchildren, all living under one roof, holds the numero uno position in Ripley's Believe It or Not top 11 strangest stories for this year. Ripley's Believe It or Not! is considered to be the authority on all things odd, amazing and unusual. The annual list of the strangest stories of the year was released by it on Thursday. Topping the list if 11 strange stories, is the story reported by London  based The Telegraph, about Ziona Chana, who lives in a four storeyed building with 100 rooms in a mountainous village in Mizoram state, sharing borders with Burma and Bangladesh. "It's a safe bet that Ziona Chana would not be impressed watching '19 Kids and Counting' or 'Sister Wives' The 66

year old Indian man has 39 wives, 94 children and 33 grandchildren," said Ripley's Believe It or Not in a statement. "I once married 10 women in one year," Mr. Chana is quoted as saying by The Telegraph. According to the daily, Mr. Chana met his oldest wife, who is three years older than he is, when he was 17. Other strangest stories include 'implanting organs in the name of art'; 'Liechtenstein for Hire at $ 70,000 a Night'; 'Blind Dog Gets Own Guide Dog'; 'Cemetery Collector with 29 Bodies Arrested'; 'Alabama Company Turns Gun Lovers' Ashes into Ammunition' and 'Mexican Vampire Woman Maria Jose Cristerna Immortalized in Wax by Ripley's' among others.

Pen removed from woman's tummy after 25 years

LONDON: An elderly woman in Britain had a pen stuck in her stomach for 25 years. The 76-year-old accidentally swallowed the felt-tip pen in the 1980s when using it to hold down her tongue while checking her tonsils in a mirror, Daily Express reported Thursday. But no one believed her at the time because hospital scans revealed nothing and she completely forgot about it. The plastic pen was removed when she went to see a gastrointestinal specialist after suffering from

severe stomach pains, weight loss and diarrhoea. She had surgery under general anaesthetic and doctors were amazed when they removed the undamaged pen and it was still in full working order, the newspaper said. It had not left any internal damage, and medics later discovered that her symptoms were actually being caused by severe diverticulitis. The discovery came to light after doctors from the gastroenterology department

at the Royal Devon & submitted a report to the British Medical Journal.

Man seeks driving licence despite 92 failures

LONDON: A man has proved himself to be probably the worst learner driver in Britain by failing in driving theory tests for a staggering 92 times. The 28-year-old from Leicester city has not even been behind the wheel of a car for his practical test yet because he keeps flunking the theory exam, the Sun reported. He has also coughed up nearly 3,000 pounds (about $4,700) in his unending struggle during

the hour-long theory test. But he is not willing to give up - yet. The 31-pounds-an-hour test includes multiple-choice questions about road rules, plus a hazard-perception test where participants have to spot developing road dangers on a driving video. As per rule, he cannot take the practical test until he passes the theory exam.

Chinese youths hire dates to please parents

BEIJING: The best gift a Chinese bachelor thinks he can take home for parents is a bride-to-be. Under parents' pressure to marry, many young men in China this year took hired women along on their homecoming for the Lunar New Year. Some luckless men without girlfriends preferred hiring women to meet their parents on the occasion of Lunar New Year, which fell Monday this year, so the old couple was happy, Xinhua reported. Online advertisements offering "temporary" boyfriends and girlfriends started appearing on Taobao.com, China's largest consumer e-commerce website, many weeks ahead of the traditional Chinese holiday. Dozens of Taobao stores offered such "boy meets girl" rental services. The prices depended upon the required intimacy, time and distance. A handshake with parents was 3 yuan (about half a dollar), while hugs and kisses cost 5 yuan

and 10 yuan, respectively. Most stores charged 8 yuan per hour for the hired date to accompany a customer to a family dinner, and 15 yuan per hour to join them on a party or a shopping sortie. The rates were for local service. But if the fake date had to travel to another city, the charge was several times higher. A store based in Guangzhou city, for example, charged 1,500 yuan a day for such a service. Software engineer Hu Xiaofei said he spent 6,000 yuan, more than half of his year-end bonus to rent a girlfriend for a week-long stay at his family home in the countryside of central Hunan province. "My parents want me to marry early, but I can't find a girlfriend easily. So I might as well hire one to make them happy," Hu said. Hu said a colleague "rented one for three days last year". This year, he hired someone else for five days.

Vietnam man next to crying child opens plane door

HANOI: A mom with a screaming child wanted a quick getaway from a plane on the tarmac inVietnam and asked for help. The man next to her obliged by opening the emergency exit and triggering the escape slide. But that's as far as they got. A state media report on Tuesday's incident at Ho Chi Minh City airport says nobody used the

slide. It wasn't clear if they got second thoughts or if the cabin crew intervened. The man, identified as 29-year-old Le Van Thuan, told authorities the child's mother asked him to open the door so she and the child could exit faster. An airport official says the man will be fined up to $950, and it will cost $10,000 to refit the slide.

Mustache film festival to be held in Maine

MAINE: Move over, Cannes. Maine will be playing host to its first-ever international mustache film festival, part of its annual pageant that celebrates the bristly facial hair. The festival set for March 30 in Portland will feature short films with storylines that involve mustaches or a main character who wears a mustache, said Nick Callanan, head of No Umbrella Media, a video production company organizing the event. The idea for the mustache film festival, believed to be the first of its kind, grew out of an annual mustache pageant held locally to benefit arts and cancer research organizations, he said. This year's 2012 Stache Pag will feature contestants wearing all manner of mustaches, from handlebars to horseshoes, Callanan said. There are also the walrus and Fu Manchu styles, he said. "It's just about men expressing themselves," he said. To be considered for the festival, films must be eight minutes or less and have a mustache theme or a main character with a mustache. Callanan said he

has received submissions from as far away as Norway. The films will be screened ahead of the pageant, which has been held annually for five years at bars, bowling alleys and elsewhere, he said. What began as a gathering of friends mushroomed into an event that attracted some 450 people last year, he said. The pageant includes categories for various types of mustaches, including the "Magnum, P.I.," named after the amply mustachioed television character played by actor Tom Selleck. Popular Hollywood movies that would be considered "mustache films" might include "Smoky and the Bandit," starring Burt Reynolds with a thick mustache, "Tombstone" with Val Kilmer or films featuring action star Chuck Norris. Proceeds from the film festival will be donated to Northeast Historic Film, a film preservation organization, and those from the pageant will be given to an arts support organization called MENSK and a cancer research fundraising group called My Stache Fights Cancer.

Lovestruck Factory

LONDON: Love is in the air! Quite literally for a confectionery factory in Britain  producing sweets with love messages on them, as 122 employees out of its 500-staff are in a relationship with each other. Romance has clearly blossomed at the Love Hearts factory in Derbyshire to the extent that it now puts it in the running for "most romantic workplace in Britain." Swizzels Matlow, the confectionery company, that makes the sweets claims that 122 of its 500 workers are in a relationship with each other. The family firm, which is based in the North Derbyshire town of New Mills, released the data just a few days before St Valentine's Day, the key selling period for the little sweets. But Swizzels Matlow suggested anyone who questioned the motives behind releasing the figures were hard-hearted cynics. "I think it's a lovely story that so many people met here. We knew anecdotally that many were either married to each other or going out with each other, but we just did a quick ask around to find out how many were together. It's a very close-knit

place," Jeremy Dee, director of the company was quoted by the Daily Telegraph as saying. The company makes 200m Love Hearts every year, each with a message such as "I Love you" or "All mine". It is not the only company to boast of its ability to bring people together. Bill Gates, the world's second richest man, met his wife Melinda while working for Microsoft. At Southwest Airlines 2,416 of the 37,000 employees are married to each other. Many of the couples met while working for the airline and Southwest was so pleased with its matchmaking role, it uses LUV as its stock market symbol. More than 100 MPs have family members on the payroll, with many employing their spouse as a secretary or assistant. Steven House, 46, a factory employee, met his girlfriend Laura Garlik, 38, at the same workplace. Their eyes met across the production line of Double Dips, a type of confectionery produced in the factory. "It's a very relaxed atmosphere, you can have a laugh," Garlik said.

Apple cannot sell iPad tablets in China

SHANGHAI: Apple's dispute over the iPad trademark deepened Monday after the Chinese company that claims ownership of the name said it won a court ruling against sales of the popular tablet computer in China. Xie Xianghui, a lawyer for Shenzhen Proview Technology, said the Intermediate People's Court in Huizhou, a city in southern China's Guangdong province, had ruled on Friday that distributors should stop selling iPads in China. The ruling, which was also reported widely in China's state media, may not have a far-reaching effect. In its battle with Apple, Proview is utilizing lawsuits in several places and also requesting commercial authorities in 40 cities to block iPad sales. Apple Inc said in a statement Monday that its case is still pending in mainland China. The company has appealed to Guangdong's High Court against an earlier ruling in Proview's favor. Apple insists it holds the trademark rights to the iPad in China. "We bought Proview's worldwide rights to the iPad trademark in 10 different countries several years ago. Proview refuses to honor their agreement with Apple in China and a Hong Kong court has sided with Apple in this matter,'' said Apple spokeswoman Carolyn Wu.

Calls to the court in Huizhou rang unanswered. A letter to Proview's chairman Rowell Yang from the Beijing office of the law firm King & Wood, which is representing Apple, accused Proview of breaching "principles of good faith and fair dealing" and of making "false and misleading" statements. Proview, a maker of LCD screens which is based in Guangdong, has asked regulators to seize iPads in China in a possible prelude to demanding a payout from Apple. A Shanghai court is due to hear a similar case on Wednesday. So far, iPads have been pulled from shelves in some Chinese cities but there has been no sign of action at the national level. Shenzhen Proview Technology is a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based Proview International Holdings. It registered the iPad trademark in China in 2001 and says the name was used for a computer described as an "Internet Personal Access Device" that employed touch panel technology. The company says it plans to ask China's customs agency to block imports and exports of iPads. Apple contends that it acquired the iPad name when it bought rights in various countries from a Proview affiliate in Taiwan in 2009 for 35,000 British pounds ($55,000). Proview won a ruling from a mainland

Chinese court in December that it was not bound by that sale. Proview International's shares have been suspended from trading on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange since August 2010 and reports say it is deep in debt. It will be delisted in June if it cannot show it has sufficient assets, business operations and working capital. Proview has filed a trademark-violation lawsuit that goes to court Wednesday in Shanghai. In the meantime, China's mass media is abuzz with speculation over the case. "The iPad trademark case: Who cheated who?'' quizzed a story in Monday's edition of the 21st Century Business Herald. Apple, based in Cupertino, California, points to a Hong Kong court ruling in July that said Proview had acted with the intention of "injuring Apple." According to that ruling, Apple set up a company in Britain to buy the iPad trademark from owners in various markets without revealing Apple was the purchaser. Proview has accused Apple of acting dishonestly when it bought rights to the iPad name from Proview's Taiwan affiliate. A Hong Kong court document shows that once the dispute arose, Proview demanded $10 million for the iPad name in China. But Hong Kong's legal system is separate from the mainland's.

Dickens@ 200: Man of great expectations in hard times

LONDON: He wrote about life in the modern city, with its lawyers and criminals, bankers and urchins, dreamers and clerks. He created characters still known to millions - Ebeneezer Scrooge and Tiny Tim, Pip and Miss Havisham, Fagin and Oliver Twist. And it made him a star, mobbed by fans on both sides of the Atlantic. Britain on Tuesday marked the 200th birthday of Charles Dickens, the first global celebrity author and chronicler of a world of urban inequality that looks a lot like the one we live in today. "You only have to look around our society and everything he wrote about in the 1840s is still relevant," said Dickens' biographer, Claire Tomalin. "The great gulf between the rich and poor, corrupt financiers, corrupt Members of parliament ... You name it, he said it." Dickens' mistrust of the wealthy and compassion for the poor haven't stopped him being embraced by Britain's high and mighty. Prince Charles and wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall , joined Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams,

actor Ralph Fiennes, a host of dignitaries and scores of Dickens' descendants at a memorial service in Westminster Abbey. A simultaneous event was held in Portsmouth, southern England, where Dickens was born, the son of a navy pay clerk, in 1812. In a message read out, Prince Charles called Dickens "one of the greatest writers of the English language, who used his creative genius to campaign passionately for social justice". No doubt he had penned some of the English literature's most iconic novels, but Charles Dickens' works are too long for today's students, says his biographer Claire Tomalin. Dickens, considered to be the greatest of Victorian period, enjoyed a wider popularity than any other previous author during his lifetime. But, modern children do not have the concentration to read his classic, he says. " Today's children have short attention spans because they're being reared on dreadful TV soaps which are flickering away in corner.

160 people arrested in London's biggest swoop on gangsters

LONDON: In a major swoop, nearly 160 people have been arrested and seized "a significant amount" of drugs during raids across London by the Metropolitan Police's new dedicated unit tackling gang crime. "This is a step change in how we tackle gang crime in London," Metropolitan Police Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe said. The Trident Gang Crime Command, which consists of 1,000 officers, will monitor gang activity and work with London boroughs. The unit, thought to be the largest in the country, will have 19 dedicated gang crime task forces. More than 300 raids have been taking place across the capital since dawn, the BBC reported.  The Met said it had made 158 arrests so far and executed 144 warrants. Officers also seized "a significant amount" of cocaine and cannabis, 1kg of heroin, firearms, ammunition and 14,000 pounds. The unit includes officers working for Operation Trident, which investigates gun crime in the black community. It will deal with shootings and work more closely with boroughs to pro-actively tackle gang crime.  Hogan-Howe said

hundreds of officers would track down and arrest suspected gang members believed to be involved in crimes including assault, robbery and drugs supply during the raids. "The bottom line is, if they're offending, then we've got to arrest them," he added. Hogan-Howe said the action against gangs will allow the police to identify and relentlessly pursue the most harmful groups. It will help us identify young people on the periphery of gangs and work with partners to divert them away. According to the Met, there are an estimated 250 active criminal gangs in London, comprising about 4,800 people. Of these gangs, 62 are considered as "high harm" and commit two- thirds of all gang-related crime in the capital. These range from criminal networks involved in class A drugs supply and firearms to street gangs involved in violence and robbery. The Met said they were responsible for about 22% of serious violence, 17% of robbery, 50% of shootings and 14% of rape in London. 

Peugeot Automobile Nigeria geared up for Abuja Auto Fair

The upcoming Abuja International Motor fair is going to bring together major domestic as well as international automobile manufacturers, and Peugeot Automobile Nigeria Limited will be one of them. The premium brand car manufacturer, Peugeot is all geared up to showcase a number of vehicles targeting different segments, at the Abuja International Motor fair. The Abuja Auto fair is an annual event held in Nigeria and a famous platform for car manufacturers participating from all over the world. The auto event has been presented with awards such as, 'most consistent auto fair in Nigeria' and the 'fastest growing auto show in Africa'. This year the event will be held from 12th October 2011 to 20th October 2011.

Considered as the premium auto show, this year's Abuja Auto event will be the 13th edition of the show. Furthermore, this annual event is held in order facilitate a platform for car manufacturers, to meet its target market. Therefore, Peugeot is going to introduce  cars in the popular show, with most of them

already launched in the European market. Abuja Auto fair will be marked by the debut of the remarkable Peugeot brand 508. Other popular Peugeot products that will be seen at the fair include 307 sedan, 308 hatchback and station wagon 408.

The event will raise its bar with the presence of Minister of Trade and Investment, Dr. Olusegun Aganga, who is expected to unveil various new vehicles from Peugeot. The company has also stated, “We will showcase our manufacturing strength, alongside the modern quest for customer’s satisfaction, which has been positioned to be our guiding theme for this year’s participation.”

Company officials from Peugeot further concluded, “As a manufacturer, merchandise and capacity builder, PAN Nigeria Limited in conjunction with its subsidiary, PAN Learning Centre (PLC) and Abuja-based Peugeot dealers will exhibit aspects of manufacturing by simulating processes, vehicle display, spare parts display, after sales support and training activities.”

Angry bees sting 4 men at California storage yard

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Thousands of angry bees swarmed a man in a wheelchair, sending him and three others who came to his aid to the hospital in the Southern California city of Santa Ana. The attack also shut down a street and forced the evacuation of several businesses while beekeepers removed the hive, which was estimated to contain 60,000 bees. The trouble started at a storage yard when a man in a wheelchair apparently disturbed the hive, causing the bees to bombard him, Santa Ana fire Capt. Steven Snyder said. "He was attacked and stung over 60 times and had fallen out of the wheelchair and was yelling for help," Snyder said. The man's cries attracted the attention of three bystanders who ran to his aid. The bees were so aggressive that the three men had to retreat initially, but they dove back in and managed to pull the man to safety, Snyder said. The men were stung dozens of times during the "very impressive" rescue, he said. "They probably saved his life," Snyder said. All four men had difficulty

breathing and suffered rashes, nausea and vomiting. They were taken to hospitals and at least two of the men were released Thursday night, Snyder said. He didn't know their conditions or if the man in the wheelchair was still hospitalized. No names were released, but Snyder estimated all four men were in their 40s. Two firefighters who responded to the scene also were stung. Snyder said DNA tests were planned to determine if the bees were Africanized because of their aggressive behavior. The bee attack wasn't the first to make headlines this week. On Wednesday,  Africanized bees swarmed several farm animals and killed a 1,000-pound hog at a farm in Bisbee, Ariz. An 800-pound pregnant sow also was stung so many times that it went into a coma and lost its litter. In northern Arizona, a 49-year-old man remained hospitalized after authorities say he disturbed bees nesting under a cattle trough Sunday and was stung more than 1,000 times.

Send Nepal’s dancing bear Rubina to India: Rights activists

Kathmandu, April 4 (IANS) For years, Rubina, the “dancing bear”, wandered through Nepal’s villages with her gypsy master, beaten, starved and her hair plucked out by superstitious villagers in the hope it would guard them against illnesses. Last month, though Nepal’s animal rights activists rescued the sloth bear - the species has been immortalised by Rudyard Kipling in his “Jungle Book” - from Nawalparasi in western Nepal, Rubina could be in the fire from the frying pan.

“If Rubina is not repatriated to India, we fear for her life,” says Manoj Gautam, whose organisation Roots and Shoots Nepal, with the support of Wildlife SOS India, rescued the female bear and had her owners arrested.

The bear is now at the Chitwan National Park while Nepal’s wildlife authorities are pondering where she should be kept.

The only home for bears available in Nepal is the Jawalakhel Zoo in Kathmandu valley. However, Gautam says the zoo facilities are substandard and three of the four bears kept there died recently.

One of them was Jangoo, a four-and-a-half-month-old bear cub rescued by Roots and Shoots Nepal in 2008. The starved cub died in the zoo after four months.

Bear-dancing is one of the cruellest forms of “entertainment”, say animal rights activists.

Its muzzle is pierced with a red-hot implement to insert a ring. A rope is then pulled through the ring to enable the bear master to control the animal. Its canine teeth are knocked out with a hammer while the animal is still conscious and it is constantly hit with a stick on its feet to make it shuffle - which becomes its dance of agony. Wandering for miles with its master, the

dancing bear is starved, dehydrated and subjected to abuse.

It is estimated that there are still about five to 10 dancing bears in Nepal. The owners are mostly Indians who migrated after the Indian government, pressured by animal rights organisations, banned dancing bears.

Gautam says India has evolved sanctuaries where the rescued sloth bears can spend their last days in peace while the owners have been helped to find alternative livelihood.

But in Nepal, where animal rights are non-existent, there is no state help available for the miserable animals.

Gautam says rescued dancing bears need specialised care as they normally suffer from malnutrition, dehydration, damaged feet, gastro-intestinal disorders and worm infestations. “Nepal at present cannot offer such care,” he says.

Roots and Shoots Nepal and Animal Welfare Network Nepal (AWNN), an organisation that sought to prevent the infamous slaughter of thousands of animals at the five-yearly Gadhimai Fair in Nepal’s Terai, are calling for Rubina’s repatriation to India.

“Nepal at the moment cannot offer the specialised care rescued dancing bears need while India has four bear rehabilitation sanctuaries,” the two organisations said in a press statement.

However, it is doubtful if the government will heed their call.

In the past, it has turned a deaf ear to pleas for an end to animal sacrifices and continues allocating state funds for such rituals though they have been condemned as “barbaric” by noted animal rights crusaders like French actress Brigitte Bardot and India’s Maneka Gandhi.

Bees swarm car outside Louisiana store

There was plenty of buzz outside a Baton Rouge store Tuesday afternoon. A woman went inside the Michael's craft store on Airline Highway and emerged to find thousands of bees on top of her car. Shoppers gathered around the vehicle to take pictures while the woman's son, who borrowed safety gear from a friend, removed the bees from the top of the car. David Taylor, owner of Lady Bee Ranch

in Central, Louisiana, says there is a simple explanation for what happened. Taylor said the queen bee was likely flying around looking for a new home when she got tired and stopped to rest on top of the vehicle. When that happens, her worker bees also stop and surround the queen bee as a way to protect her. "It's a unique experience," Taylor said.

Naomi Watts takes Princess Diana role in new movie

(Reuters) - Actress Naomi Watts will play Britain's Princess Dianain a new feature film about the last two years of her glamorous life that ended in tragedy, Britain's Ecosse Films said on Thursday. Called "Caught in Flight", the movie is thought to be the first big screen film about Diana, whose death in a Paris car crash in 1997 has been chronicled in several, mostly U.S., television movies. Watts, last seen in "J.Edgar" and political movie "Fair Game", who was born in Britain and raised in Australia, said she was honored to be chosen. American newcomer Jessica Chastain ("The Help"), was previously attached to the project. "It is such an honor to be able to play this iconic role. Princess Diana was loved across the world and I look forward to rising to the challenge of playing her on screen," Watts, 43, said in a statement. Ecosse Films said the movie would chronicle the last two years of Diana's life and "how finding true personal happiness for the first time allowed her to

achieve her defining successes evolving into a major international campaigner and humanitarian." Media reports have said the movie will focus on Diana's secret two year affair with heart surgeon Hasnat Khan following her estrangement, and later divorce, from British heir to the throne, Prince Charles. "Caught in Flight" will be directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, who directed the 2004 movie "Downfall" about Hitler's last days. Production will start in Britain later this year. At least one other feature movie about Diana is in the works. Preliminary titled "Diana", that film has been in development for some months and is based on accounts of Diana's life as a member of the royal family by her longtime bodyguard Ken Wharfe. No casting has been announced. Diana, formally known as the Princess of Wales, was just 36 years-old when she died in August 1997, causing an outpouring of worldwide grief.

Charles to become king of Romania?

LONDON: Speculation is rife in central European media that Prince Charles could become the next king of Romania if the country's monarchy is restored, and give up the British throne in favour of his eldest son William. The 63-year-old British king-in-waiting could stake claim to the throne in Romania because of his "ancestral links" with historical Romanian ruler, Vlad the Impaler, and the country's deposed king, Prince Michael, according to the media. Even Prince Charles had revealed in an interview just a few weeks ago that he is related to Vlad the

Impaler. "The genealogy shows I am descended from Vlad the Impaler, so I do have a bit of a stake in the country," the 'Daily Mail' quoted him as saying. In fact, the central European media also claim that Prince Charles's mother,  Queen Elizabeth II, is a third cousin to the deposed King whose great-greatgrand-mother was Queen Victoria , the British newspaper said. Vlad the Impaler was the bloodthirsty nobleman who inspired Dracula while King Michael, now 90, was the last Royal ruler of Romania who reigned from 1927 to 1930 and again from 1940 to 1947.

Six Foods that Are Good for your Brain

Foods high in compounds such as antioxidants and omega-3 fatty acids can improve brain health and memory, experts say. From fruit to fish, here are six things that, based on various studies, may perk up your gray matter. Walnuts. They even look like little brains, so maybe that's Mother Nature's way of telling us what walnuts are good for. Indeed, a 2009 study in the Journal of Nutrition found that diets in which nuts made up as little as 2 percent reversed signs of aging in the brains of old rats, including the ability of the brain to function and process information. And a study from 2010 reported that mice with Alzheimer's demonstrated improved learning, memory and motor coordination after being fed walnuts. Walnuts contain high amounts of antioxidants, which some researchers say may combat the damage to brain cells' DNA caused by free radicals in our bodies. Carrots. Carrots have long been known to be good for the eyes — and it turns out, they're good for the brain, too. Carrots have high levels of a compound called luteolin, which could reduce age-related memory deficits and inflammation in the brain, according to a study published in 2010 in the journal Nutrition. In the study, mice whose daily diet was  supplemented with 20 milligrams of luteolin had reduced inflammation in their brains. The researchers said the compound also restored the mice's memory to the level of younger mice's. Berries. Adding some vitamin-rich berries to your diet may not be a bad idea if you want to improve your memory, according to several studies. One study, published in 2010, found that after 12 weeks of daily supplements of wild blueberry juice, nine older adults who had started to experience slight memory problems showed better learning and recall abilities than a similar group of adults who didn't take the supplements. The blueberry group also showed reduced symptoms of depression. And in a 2009 report in the Journal of Nutrition, researchers said they examined a group of studies that showed fruits such as blueberries and strawberries, which are high in antioxidants, can decrease a type of stress in cells associated with aging and increase the signaling capabilities in brains. In one of the studies, researchers placed 6-month-old rats on a diet supplemented with blueberry and strawberry extracts (totaling 2 percent of their diet) for nine months. These rats had better spatial and memory skills than rats not

given the supplements. Fish. Although recent research has shown that taking fish oil supplements may not help slow the cognitive decline in people with Alzheimer's disease, other studies have shown that eating fish rich in omega-3 fatty acids could help slow typical cognitive decline that comes with age. A 2005 study in the journal Archives of Neurology found that people 65 and older who ate two meals of fish a week for six years had a 13 percent decrease in cognitive decline, compared with people who didn't eat any fish regularly. And people who ate one meal of fish a week had a 10 percent decrease in cognitive decline. Fish high in vitamin B12 may also help protect against Alzheimer's, according to a study published in 2010 in the journal Neurology. Coffee and tea. Coffee and tea do more than keep you awake in the mornings — studies have shown they may prevent Alzheimer's disease and improve cognitive function. A 2010 study in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease found that when researchers gave caffeinated coffee to mice genetically engineered to develop Alzheimer's disease, the disease either slowed in progression or never developed. Based on the finding, coffee eventually could serve as a therapeutic treatment for people with Alzheimer's disease, the researchers said. Tea showed protective effects on the brain, too. Tea drinkers did better on tests on memory and information processing than non-tea drinkers did, according to a 2010 study of 716 Chinese adults 55 and older in the Journal of Nutrition, Health and Aging. Spinach. Your mom always told you to eat your spinach, and there's science to back up her advice. The green leafy vegetable is loaded with vitamins C and E, which, studies have shown, help to improve cognitive abilities. A 2000 study in the Journals of Gerontology showed that rats whose diet was supplemented with vitamin E experienced a 500 to 900 percent increase in brain and nerve tissue over an eight-month period, as well as an increase in the release of dopamine in the brain, the "pleasure" chemical that controls flow of information to different parts of the brain. And a 2000 study in the journal Brain Research found that aging rats had some of their age-related memory and motor deficits reversed after they were fed diets supplemented with spinach, strawberries or blueberries.

What Falling in Love Does to the Brain

Falling in love can wreak havoc on your body. Your heart races, your tummy gets tied up in knots, and you're on an emotional roller coaster, feeling deliriously happy one minute and anxious and desperate the next. Research shows that these intense, romantic feelings come from the brain. In one small study, researchers looked at magnetic resonance images of the brains of 10 women and seven men who claimed to be deeply in love. The length of their relationships ranged from one month to less than two years. Participants were shown photographs of their beloved, and photos of a similar-looking person. The brains of the smitten participants reacted to photos of their sweethearts, producing emotional responses in the same parts of the brain normally involved with motivation and reward. "Intense passionate love uses the same system in the brain that gets activated when a person is addicted to drugs," said study co-author Arthur Aron, a psychologist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. In other words, you start to crave the person you're in love with like a drug.

Romantic love is a primitive response.

Experts have said that romantic love is one of the most powerful emotions a person can have. Humans' brains have been wired to choose a mate, and we humans become motivated to win over that mate, sometimes going to extremes to get their attention and affection. "You can feel happy when you're in love, but you can also feel anxious," said Aron's co-author, Lucy Brown, a neuro-scientist at Albert Einstein College of

Medicine in New York. "The other person becomes a goal in life," essentially, a prize. Brown said that the reward part of the brain, also dubbed the pleasure center, is an essential part of the brain needed to survive. "It helps us recognize when something feels good," she said. The drive to feel good around your intended mate may even be more powerful than the drive for sex, Brown said.

Intense romantic love could fade away.

But once you've won over your love, does the feeling fade away? Not completely, Aron said. In another study, he and his colleagues looked at MRI scans of 10 women and seven men who were married for an average of 21 years and claimed they were still intensively in love with their partners. The researchers found that in each of these long-term lovers, brain regions were also activated when they looked at photos of their partners. Long-term love showed activity in the regions linked with attachment and liking a reward. "For most people, the standard pattern is a gradual decline of passionate love, but a growth in bonding," Aron said. That bonding allows for the partners to stay together long enough to have and raise children. "Most mammals don't raise children together, but humans do," he said. But the brain studies did suggest that love changes over time, Aron said. "As long as love remains, we get used to the relationship, and we're not afraid our partner will leave us, so we're not as focused on the craving," he said.

Bees swarm Hatfield car

The un-bee-lievable sight shocked car owner Helen Minn and daughter Hayley who had parked in Old Hatfield on Friday. Helen, had dropped Hayley off at an interview with e2E services, and left the dark-coloured Toyota Rav4 in the car park. She said: “As we approached the car there were people standing at the back taking photographs. “Somebody did try driving the

car around, but they didn’t fly off.” Mrs Minn called in an expert beekeeper, who said he had no idea why the bees, which have an essential role to play in pollinating crops and plants, had been attracted to her car in particular. By Monday the bees had found a new home, on the wall in the same car park. Bee-ware!

Bullet Elevator Unveiled for World's Tallest Building

It will be so fast it could be one of those gut-gripping, blackout-inducing rides at an amusement park. It is the latest in elevator technology and will be used by thousands of people every day.

China is currently building the world's tallest skyscraper. The Shanghai Tower will stand 2,073 feet high, or 128 stories. To shuttle passengers to the sky, Mitsubishi has the contract to build 106 aerodynamic elevators unlike anything the world has ever seen.

Consider the fact that the elevators in the World Trade Center traveled at an ear-popping 1,600 feet per minute according to the engineer who installed them. The Mitsubishi elevators will travel at a rate of 3,281 feet per minute, more than twice as fast as those at the World Trade Center. And there will be no need to stop at a sky lobby to break up the trip that was necessary in the WTC. The Mitsubishi design team is promising a

comfortable non-stop ride from the bottom to the top.

Ultra-high-speed elevators require the latest technology in both mechanics and personal comfort. Mitsubishi released data on drive, controllability, super high-rise cable mechanics and safety along with such technicalities like "advanced plunger" and "exceptional shock absorption."

Mitsubishi's specs were designed to ensure that riders won't leave their lunch on the 50th floor or have their eardrums explode. Inside each car the air pressure will be controlled to avoid erupting earaches due to rapid changes in altitude. Each car's interior will be insulated to quell sound and suitably equipped to reduce vibration.

Mitsubishi isn't saying whether they will provide the handy little bags that come in the front pocket of your seat of an airplane, but it might be a good idea.

Romania PM Emil Boc resigns after protests

BUCHAREST: Romania's Prime Minister Emil Boc resigned on Monday after weeks of nationwide protests against austerity measures and before a parliamen-tary election due late this year. Boc enforced the cuts, including slashing public salaries by a quarter and raising sales tax, to complete a 20 billion euro ($26.24 billion) International Monetary Fund bailout deal and boost the economy after a deep and bitter recession. Thousands of Romanians have braved freezing temperatures in the last month to protest against Boc and his ally, President Traian Basescu. "It is the moment for important political decisions. From this point of view, I took the decision to give up the government's mandate," Boc said in a speech after a government meeting. His

centrist PDL party scores less than 20 percent in opinion polls, with a parliamen-tary election due late this year. Victor Ponta, leader of the leftist USL opposition alliance which has more than 50 percent support in opinion polls, told Reuters last week he wanted an early election and was committed to working with the IMF. "It's very likely that the next prime minister will be a techno-crat, probably from the central bank or even someone from the central intelligence services ," said political commentator Mircea Marian. "Boc's resignation doesn't mean there will necessarily be a domino effect. But the other ministers will have to make their own decisions on whether they will leave or hold out until the elections in the fall."

Russia drills down to pristine Antarctic Lake

Russian scientists on Wednesday announced they had drilled deep through Antartica's icesheet to reach a pristine lake untouched for tens of thousands of years. "A small window has opened into the unknown world of Lake Vostok," Russia's Arctic and Antarctic Institute said in the first official confirmation of the breakthrough. "For me, discovering this lake is comparable to the first flight to space. In its technical complexity, its importance and its uniqueness," expedition leader Valery Lukin told the Interfax news agency. Specialists "penetrated the prehistoric waters of Lake Vostok under the ice through a deep ice borehole," scientists said, revealing a discovery that took place on February 5. The expedition drilled down to the lake's surface at a depth of almost four kilometres (2.34 miles) but did not immediately take a water sample to avoid contamination, Lukin said. "According to the ecologically clean technique we have developed, now we cannot take any samples," Lukin said, explaining the water would get

contaminated with kerosene and freon being used antifreeze. Instead scientists will wait for a column of water to rise up through the borehole and freeze, he said. Scientists plan to collect the water samples from December this year to January 2013. He said scientists could not take the samples back to Russia due to restrictions on liquids on flights, so they would be taken back on a research ship, arriving only in May 2013. Lake Vostok, the largest sub-glacial body of water in Antarctica, "presents a potentially a unique water ecosystem," isolated from the atmosphere for at least one million years, the Arctic and Antarctic Institute said on its website. Nevertheless the expedition has raised fears among international experts about the environmental impact of the kerosene used as antifreeze and questions about the scientific worth of the mission. Russia has presented the expedition as a major triumph, and the Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology Yury Trutnev viewed the site earlier this month.

Heavy snowfall in Romania cuts off thousands for days

Military planes flew in tonnes of emergency food Monday to towns and villages in eastern Romania, where thousands have been stranded. Some people were cutting tunnels through up to 4 metres of snow to get out of their homes. Since the end of January, Eastern Europe has been pummeled by the heaviest snowfall in recent memory and a record-setting cold snap. Hundreds of people, many of them homeless, have died and tens of thousands of others have been trapped by blocked roads inside homes with little heat. Authorities declared an alert Monday in eastern Romania. About a dozen major roads were closed, 300 trains cancelled and more than 1,000 schools shut down. In addition to the food flights, the defence ministry said 8,000 soldiers were clearing roads across Romania and helping people trapped by the snow, which was up to four metres high in some eastern parts. Authorities said the death toll in Romania was up to 74. An avalanche hit western Serbia late Sunday near the artificial lake of Perucac, sweeping away a man as his wife and child waited in the car nearby.

Rescuers say divers will look for the man in the lake. Emergency officials also plan to use helicopters to pull out sailors stuck on stranded boats on the Danube river near the Serbian town of Smederevo, as well as to deliver food to a Danube island near Pancevo, north of the capital of Belgrade. The Danube, one of Europe’s key waterways, has been frozen over for hundreds of miles, costing shippers millions. In Montenegro, rescuers started evacuating some 50 passengers who have been stranded for three days on a train that was blocked inside a tunnel by an avalanche. So far, a little girl and two elderly people have been pulled out and evacuated by helicopter, said Dragan Samardzic, Montenegro army chief of staff. In the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo, the roof of the Grbavica stadium partially collapsed Monday under the weight of heavy snow but no one was injured. That occurred a day after the roof of the nearby Skenderija sports stadium—used for ice skating at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo—also collapsed. Bosnia has been paralyzed with record snowfall for over a

week. Temperatures as low as minus 22 C have made it difficult to clear the snow.

Tom Stoppard, beneficiary of the subconscious

From time-bending drama to the absurd adventures of  Shakespeare's supporting cast, almost 50 years of work has brought playwright Tom Stoppard popular, critical and even royal acclaim. Acclaim, he says, shrugging, for "lucky" plays inspired by the realms of his subconscious. The Academy Award-winning Stoppard, who was born in the former Czechoslovakia and was sent as a refugee to Singapore and India, found fame on British radio before seeing his name in lights in the West End, and, later, on the silver screen. Knighted in 1997, he is known by many for the screenplay of 1998's "Shakespeare in Love," which won seven Oscars. But it is works such as his 1966 play "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead," and "Arcadia" in 1993 that has earned him a reputation among critics as one of the world's greatest living playwrights. Stoppard, 74, spoke with reporters on the sidelines of the Jaipur Literature Festival in India last month.

Q: You're seen as one of the world's best at what you do. How do you deal with that as you keep writing?

A: "I don't look at my work in a critical or analytical way, I just don't think of myself objectively. It doesn't interest me. "Writing mostly boils down to what will be the next line. If a play works out well, the author should be feeling lucky rather than clever."

Q: Rosencrantz came from Hamlet, Arcadia concerns advanced mathematics. Where does your inspiration spring from?

A: "When I came to write (Arcadia), I found myself referring to books that had been lying on my shelves for years. This leads me to believe that I am the beneficiary of my own subconscious. "I am not somebody who meets a man or a woman somewhere and feels like that is an incredible character that I must write into a play.... (Inspirations) come just one at a time. I don't think it is a good idea to know too much before you begin. "I get turned on by an abstract idea and wait for it to develop into a story. Like a limb developing around a molecule... You see, I write 10 drafts of the first page, and one draft of the last page."

Q: Are you working on anything in particular at the moment?

A: "Something I'm engaged with is evolutionary biology, not physics. It's probably gone now that I've told you... "I get the feeling that a number of people in the United Kingdom are working on plays involving journalism. I have wanted to write a play on journalism for a long time now, and have actually collected a great deal of material on it. "But then this phone-hacking story broke, and I abandoned it all. I sort of felt like I had missed the boat rather."

Q: How have you seen theatre change during your career?

A: "I am exorbitantly unobservant, and hence disinterested in theatre as a culture... I do enjoy writing plays and watching plays and thinking about the possibilities they have. But I don't think of theatre as a text. I think of it as an event. "Perhaps due to the economic downturn there has been a cultural sea-change in British theatre. One manifestation of that has been that three-quarters of the stage is dedicated to musicals. "People realised that you can make a lot of money from a successful musical. I think that the institution for straight theatre is shrinking, except for a handful of plays that go against the grain."

Q: How did you get involved with Shakespeare in Love?

A: "I had an arrangement with the film company, Universal Studios, to choose a couple of things to write over a few years, something like that, and so they asked me to have a look at the things they had in development. "One was a screenplay, Shakespeare in Love, and they asked me to work on it... I didn't really wish to adapt it, but once I started, I became totally involved. "The credit has to be give to Marc (Norman) for coming up with the idea of a young Shakespeare who falls in love."

Q: Was there ever the temptation to only write films?

A: "All of my scripts are based on other people's novels. Generally I consider myself as one who writes for theatre. I do not see film work as a continuation of writing for theatre. It is more of an interruption of the writing process. "I have read so many appalling (film) scripts. There are not enough good scripts to

go around. The ability to write a script is different from the idea of a script."

Next Steve Jobs or Mini Albert Einstein?

The White House invited some of the smartest kids in the country to come show off their inventions the other day. The White House's East Room — normally a place for prime time press conferences and State Dinners was transformed  into a science fair. ABC's Senior White House correspondent Jake Tapper took a tour of the displays and shows us what these little geniuses have come up with. Maybe there's a future Steve Jobs or Albert Einstein among them? Take Taylor Wilson who says when he was 14 years old, he developed a nuclear fusion reactor. Now only 17 he's developed a tool that could be a big help for counter-terrorism – detecting Uranium-235, Weapons Grade Plutonium and Highly

Enriched Uranium — using a not-so-rare ingredient: water. Or 14 year old Benjamin Hylak, who designed an interactive robot to allow him to Skype with his grandmother, and also find her pills and pour her a glass of water. Amazing! And you know the old saying necessity is the mother of invention? Well, 12-year-old Ma'Kese Wesley and 11-year-old Isis Thompson heard about the deadly bacteria outbreaks on cantaloupe melons last year and came up with a high tech lunch box that zaps fruits and vegetables using UV light and makes them safe to eat. These kids are all pretty incredible. Enough to make a White House reporter feel a little intimidated.

Goliat, first Romanian satellite in space

Goliath, the first Romanian artificial nanosatellite to be sent into space as part of a program of the Romanian Space Agency, will be launched by the European Space Agency on February 9, between 12 pm and 2 pm, Romania time, from a base in the French Guyana, according to Mediafax.

The announcement was made by Romanian Space Agency president and Goliath director Marius Ioan Piso and by scientists Mugurel Balan, Claudiu Dragasanu and Marius Trusculescu.

The nanosatellite will be launched into orbit by the new European rocket VEGA. The satellite has passed al functional tests and is currently lined up on the launcher together with seven other satellites, at the ESA space center in the French Guyana.

Goliath – a satellite shaped as a cube, measuring 100x100x100 mm, weighing 1062 grams and with a 2W power, was designed and developed by ROSA, in collaboration with the Space Science Institute, between 2005 and 2007.

Romania is launching this satellite because it wants to become a player in the world space industry, Piso said. The standard duration time of the GOLIAT mission is about six months. “Our estimates say that under normal conditions, it takes about 1 to 3 years till its starts burning,” Piso explained.

The Romanian public will be able to see the satellite’s launch into orbit by watching the live stream on the European Space Agency’s website. Piso said that if weather conditions don’t allow it, the launch can be postponed.

A History of Ireland in 100 Objects

It is particularly ironic that the Gaelic kingship that best survived the Norman invasion was that descended from Diarmait Mac Murchada, who first brought Norman warlords to Ireland. The Mac Murchadas retained lands in Carlow and north Wexford. The Kavanagh (Caomhanach) branch of the family, directly descended from Diarmait’s son Donal Caomhanach, thrived as the Norman colony weakened. Art Mór Mac Murchada had carved out a coherent kingdom by the time of his death, in 1416, successfully defying Richard II’s attempts to have him removed.

This exotic object, preserved at Borris, Co Carlow, by the Kavanagh family, perfectly captures this revival of Irish kingship. It is the only piece of Irish regalia to have survived from the medieval period. It was originally made, from elephant ivory, sometime in the 13th century, and may at first have been used as a hunting horn. But in the period of Art Mór’s resurgent kingdom it was given a new brass mounting – the maker’s name, Tigernan Ó Lavan, is inscribed on the mount – with clawed bird’s feet on which it stands. The horn could be detached from the mount, which would remain freestanding. This turned the horn into a ceremonial drinking vessel, probably for use in inauguration rituals. It was thus almost certainly an aspect of the Kavanaghs’ claims to the kingship of Leinster.

That such a claim could be at all was a remarkable historical reversal, given that Leinster had been so deeply penetrated and settled by the Normans. But by the 1420s the area called the “land of peace” – that is, under secure English administration – was confined to Dublin, Meath, Kildare and Louth. By the 1470s, this area was being referred to as the Pale.

The revived Irish kingship was in many ways remarkably similar to what it had been before the Norman invasion. The king was still drawn from a wide array of contenders, making civil wars of succession as common as they had been in the 10th century. The retinue of the king was also remarkably intact, with its hereditary ranks of brehons (judges), poets, genealogists, musicians and physicians. The expectation that a king could place his relatives in high clerical office was undiminished.

And the economy on which this hierarchy rested was not all that different either. The land looked different in the places where the colonists had cleared the great forests. The tillage and grain-based agriculture introduced by the settlers retained a significant hold, but the revived Gaelic lordships still based their notions of wealth on cattle, and most of those probably the old, small Irish breeds of which the Kerry cow is the last representative.

This strong element of cultural and economic conservatism is one of the factors behind the failure of these revived Irish kingships to cohere into anything like a national state. The resurgent Gaelic domains had little place for the urban life that was driving development in Europe: with very few exceptions (the port of Sligo being one), the large settlements in Gaelic areas were episcopal, not political, centres. Even linguistic diversity was being rolled back: French disappeared in Ireland and English suffered a rare reversal. The Gaelic world that re-emerged never transformed itself into the kind of centralised, modernised political structure that could ultimately assert its independence.

Junior doctor paid almost €90,000 in overtime

Overtime payments to junior doctors in the midwest account for two-thirds of the total overtime payments of €15 million by the HSE in the midwest in 2011, writes Gordon Deegan. One junior doctor in the midwest last year received €88,409 in overtime payments, the Health Service Executive (HSE) confirmed yesterday. According to records released through the Freedom of Information Act, junior doctors in the midwest in total received €10.1 million in overtime payments in 2011. The overall payout represents a drop of 2.6 per cent on the €10.4 million paid out to junior doctors in overtime in Limerick, Clare and North Tipperary in 2010. The overtime payments to junior doctors in the midwest accounts for 67 per cent of the total overtime payments of €15 million across the HSE in the midwest in 2011. The HSE’s overtime bill last year was 11 per cent down on the €16.4 million paid out in 2010. The figures for 2011 show that a Special Registrar at the Midwest Regional Hospital in Limerick received €88,340 in overtime payments in 2011. A Registrar at Croom Hospital received €85,829.

Yesterday, the chairman of the Irish Medical Organisation’s (IMOs) committee, Dr

Mark Murphy, said that junior doctors would prefer not to have to work the long overtime hours.

“When junior doctors are ‘Skypeing’ their colleagues working overseas, they hear of the improved working conditions and lifestyles that their friends are enjoying,” he said. “There isn’t the same struggle abroad in work/life balance for junior doctors.” Dr Murphy said: “There is a culture of over-reliance on junior doctors in the Irish hospital system where you have not only junior doctors working the very long hours, but [they are] used to porter blood samples and radiology results in hospitals.” Dr Murphy said that there was evidence that the manpower crisis which occurred with NCHDs last July would recur this summer. “The HSE is not the employer of choice for Irish-based junior doctors or junior doctors overseas,” he said. Dr Murphy said that this was due to the length of the training and the quality of training in Ireland for junior doctors. “Other countries have addressed these problems, so there is no reason why they cannot be overcome here and there would be a greater desire by junior doctors to remain in Ireland if those issues were addressed,” Dr Murphy said.

Half marathon ‘sabotaged’ by moved signs

Organisers of a half marathon in Wales have blasted a "malicious individual" who severely disrupted the race on Sunday by moving signs which marked the route. Up to 40 of the almost 500 runners in the Village Bakery Wrexham Half Marathon only ran 11.3 miles of the 13.1-mile course. Wrexham.com reported how race organiser Peter Norman set out on the morning of the race to check all of the signs were in position, only to find one pointing the wrong way. Later, while driving the lead car during the race, Norman caught up with runners who should have been behind him. The sign had been moved again. The race results are being reviewed after just three of the top 15 finishers ran the full course. Last October, the Etape Cymru cycle race saw hundreds of cyclists diverted off course after road markers were moved. Wrexham

Athletics Club said in a statement: "Wrexham AC appreciate that all of you, like us, are very annoyed and frustrated by these actions as we know how hard you all train and how important an accurate time is to you. "Some of you have travelled many miles to be with us and this we really appreciate and we can understand that you will be particularly frustrated. "The results published are the finishing line record in order of finishers. We have indicated for some of the early finishers those we believe were misguided and those who completed the full distance. "After that we have no way of verifying who went which way. Hopefully you will have an idea from your recorded time if you were significantly quicker than expected. One runner who knows he went the wrong way reported that his Garmin logged the short route as 11.3

miles - hopefully this will give you a measure of your performance on the day. "Once again we apologise and hope that the actions of one

malicious individual did not completely ruin your day."

‘I miss an Ireland that does not exist’

Vincent Morrissey went to Australia in 2001 for love. But 10 years later, a lot has changed, and the call of home is growing stronger.

My emigration story started with a year backpacking around Australia in 2001. I went on my own and had a great time, travelling around the country by motorbike and working on sheep stations along the way. Cairns was the last stop on the trip, and while there I met a lovely Australian girl. We fell in love and she moved back to Ireland with me while I finished my diploma in electronics. A year later, we went back to Australia to start our life together. I had never really thought about the difference between emigrating and travelling until it dawned on me that we were planning to settle there. Home suddenly felt like a long way away.

My relationship began to fall apart a few years later, and my health suffered. I was drinking and smoking a lot, and my weight ballooned. I began to recognise how alone I was here, and I found it difficult to make friends of my own. I had never realised how trusting and nice Irish people were until that time. I needed a radical change and decided to start by getting fit.

I had a good pair of legs for cycling, so I joined a cycling club. Within a year, I had given up the cigarettes and had lost 22kg. A year after that I raced bicycles at the highest local level. Since then, I have been cycling up to 500km every week.

My partner and I separated amicably, and I decided to go back to visit Ireland for the first time in five years. It was tough coming back to Oz to live alone, and I had had enough of the job I was in, but the recession was looming in Ireland then and I had no choice but to go back to Australia.

I left my job of four years and moved to a completely new city. II joined a new cycling club and settled well, but six months later I became very ill and remained so for almost two years. Chronic fatigue, they said. I took up paragliding and kept active, and I’m almost

better again, but it’s been a long road without family support. The phone and Skype are well and good, but not the same as having family close.

I can afford to go back to Ireland more often now, and in the past year I have been back twice to visit sick relatives. Being so far away from home when people in your family are sick is very hard. I got a phone call one day to say my granny had died, and I couldn’t make it back in time for the funeral.

The women I’ve dated over the past four years have also suffered, because I cannot commit to a relationship. I am at the age where I am dating people who want to settle down and have babies, but if I start a family here then that is it, I will be here for good.

In some ways, I have had a fantastic experience in Australia. I am trying my best to do adventurous things and take advantage of what is on offer here while I can. It is very hard to plan for the future. I am grateful to have a job doing something that I am good at and enjoy, which many people don’t have in Ireland. My dad is working a three-day week, and my mum, who lives in the UK, was recently made redundant. I’ll keep going as I am for the time being, but there is no master plan. I don’t see a way out.

It will be interesting to see what happens when the people who are leaving Ireland now eventually want to go home in five or six years’ time. Will they be able to return? I headed off with the same mentality, that I could do what I wanted and have an adventure while I was young. But young emigrants have to be aware that a time will come when you will want to settle down, and it can be hard to get back to the place where you want to be.

I’m 33 now, and it is 10 years since I left. I live in a rented room in a shared house. I’m single again. I have all the toys – a paraglider, motorbike, mountain bikes and a big TV – but nothing can fill the void left by home. I miss an Ireland that does not exist any more. I recently went back for a holiday and everyone I knew was gone. But I still miss it. I miss

belonging to a culture that, however good or bad, is still mine.

Football transfer rumours: Stéphane Sessègnon to Arsenal or Tottenham?

As the Mill awoke this morning to discover that a silent, black and white movie whose biggest star is a dog forced to turn tricks on command has been crowned king at the Oscars – the Oscars of the film industry – we were transported back to a simpler time when the transfer game was a more straightforward operation.

After signing on the dotted line at a new club, a player would immediately be treated like the four-legged star of The Artist and put to work at his real trade: a spot of plumbing or perhaps fixing some rickety shelves in the players' lounge. It was the close season, after all, and the wily chairman would know that the new signing would be eager to make an impression and was unlikely to charge a fee.

But time, sadly, keeps moving on and these days the Oscars of the transfer tittle-tattle industry is the winter and summer transfer windows but, just like the movie business, the wheel never stops turning. There are power lunches to be had and deals to be done.

And today is no different. Arsenal and Tottenham are set to duke it out for Sunderland's stocky goal getter Stéphane Sessègnon. Both north London clubs are big fans of the Benin international's work, loved him in that thing with Martin O'Neill and want to get him on board as soon as possible.

Liverpool's head of waffle, Damien Comolli, claims that several "big players" want to join the club in the summer. It's unclear if he means "big" as in tall and cumbersome, like Andy Carroll, or "big" as in rotund and not very good at taking penalties, like Charlie Adam. Or he may just mean "big" and good at football, but that doesn't sound like the kind of signing Liverpool would make.

Barcelona are ready to fight it out with Manchester City for Athletic Bilbao's rangy midfielder Javi Martínez. Quite how this fight will manifest itself remains to be seen but given the Spain international has a £34m release clause in his contract it is likely that it will involve money in some way.

In just the kind of move that will excite Aston Villa fans and help convince them that Alex Mcleish is indeed the man to revitalise the club, it seems that Scott Dann is being lined up for a switch from Ewood Park to Villas Park. That could spell bad news for James Collins or Richard Dunne who could be shown the door at Villa and may even be asked to leave through it, but not close it on the way out because McLeish wants to leave it open in case Robbie Keane gets tired of the LA lifestyle and fancies a return to Brum. "Hopefully, he will think of us first if he does it again." McLeish said of the Ireland's international's short-term loan from MLS.

The former Real Madrid midfielder Mahamadou Diarra is set to sign for Fulham until the end of the season but hopes to impress enough to be given a longer deal.

Neil Warnock wants Bolton's Paul Robinson as his first signing as Leeds manager and hopes to finalise a deal before the emergency loan market closes. In fairness to Warnock it does sound desperate.

Manchester City have too many players so Crystal Palace manager Dougie Freedman plans to temporarily lighten their load by taking 18-year-old "Spanish starlet" Joan Roman on loan for the rest of the season. And there was the Mill thinking Penelope Cruz was the only Spanish starlet that mattered.

Jamaicans continue making meaningful contributions worldwide

Jamaicans are some of the world's most talented individuals and continue to make invaluable contributions in the countries world-wide where they have taken up residence.

In which ever country one visits, there are Jamaicans living and working and not only making headway, but contributing to the social and economic progress of that country. It is not a phenomenon but this is expected of Jamaicans.

With a population of 2,868,380 million (July 2011 est.) on the Island and a similar number overseas, you can bet they are doing what they love best and are making progress in what ever field of endeavor in which they are engaged.

They are engaged in trade and different professions, being creative and innovative and are quick to learn and implement what they learn.Apart from that Jamaica has produced many greats in sports including champion boxers, tennis players, athletes, cricketers, soccer players and others in a long list.

By that same token, one has to admit that Jamaica has also produced some of the most destructive and unruly people, some of whom cannot follow instructions and directions, insisting on doing things their way and disrespecting others opinions or point of view.

On migrating to the United States years ago, I realized that this country is completely different from my sweet, sweet Jamaica but later I learnt that I want to be successful in this country, I would have to change my life style and adapt to the American way of life, if I wanted to survive and make progress.

As a Radio Talk Show Host, I speak to Jamaicans who have been living here for decades and cannot adapt to the changes and when I say so I mean it. The questions some of these Jamaicans pose, the way they talk and their behavior, makes you wonder how they are surviving, as they refuse to read or pay attention to news and information. As a result of this, they have to pay a lot of money to get things done. One example is Immigration Lawyers, who continue to eat out the hard-earned money of these Jamaicans who display a backward mentality.

I am aware of the fact that some of us can read but cannot comprehend, may be educated but is an educated fool. There are those who think they know but know not what they think. My mom always said, "you can lead them to the water but you cannot force them to drink." My advice to Jamaicans who behave like this is to think twice before you make nonsensical comments if you cannot change, buy a one way ticket back to Jamaica.

Relaxation techniques: try these steps to reduce stress

Relaxation techniques are a great way to help with stress management. Relaxation isn't just about peace of mind or enjoying a hobby. Relaxation is a process that decreases the effects of stress on your mind and body. Relaxation techniques can help you cope with everyday stress and with stress related to various health problems, such as cancer and pain. Whether your stress is spiraling out of control or you've already got it tamed, you can benefit from learning relaxation techniques. Learning basic relaxation techniques is easy. Relaxation techniques also are often free or low cost, pose little risk and can be done just about anywhere. Explore these simple relaxation techniques and get started on de-stressing your life and improving your health.

 When faced with numerous responsibilities and tasks or the demands of an illness, relaxation techniques may take a back seat in your life. But that means you might miss out on the health benefits of relaxation.

 Practicing relaxation techniques can reduce stress symptoms by: slowing your heart rate, lowering blood pressure, slowing your breathing rate, increasing blood flow to major muscles, reducing muscle tension and chronic pain, improving concentration, reducing anger and frustration, boosting confidence to handle problems. To get the most benefit, use relaxation techniques along with other positive coping methods, such as exercising, getting enough sleep, and reaching out to supportive family and friends.

 Health professionals such as complementary and alternative medicine practitioners, doctors and psychotherapists can teach various relaxation techniques. But if you prefer, you also can learn some relaxation techniques on your own.

 In general, relaxation techniques involve refocusing your attention on something calming and increasing awareness of your body. It doesn't matter which relaxation technique you choose. What matters is that you try to practice relaxation regularly to reap its benefits.

 There are several main types of relaxation techniques, including the following:

Autogenic relaxation: Autogenic means something that comes from within you. In this relaxation technique, you use both visual imagery and body awareness to reduce stress. You repeat words or suggestions in your mind to relax and

reduce muscle tension. For example, you may imagine a peaceful setting and then focus on controlled, relaxing breathing, slowing your heart rate, or feeling different physical sensations, such as relaxing each arm or leg one by one.

Progressive muscle relaxation: In this relaxation technique, you focus on slowly tensing and then relaxing each muscle group. This helps you focus on the difference between muscle tension and relaxation. You become more aware of physical sensations. One method of progressive muscle relaxation is to start by tensing and relaxing the muscles in your toes and progressively working your way up to your neck and head. You can also start with your head and neck and work down to your toes. Tense your muscles for at least five seconds and then relax for 30 seconds, and repeat.

Visualization: In this relaxation technique, you form mental images to take a visual journey to a peaceful, calming place or situation. During visualization, try to use as many senses as you can, including smell, sight, sound and touch. If you imagine relaxing at the ocean, for instance, think about such things as the smell of salt water, the sound of crashing waves and the warmth of the sun on your body. You may want to close your eyes, sit in a quiet spot and loosen any tight clothing.

Other common relaxation techniques include the following.

As you learn relaxation techniques, you'll become more aware of muscle tension and other physical sensations of stress. Once you know what the stress response feels like, you can make a conscious effort to practice a relaxation technique the moment you start to feel stress symptoms. This can prevent stress from spiraling out of control. Remember that relaxation techniques are skills. And as with any skill, your ability to relax improves with practice.

Be patient with yourself — don't let your effort to practice relaxation techniques become yet another stressor. If one relaxation technique doesn't work for you, try another. If none of your efforts at stress reduction seem to work, talk to your doctor about other options.

Also, bear in mind that some people, especially those with serious psychological issues and a history of abuse, may experience feelings of emotional discomfort during some relaxation techniques. Although this is rare, if you experience

emotional discomfort during relaxation techniques, stop what you're doing and consider talking to your health care professional or mental health provider.

Great ExpectationsBellini’s Norma is an opera that I not only

adore: it obsesses me, too. Whenever I listen to it, I have to hear it again very soon, and parts of it lodge in my mind, playing over and over again, to an extent that very few other pieces do. It was the work through which I first came to realise Callas’s lonely greatness, and it was through her that I came to see how great Italian opera could be, too, having childishly dismissed it tout court as superficial compared with the great German traditions. I still think thatNorma operates on a level different from any other work by Bellini or his contemporaries, or even, I am inclined to think, Verdi. The only Italian composer who rivals it for purity and passion is Monteverdi, to whom Bellini owes nothing and has no resemblance.

The trouble for the opera-goer is that Norma is almost never performed. The new and mainly excellent production by Opera North is the first opportunity I have had to review it in the 16 years I’ve been writing for The Spectator. Everyone quotes Lilli Lehmann’s remark that she would rather sing three Brünnhildes than one Norma, but I am not sure that singers are as scared of it as managers are. Bellini doesn’t command devotion from operatic hoi polloi, unless there is a superstar in the cast. And most of the post-Callas superstars have done more to harm his reputation than to enhance it. Only Leyla Gencer, within living memory, can be compared for the comprehensiveness of her interpretation of Norma with Callas, and she never sang it in the UK.

Opera North gets off to a good start by stating, on its title page, that the production is ‘in homage to the great Maria Callas’. No one will expect the singer of Norma to match up to Callas, one can at most hope that, like her, singers will realise how intensely passionate Bellini is, and what art there is in expressing that in uniquely fluid melodic lines, or sometimes in lines that don’t even reach the melodic, as if the suffering Bellini gives his characters to express is too much to be rendered beautiful — that happens for page after page of the sublime finale.

The Dutch singer Annemarie Kremer doesn’t have a great voice, or an especially

lovely one; but she is continuously, unexaggeratedly expressive, and she is prepared to take risks with it, almost all of which came off on the opening night. Her voice is more characterful in its lower register than on high, but she didn’t skirt any of her alarming coloratura. The other main female role, the priestess Adalgisa, was sung by Keri Alkema, if anything more of a soprano than Kremer — but Bellini was happy for the two to swap roles. Their voices blended exquisitely in the great duets, and they managed to sound determined rather than jolly bouncing girls in the concluding passage of the Act II duet, which can sound all too much like Rossini in frisky mood.

Pollione, the faithless Roman proconsul whom they both adore, is always a problem. There are some bel canto tenors around, but the part tends to be taken by beefy singers who sound as if they’re practising for Otello (Verdi’s) or a Puccini hero. Luis Chapa isn’t exempt from that charge, and the production only reinforces his lack of appropriate style. But he is tolerable, and delivers his Act I aria with conviction.

How does one stage Norma? Has Monty Python made it impossible to take druids and occupying Romans seriously? I don’t see that it has. We could at least be given the chance to decide. This production is not one of Christopher Alden’s major crimes, nor one of his frightening successes. Yet updating Norma to the 19th century and relocating it in North America, with a rural, woodworking community oppressed by top-hatted industrialists, hardly makes sense.

The point is simply that a community with one set of deeply held beliefs and customs is being dominated by a military regime with no understanding of the offence they are giving. That’s the context. What matters is the extraordinary ferocity with which Normaresponds to her lover–oppressor, and the elevation of her transcendence of fury, jealousy and vengeance. The musicologist Alfred Einstein wrote, in 1935, ‘No one knows what music is who does not come away from Norma filled to overflowing with the last pages of this [last] act.’ Those

were wonderful days when musicologists said things like that.

Bellini is still mainly thought of as a refined or overrefined delight for canary fanciers. There is greatness in several of his operas, but Norma is almost consistently great, and

progressively so, and an experience as necessary as any that opera can provide. I can’t imagine that anyone would leave this Opera North production without at least temporarily sharing that conviction. 

The Riddle of Grapes

Some friends of ours recently took a trip to South America and Antarctica visiting Argentina and Chile. I asked them what they thought of the wines they encountered on their travels. Whilst enjoying many they particularly enjoyed the Carmeneres of Chile. 

Just before Christmas independent wine merchants Stone, Vine and Sun e-mailed me about a special offer for a particular Chilean Carmenere which I decided to snap up. 

Unfortunately delivery of the wine was delayed because it was damaged in transit, which happens every now and then. The blokes at Stone, Vine and Sun very kindly were going to send a different wine of similar value but such was my interest in Carmenere that I suggested they still send the bottles with wine stained labels and merely replace the four that were broken. This they did very efficiently. 

Now Carmenere as a grape variety has been a bit of a riddle and has emerged from obscurity having once being considered virtually extinct. In 1994 a French ampelographer identified some of Chile’s plantings of Merlot as in fact Carmenere, once popular in the Medoc region of Bordeaux and considered one of the classic claret varieties alongside Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Malbec and Petit Verdot. 

Its demise has been attributed to its low yields because of susceptibility to “coulere” (the small berries dropping off stalks after flowering) and to the insect phylloxera that ravaged the French vineyards in the 1860s.

Thus there is very little left in France and it is thought that Chile’s Carmenere vines were first imported from Bordeaux in the 1850’s along with other varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot.  

Although for nearly 150 years confused with Merlot, the Chileans had their suspicions about this later ripening version thinking it a clone of Merlot and giving it the name Merlot Selection or Merlot Peumal. Today there are over 6000 hectares of Carmenere in Chile where it seems to thrive, producing wines displaying red fruit characters, gentle tannins, spice, dark chocolate and medium body. 

I have not tried many varietal Carmeneres knowingly but may have whilst drinking Chilean Merlots in the 1990’s. I certainly would have quaffed blends with this mystery variety. The 2008 Terra Andina Carmenère from Stone, Vine and Sun has proved to be most enjoyable with its chocolate and blueberry flavours, plumpness, velvet tannins and hint of oak. Not overly complex but great for the price. 

Another example of why to go to an independent wine merchant not a supermarket, however I fear the “earth, wind and fire” chaps may have sold out. Worth asking. 

Tanners has a good selection of Carmeneres and Corney and Barrow as well as the Colchester Wine Company each have one. Time to explore I say. 

Next week I will explore what Zinfandel, Primitivo and Plavac Mali have in common. Are they all race horses, Eastern European boy bands or medical conditions?