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Weekly Update
Stephen Hawking calls for mankind to reach for stars
HONG KONG: British physicist and mathematician Stephen Hawking said on Tuesday that the human race should reach for the stars in order to survive.
Speaking on a six-day visit to Hong Kong, Hawking said: “It is important for the human race to spread out into space for the survival of the species.
“Life on Earth is at an ever increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we haven’t yet thought of.
“But if we can avoid killing ourselves for the next hundred years we should have settlements that can continue without support from Earth,” he said, predicting a lunar settlement within 20 years and a Martian colony in 40.
Hawking, a Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge who speaks with a voice synthesiser and has been in a wheelchair since developing motor neurone disease when he was a teenager, then revealed he was writing a science book for children with his daughter.
“It will be a bit like Harry Potter in the universe, about science, no magic,” Hawking told reporters.
His daughter, Lucy Hawking, a journalist who is travelling with her father, said the book would be about theoretical physics.—AFP
Taste for meat and fish inherited
LONDON: Children inherit their taste for meat and fish but when it comes to vegetables and desserts it’s more nurture than nature, according to a study.
Scientists who compared the food preferences of identical and fraternal twins found that some tastes are inherited while others are acquired.
“This is the first study to include significant numbers of protein foods and the first to show a high heritability for these,” said Professor Jane Wardle of the charity Cancer Research UK.
Mothers of 103 pairs of four and five-year-old identical twins and 111 pairs of non-identical twins were given lists of 77 foods in different categories and told to rate how much their children liked them.
The scientists determined the heritability by looking at how similar the identical and fraternal twins’ liking for foods were. “It might be that children who witness their parents show enthusiasm or distaste for certain types of vegetables or puddings are likely to follow suit,” Wardle said.—Reuters
Elephants drive hundreds onto boats
RANGAMATI (Bangladesh): Hundreds of villagers have taken refuge on boats in Bangladesh after their homes were destroyed by a herd of rampaging elephants, local officials said.
The elephants repeatedly raided their village at Barkal on the fringe of a forest in south-eastern Bangladesh’s Chittagong Hill Tracts, pulling down houses and plundering crops.
Attempts to scare the beasts away by setting fires, blowing trumpets and setting off crackers failed.
“They come back almost every night and romp through human habitation, forcing many to flee,” one forest official said.
Terrified, some 300 villagers took refuge on boats in the sprawling Rangamati lake, coming ashore only in daylight hours for food and other provisions.
At least 15 people are killed every year by elephants in Bangladesh because of human encroachment on natural habitats. Bangladesh has a forest cover of 17.5 per cent—Reuters
Hair bugs now resistant to common lotions
PARIS: Parents who use over-the-counter shampoos to clear lice from their children’s hair are doing little more than making the critters cleaner, a study suggests.
Four out of five head lice are resistant to malathion, permethrin and phenothrin, the pesticides most commonly used in delousing treatment, it says.
Taking nit-picking at its most literal sense, doctors used lice combs on a sample of 2,800 kids drawn randomly from 300,000 primary schoolchildren in Wales.
The 316 lice were then swiftly deep-frozen and their bodies subjected to tests for enzymes that are a telltale of resistance to organophosphates and pyrethroids.
Eighty per cent of the lice showed resistance.
The paper was published online on Tuesday in Archives of Disease in Childhood, a journal of the British Medical Association (BMA).
Resistance means that parents will have to fall back on a newly-authorised silicone treatment called four-per cent dimeticone lotion, the authors say.—AFP
Japan’s oldest man dies
TOKYO: The oldest man in Japan, whose people are famed for their longevity, has died just two days after celebrating his 111th birthday, an official said Tuesday.
Nijiro Tokuda died of senile deterioration late Monday at a hospital near his nursing home in Kagoshima on the main southern island of Kyushu, said an official from the city office.
The world’s oldest living man is 113-year-old Emiliano Mercado Del Toro in Puerto Rico, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.—AFP
RIO DE JANEIRO: Fans wear glasses that read “2006 Cup”, before the game between Brazil against Croatia, in Rio de Janeiro, on June 13. Brazil will play against Croatia in the first round of the Germany 2006 FIFA soccer World Cup. —AP
KUALA LUMPUR: A diver feeds a shark at the Aquarium in Kuala Lumpur, on 12 June. For the first time in Malaysia, “Dive with Sharks” offers the experience of a lifetime for visitors to get up close and personal with Kuala Lumpur Aquaria most fascinating marine life of the deep ocean such as the Sand Tiger Sharks, Giant Blotched Fantail Ray, Moray Eels, Giant Groupers and others.—AFP
PARIS: Spain’s Rafael Nadal (L) and Swiss Roger Federer pose on the podium after the French tennis Open finals at Roland Garros in Paris on June 11. Nadal won 1-6, 6-1, 6-4, 7-6.—AFP|
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