Researchers in Berlin have come a step closer to developing a device that will enable people to write and manipulate objects by reading their mind. The so-called mental typewriter that translates thoughts into cursor movements on a computer screen will be on display at the computer technology fair CeBIT, which opens in the German city of Hanover on March 9.
The studio behind Crash, the surprise best picture winner at Sunday night’s Oscar ceremony, spent a total of -million promoting the film ahead of the ceremony with a targeted campaign to woo academy members. The film itself only cost ,5-million to make.
The world economy is set to bounce back strongly from its weakness at the end of last year, the west’s leading thinktank said on Monday, but the European Central Bank should hold off raising interest rates again until there are concrete signs the recovery in the eurozone is well established.
Ian Whyte watched in awe as a hungry elephant stripped the bark off three marula trees in South Africa’s Kruger National Park, hammering at nature with all its might. ”Within a few minutes, that bull killed three trees, and in just one feeding session,” recalled Whyte, a research manager and elephant specialist who has worked in the park for 36 years.
A lot happened during the time the so-called Muslim faithful set about their holy task of riot, pillage and arson over the notoriously unfunny caricatures of Islam’s last prophet. The shackled, manacled and hooded Muslim detainees on hunger strike against their indefinite detention at Camp X-Ray were being nourished with tubes shoved down their throats.
South Africa’s latest skills recruitment drive is an initiative infused with a sense of urgency by its driver, Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. Set to be launched later this month, the Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisitionis seen by the government as a key component of its recently unveiled economic growth plan.
Banks are not usually seen as an easy touch for loans, usually requiring collateral that many would-be borrowers do not have. But in the case of student loans, leading banks say the only limitation is students who do not realise that money is available.
"Our biggest problem is that we have no school; none of the children can study," says Edmond Tadahy, as his five-year-old daughter clambers across his lap. The kitchen in the home of this father of five, located in a remote village in north-eastern Madagascar, is filled with the acrid smoke of roasting coffee. On this vast Indian Ocean island, stories like Tadahy’s are common.
Iraq is on the verge of breaking up along religious, ethnic and tribal lines — a process bloodily amplified by the Shia versus Sunni violence in the wake the recent bomb attack on the gold-domed shrine in Samarra, the International Crisis Group says in a report.
A few years ago I noticed something strange was happening in my native United States. I would turn on the television and find strippers in nipple-tassels explaining how to lap-dance a man to orgasm. I would flip the channel and see babes in tiny uniforms bouncing up and down on trampolines.