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Nicole Kidman tells how her marriage went to ‘hell and back’

Washington, Oct 31 : Nicole Kidman has spoken publicly about her married life, confessing that during the first three months of her marriage with country singer Keith Urban, the pair went to “hell and back.”

The ‘Margot at The Wedding’ actress revealed that her marriage with Urban hit a rocky patch much before expected, when he entered rehab for drug addiction.

However, she added, they came out of it with flying colours.

“We were thrown into his alcohol problem three months into the marriage, and that was big,” she said in an interview with Parade magazine.

“We became the closest we could become, because we had to bare our souls. We did 10 years of marriage in three months,” she added.

Women’s sexual problems don’t always result in distress

Washington, October 31 : A Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) physician says that sexual problems in women, though prevalent, are not always associated with distress.

Dr. Jan Shifren, of the MGH Obstetrics and Gynecology Service, found in a survey of women that while 40 per cent of the participants had sexual problems, only 12 per cent of them indicated that those issues were a source of significant personal distress.

British law firms outsourcing services to India to cut costs

London, October 31 : Several law firms in Britain are outsourcing legal services like conveyancing, accident claims and due diligence investigations to India in order to cut costs for the duration of the downturn.

British firms get the services of thousands of Indian lawyers and recent law graduates for a fraction of the cost they would have to bear if work was done in the country.

World''''s largest law firm Clifford Chance is said to have set up its own bespoke offshore centre in Delhi.

Eversheds, another leading UK law firm, has also confirmed that it is taking the services of Indian lawyers.

Dowry a major cause of chronic poverty in Bangladesh

Washington, Oct 31 : Dowry is one of the major causes of chronic poverty in Bangladesh, according to a new study from University of Bath.

The research found that those households with lower levels of education, that owned less land had fewer assets and had many young children,

Moreover, elderly relatives faced the most difficulty in escaping poverty.

Dowry payments of more than 200 times the daily wage and costly medical expenses are major causes of this chronic poverty.

Though dowry is illegal in Bangladesh, but is still practised by most families living in rural areas.

Bacteria ‘listen in’ to neighbours and follow the crowd to grow

Washington, Oct 31 : When it comes to the decision to grow, the bacteria "listen in" to find out what their neighbours are doing and then follow the crowd, a new study has found.

The research team found that the spores of soil-dwelling bacteria could sense the presence of so-called muropeptide fragments released from the cell walls of other growing bacteria.

Those muropeptides act as powerful germinants, stimulating the spores to exit the safety of their dormant state and start growing.

The researchers hope that the discovery could lead to a new kind of anti-microbial agent that works by keeping dormant bacteria—which typically resist traditional antibiotics—inactive.

Bug-eye-inspired camera has six times the field of view of conventional ones

London, October 31 (ANI): A tiny bug-eyed camera, which provides a field of view six times that of the conventional camera, has been tested by researchers at a defence company in the UK.

Experts at BAE Systems at Great Baddow have revealed that the new system, called BugEye, has been developed primarily for use on missiles to keep track of targets.

The researchers add that the prototype camera is so small that it can also be used on endoscopes, giving an improved field of view in keyhole surgery.

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