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Now, laptops to detect quakes!

Washington, Oct 29 : In a new project, scientists have used laptops to detect several earthquakes, taking the help of small accelerometer chips inside the machines.

The project is known as the project Quake Catcher Network (QCN).

Scientists have found out that the tiny accelerometer chip is a pretty good earthquake sensor as well, especially if the signals from lots of them are compared, in order to filter out more mundane sources of laptop vibrations, such as typing.

The project has about 1500 laptops connected in a network that has detected several tremors, including a magnitude 5.4 quake in Los Angeles in July this year.

Now, roses, violets and lilies under threat by global warming

Washington, Oct 29 : A new study has determined that some of the world’s most beloved species of flowers like lilies, orchids, violets, roses, and dogwoods have also been hit by global warming.

The study, by scientists at Harvard University, US, have found that different plant families near Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts, have borne the effects of climate change in strikingly different ways.

Over the past 150 years, some of the plants in Thoreau’s woods have shifted their flowering time by as much as three weeks as spring temperatures have risen, the researchers say, while others have been less flexible.

British Airways is now effectively ‘London Airways’

London, Oct 29 : British Airways has stopped being the UK’s national carrier and effectively become London Airways.

Though the airline still operates flights from Manchester, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen, but passengers choice of destination from these cities is limited: They can fly to any other city they like – so long as it is London, The Independent reported.

At the weekend, the airline axed the last international flight that neither departed from nor arrived at one of the London airports, the 44-year-old link from New York to Manchester.

The slots at JFK have been redeployed for a new BA route from Gatwick.

We first look around the nose to recognise a familiar face

Washington, October 29 : An American study has revealed that the first two points that people look at to tell whether a face is familiar to them or not are around the nose.

Cognitive Scientists Janet Hui-wen Hsiao and Garrison Cottrell from the Temporal Dynamics of Learning Center at the University of California, San Diego, examined this by showing volunteers frontal-view images of faces, one at a time, and recording their eye movements.

They used an eye tracker to record the movements of the participants, which helped detect where on the faces shown the volunteers looked.

Punjab shows the way to raise awareness about organ donation

Ludhiana, Oct 29 : Though organ transplantation in India was started in 1971, the donations from cadavers were negligible. However Punjab has recently made a beginning in spreading awareness about organ donation and raising health issues related to organ transplants.

Through cadaver donation, different organs like heart and parts of lungs and liver can be transplanted to eight patients and can also benefit 50 others in various ways. But it is not practiced in India.

At the 19th annual conference of Indian Society of Organ Transplantation in Ludhiana, experts expressed their opinions on legal, ethical and social issues in organ transplantation.

Le Corbusier, the creator of Chandigarh

Chandigarh, Oct 25 : Le-Corbusier, the Swiss-French architect, who designed Chandigarh in the 1950s has a museum dedicated to his name. Old Architects'' building in Chandigarh''s Sector 9, which was the office of Le Corbusier, has now been converted into a museum.

Called `Le Corbusier Museum and Research Centre'', it is the sixth such center in the world and the second in India after a museum in Ahmedabad.

Le Corbusier designed and constructed buildings throughout Europe and India and one each in North and South America. He was an urban planner, painter, sculptor, writer and modern furniture designer.

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