Tokyo  - Panasonic Corp on Tuesday reported the highest net profit in 23 years for the first six months of a business year, thanks to strong sales of digital consumer electronics.

The company, which changed its name from Matsushita Electric Industrial Co earlier this month, saw net profit rise by 22.2 per cent during the first six months of fiscal 2008 to 128.49 billion yen (1.38 billion dollars), compared to the year before.

The Japanese home electronics company logged an operating profit of 228.15 billion yen, up 3.7 per cent year-on-year for the first half of the business year starting in April.

Jakarta - Indonesian stocks dropped by more than 4 per cent Tuesday, counter to the rebound experienced by most Asian markets, while the country's currency fell sharply to reach its lowest since July 2001.

The Jakarta Composite Index fell to a new low, closing at 1,111.39, down 55.02 points, or 4.72 per cent.

Indonesian President Susilo Bamband Yudhoyono said that he might outline steps to help the embattled rupiah later Tuesday.

"We will do everything to save our economy," Yudhoyono told reporters, without saying what steps he had in mind. He added that Bank Indonesia and economic advisors were in a meeting to discuss measures to help the local currency.

Brussels  - The European Commission on Tuesday approved Germany's 470-billion-euro (588-billion-dollar) financial rescue package after finding that it does not violate European Union treaty rules.

"The package constitutes an adequate means to remedy a serious disturbance in the German economy while avoiding undue distortions of competition," the bloc's executive arm said in a statement.

In approving the package, officials in Brussels noted that the German measures do not discriminate against foreign banks, they are limited in time and scope, and they foresee "adequate safeguards to minimize distortions of competition."

Washington, Oct 28 : Tennis referees are very likely to make mistakes when they call balls "out" than when they call them "in", mainly because of the inherent bias in people perceiving moving objects, according to a new report.

As it turns out, the study by researchers at the University of California, Davis, might just support the recent rule changes allowing professional tennis players to challenge the referees'' calls, thus helping them in exploiting the new findings to their advantage.

David Whitney, a member of the research team, said that just like all visual illusions, the new discovery provides visual neuroscientists with a window on how the brain processes information. 

Washington. Oct 28 : A breakthrough study has found that by wearing masks and using alcohol-based hand sanitizers, people can successfully avert the spread of flu symptoms by as much as 50 percent.

The study by researchers at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, is the first-of-its-kind to deal with the efficacy of non-pharmaceutical interventions in controlling the spread of the flu virus in communities

In the study, the researchers studied more than 1,000 student subjects from seven U-M residence halls during last year''s flu season. 

Washington, October 28 : Scientists have found that a treatment with Valproic Acid (VPA) in the early stages of Alzheimer''s disease can reverse memory deficit.

Lead researcher Weihong Song, the Jack Brown and Family Professor and Chair in Alzheimer''s Disease at UBC, has found that VPA works by inhibiting the activity of an enzyme that produces a neurotoxic protein called beta Amyloid, in turn discontinuing plaque formation.

Writing about the new findings in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, the research team highlighted the fact that amyloid beta-proteins are the central component of neurotoxic plaques in AD.