Hamburg - Major car makers are falling over each other with announcements of plans to produce zero-emission electric drive and fuel-saving hybrid vehicles with experts agreeing that demand for such vehicles is so high that the industry will probably not be able to meet it fully in the coming years.

All the big car makers had an electric-drive vehicle on show including the French, Japanese, German and U. S. manufacturers, at the recent Paris Motor Show. After spending decades in the backyards of hobby mechanics the electric car is becoming a realistic alternative, triggered by a leap in lithium-ion battery technology that is lighter and more compact than the heavy nickel-cadmium version.

Hamburg - With banks battling for survival, markets reporting takeover scrambles and company directors facing penalities for bad performance, it seems trade floors and commerce chambers are beating sports pitches and locker rooms for sheer drama these days.

The world of sports - as yet - appears remarkably unaffected by the global market crisis.

Tennis player Andrea Petkovic at least is keeping her focus firmly on her fitness, not on finances.

Hamburg, Germany - Faced with strict German laws banning the use of human embryos, a team of German scientists came up with a radical new "ethical" source for stem cells - men's testicles.

The scientists believe their breakthrough may offer a whole new range of treatments for diseases like Parkinson's and diabetes and for spinal cord injuries involving use of men's own stem cells to replace damaged or diseased cells in their own bodies.

Hamburg - Gamers are repeat offenders. There are few other explanations for why revived older games or sequels to famous titles frequently top the sales charts.

Hamburg - If speed matters when transferring data, then consumers can hardly go wrong when buying an external hard drive. The Hamburg-based Computer Bild magazine recently tested eight devices in the 2.5 and 3.5 inch format, and the results were encouraging.

The devices all received a grade of "good" for their speed. The noise levels on the hard drives were also checked, with most models barely audible, the magazine reports. The test did reveal that many models run very warm, which can have a negative effect on service life, the experts feel.

Hamburg - Lufthansa is expanding a plant in Germany that remodels wide-bodied jets for use by billionaires as flying homes, the German airline said Thursday.

Demand for individually styled big aircraft had been soaring, Lufthansa's Technik division said.

The plant in Hamburg is not the city's only address for the super- rich who want gold-plated taps and the softest beds when they travel. Some of the world's most expensive super-yachts come from a dockyard in the city.