Washington, Oct 28 : Electrically stimulating the brain with a non-invasive technique called transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) can improve a person’s skill at handling delicate tasks.

According to the Drs. Gottfried Schlaug and Bradley Vines from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, tDCS could improve the use of a person''s non-dominant hand. 

In tDCS, electrodes are attached to the scalp and a weak direct current is passed the scalp and skull to alter the excitability of the underlying brain tissue. 

The treatment has two principal modes depending on the direction in which the current runs between the two electrodes. Brain tissue that underlies the positive electrode 

Kabul  - US forces killed 12 militants after suspected Taliban insurgents shot down an American helicopter in central Afghanistan, the US military said Tuesday.

The incident happened Monday in the Sayed Abad district of Wardak province, 50 kilometres west of Kabul, when a rocket-propelled grenade hit the tail of the UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter, forcing it to the ground, the US military said in a statement.

The crew members on board returned fire and killed five militants, it said.

Seven other militants were killed and another one was detained when the US soldiers continued searching the area and were engaged by more militants, the statement said.

Beirut  - The Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah movement has condemned the US raid in Syria as a "terrorist crime" that violated Syrian sovereignty, Lebanese media reported said Tuesday.

Hezbollah, in a statement, also urged the Arab League and Arab states to "shoulder their responsibilities because they are threatened by similar attacks," according to Voice of Lebanon radio.

"US occupation and Israeli occupation pose a threat to the region's peace and stability," the statement said.

The Syrian government and Arab leaders in the region have expressed outrage over the purported US helicopter raid Sunday targeting militants in the town of Abu Kamal.

Washington, Oct 28 : 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. 

Washington, Oct 28 : 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. 

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.