Tokyo - Sony Corp revised downward its expected earnings for the current fiscal year by 38 per cent on a strengthening yen and slowing demand for consumer electronics amid a sluggish global economy, the company said Thursday.

The second-largest maker of consumer electronics in the world now expected a net profit of 150 billion yen (1.51 billion dollars) for the year ending March 31, down from an initial projection of 240 billion yen announced in July.

Last year, Tokyo-based Sony made a net profit of 369.44 billion yen.

The 30-share index Sensex, which had suffered a heavy loss earlier this morning, recovered over 200 points from today’s lows, touching a high of 9,968.12.

Metal, realty, banking, oil & gas stocks led the declining charts.

BSE Midcap and Smallcap index fell 2.52% and 2.26% respectively.

After opened the day negatively at 9,683.41, down 486.49 points, the Sensex crashed to 9681.28 following a massive sell-off in front line stocks.

At 10:59 a.m., Sensex stood at 9,926.09, down 243.81 points, after hitting a high of 9,928.11 and a low of 9,681.28.

London, Oct 23: Social networking site, Facebook, is responsible for ‘friendship addiction’ and is fuelling insecurity in users, according to psychologists.

With social networking sites becoming more of a substitute for families, it is the women who are most affected by it, as they derive their self worth from relationships with others and Facebook compels them to ‘acquire’ hundreds of friends, experts say.

According to David Smallwood, an addictions expert with the Priory clinic, at least 10 per cent of the population were vulnerable to ‘friendship addiction’.

Baghdad  - Nine people have been killed in an apparent suicide bomb attack on the convoy of Iraqi Minister of Labour Mahmoud al-Radi on Thursday.

London, Oct 23: An international team of researchers have identified as many as 26 genes that are frequently mutated in the most common form of lung cancer, thus opening up avenues for developing new therapies for treating the disease.

The researchers looked at nearly 200 patients with lung adenocarcinoma and decoded or sequenced the DNA of several hundred genes that are known to or are suspected to be involved in cancer development.

By scanning the tumour genomes, they identified several abnormally active as well as silent genes.

The team was able to pinpoint more than 1,000 genetic alterations — the majority of which had not been previously known.