London, Dec 8 : B

London, December 8 : British primary pupils are to learn more practical skills involved in daily life while traditional subjects such as history, geography and religious studies are set to undergo a radical reform.

According to Sir Jim Rose, the study of information technology is to be given equal importance as literacy, foreign languages and numeracy classes in order to produce a curriculum suited for the 21st century.

Sir Jim said that the idea behind the educational reform, such as combining traditional subjects into a “human, social and environmental” learning programme, was to lighten the curriculum so that younger kids could learn fewer subjects in greater detail, reports Times Online.

Washington, December 8 : Britney Spears is planning to “do the tree thing” and sing Christmas carols with her family this year.

The ‘Womanizer’ singer, who recently released her sixth studio album ‘Circus’ on December 2 to coincide with her 27th birthday, said that she has drawn plans to spend quality time with closed ones during the festive season.

"It''s family time... do the tree thing. The family comes over. It''s fun, ” US magazine quoted her as saying at the “Light of the Angels” tree lighting ceremony in LA.

London, Dec 8 : Marine archaeologists have discovered a piece of string made out of honeysuckle, nettles or wild clematis dating back to the Stone Age.

The team led by Gary Momber of the Hampshire and Wight Trust for Maritime Archaeology found the four-and-a-half inch long string in a pre-historic camp 30 feet below the surface, 200 yards off the coast of the Isle of Wight.

The tough stems of honeysuckle, nettles or wild clematis were twisted together.

The researchers had cut out small blocks of the sea floor for analysis after seeing the wooded remains of the settlement by chance.

The string was buried in one of them.

With the aim to invent something extraordinary and unique, Intel is creating self-powered microchips. The unique thing about these microchips would be that it could be implanted in the human body, a mobile phone, a building, or anyplace else where people wish to gather information.

During a meeting on Friday with reporters in San Francisco, Intel CTO Justin Rattner described it as “wireless identification and sensing platform,” or WISP and it was among several other technologies described by Rattner during the meeting.