London, October 31 : Several law firms in Britain are outsourcing legal services like conveyancing, accident claims and due diligence investigations to India in order to cut costs for the duration of the downturn.

British firms get the services of thousands of Indian lawyers and recent law graduates for a fraction of the cost they would have to bear if work was done in the country.

World''''s largest law firm Clifford Chance is said to have set up its own bespoke offshore centre in Delhi.

Eversheds, another leading UK law firm, has also confirmed that it is taking the services of Indian lawyers.

Washington, Oct 31 : Dowry is one of the major causes of chronic poverty in Bangladesh, according to a new study from University of Bath.

The research found that those households with lower levels of education, that owned less land had fewer assets and had many young children,

Moreover, elderly relatives faced the most difficulty in escaping poverty.

Dowry payments of more than 200 times the daily wage and costly medical expenses are major causes of this chronic poverty.

Though dowry is illegal in Bangladesh, but is still practised by most families living in rural areas.

Washington, Oct 31 : When it comes to the decision to grow, the bacteria "listen in" to find out what their neighbours are doing and then follow the crowd, a new study has found.

The research team found that the spores of soil-dwelling bacteria could sense the presence of so-called muropeptide fragments released from the cell walls of other growing bacteria.

Those muropeptides act as powerful germinants, stimulating the spores to exit the safety of their dormant state and start growing.

The researchers hope that the discovery could lead to a new kind of anti-microbial agent that works by keeping dormant bacteria—which typically resist traditional antibiotics—inactive.

London, October 31 (ANI): A tiny bug-eyed camera, which provides a field of view six times that of the conventional camera, has been tested by researchers at a defence company in the UK.

Experts at BAE Systems at Great Baddow have revealed that the new system, called BugEye, has been developed primarily for use on missiles to keep track of targets.

The researchers add that the prototype camera is so small that it can also be used on endoscopes, giving an improved field of view in keyhole surgery.

Washington, October 31 : Two Kent State University sociology professors have likened U. S. presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s debating style to the technique boxing legend Muhammed Ali relied on during his matches.

Drs. Will Kalkhoff and Stanford W. Gregory Jr. say that Obama demonstrates a “rope-a-dope” debating style, which is similar to the way Ali would hang back during the beginning of a fight until his opponent exhausted himself, and then would dominate the end of the match, winning most of his contests with this style.

Lahore, Oct 31 : Geoff Lawson believes his sacking as the Pakistan cricket coach had nothing to do with his performance but was influenced by political changes in the country and the change in the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) set-up.

The former Australian bowler will return home on Friday after just over a year as coach of the national team.

The PCB cleared his financial dues with a final payment of 80,000 dollar, which included a bonus for guiding the national team into the final of the Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa last year.

Lawson had refused to leave until the PCB cleared all his payments and this was done on Monday by the board, the Daily Times reported.