Ahmedabad, Oct 25 : With the festival of lights ''Diwali'' just round the corner, companies caught up in the global financial crisis have cut down on corporate gifts.

Every year during this festive season, the demand for corporate gifts is on an all time high, especially in Gujarat.

But with the US meltdown trickling down to India as well, many companies have resorted to cost cutting and are refraining from purchasing expensive gifts or token gifts usually presented to employees on Diwali.

Shopkeepers and traders say that their business has gone down by more than 30 per cent.

London, October 25: A team of scientist from San Francisco has been successful in growing new prostate glands in mice with the aid of stem cell technology, a breakthrough that may cast light on how prostate tumours develop.

The team from San Francisco were able to isolate single cells with the ability to generate an entire prostate.

During the study, the researchers isolated and transplanted back into mice a type of stem cell that divides to form different cell types in the prostate gland, located near the bladder.

The team observed that the transplanted cells developed into entirely new glands.

Islamabad - Pakistan's security forces claimed Saturday they had seized a strategic Taliban militant base in the country's ungoverned tribal region along the border with Afghanistan.

Major General Tariq Khan, inspector general of the paramilitary Frontier Corps, said the troops had taken control of Loi Sam area in Bajaur tribal district, a known sanctuary for Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters carrying out cross-border attacks on US-led international forces in Afghanistan.

Pakistan troops backed by fighter planes and helicopter gunships launched a major offensive in August after militants captured a strategic hilltop in Loi Sam on a road leading into the Afghan province of Kunar, and reinforced their positions in the surrounding areas.

Washington, October 25 : The world’s oldest cooked cereal, enjoyed by European diners about 8,000 years ago, was prepared instantly just by soaking it in hot water.

The researchers behind this finding have revealed that the ancient cereal, dating from between 5920 to 5730 B. C., consisted of parboiled bulgur wheat that Early Neolithic Bulgarians could refresh in minutes with hot water.

"People boiled the grain, dried it, removed the bran and ground it into coarse particles," Discovery News quoted lead author Soultana-Maria Valamoti, an assistant professor of archaeology at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece, as saying.

Washington, Oct 25: Hollywood actor Matt Damon wants his daughters to grow up into humanitarians without celebrity lifestyle going to their head.

The ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’ actor, who is very popular for his philanthropic efforts in Africa and around the world, want to see his daughters following in his footsteps.

"It''s a hard thing to explain to a kid. And it is also unbelievable the way other kids are forced to live,” Contactmusic quoted Damon, as saying.

Washington, Oct 25 : Republican presidential candidate John McCain has lost the advertisement and earned media war, and it is too late to win the skies back, but the only hope now is for his campaign to win the war on the ground.

Advertisements and earned media are what make an air war, and the air war is what drives the ground game. Trouble is that there has been a complete lack of message discipline at the McCain campaign.

Now it is entirely up to McCain’s field troops to deliver victory, FOX News reported.