New York, Sept. 26: Alaska Governor and Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin insisted on Thursday that her home state’s proximity to Russia constituted her foreign policy experience.

In a sit down interview with CBS' Katie Couric, Palin indirectly revealed her poor foreign policy credentials by stating "Well, it certainly does because our - our next-door neighbors are foreign countries," referring to Russia and Canada.

Asked if she had held negotiations with Russia, Palin said: "We have trade missions back and forth."

Washington, September 26 : NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has revealed hundreds of small fractures exposed on the Martian surface that billions of years ago directed flows of water through underground Martian sandstone.

Researchers used images from the spacecraft’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE, camera, to detect the fractures.

Images of layered rock deposits at equatorial Martian sites show the clusters of fractures to be a type called deformation bands, caused by stresses below the surface in granular or porous bedrock.

Washington, Sept 26 : It’s not the size of the letters, but spacing between them, which makes it hard for us to read a book from a distance, according to New York University neuroscientists.

The same applies to objects, including letters, animals, and furniture, which can only be recognized only if they are separated by enough space, the "critical spacing." Objects closer than that spacing are "crowded" and cannot be identified.

The critical spacing is a key parameter in the brain''s cortical architecture underlying object recognition, said authors, NYU Professor of Psychology and Neural Science Denis Pelli and Katharine Tillman, an undergraduate researcher in NYU''s College of Arts and Science.

Washington, Sept. 26 : Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has accepted gifts valued at 25,367 dollars from industry executives, municipalities and a cultural center whose board includes officials from some of the largest mining interests in the state, a review of state records shows.

The 41 gifts Palin accepted during her 20 months as Governor includes honorific tributes, expensive artwork and free travel for a family member.

New York, Sept. 26: The war in Iraq is far from over, but Alaska Governor and Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin seems convinced that the United States has achieved "victory" in that country.

She is also of the view that more American troops need to be sent to Afghanistan, a plea made at time when most Americans are demanding a recall of troops and battling with an economic crisis almost similar to the Great Depression of
1929.

Washington, Sept. 26 : A consultant to the Republican Party has said that its candidate -- Senator John McCain – has taken a big risk by suspending his campaign this week. 

Fox News quoted Chris Coffey as saying that McCain has taken four risks that could ultimately tell on the performance of his campaign in the run up to the presidential poll and in its aftermath.

He said that the first “obvious” risk is that the Democrats will argue that Senator McCain cannot multi-task.