Washington, Sept. 24 : Democrats are keeping track of how long it''s been since the Republican presidential ticket answered questions from the media.

Washington, Sept. 24 : Republicans are taking the elephant''s share of the blame when it comes to the current crisis rocking the nation''s financial institutions and Wall St., according to a new national poll.

In a CNN/Opinion Research Corp, a survey of registered voters released on Monday, only 47 percent blamed Republicans for the current financial crisis the stock market.

By contract, only 24 percent blamed the Democrats, with 20 percent saying both parties were to blame and 8 percent not blaming either party.

Washington, September 24 : A new research has suggested that river floods and storms that send water surging through swamps and marshes near rivers and coastal areas might cut in half the average greenhouse gas emissions from those affected wetlands.

The study, conducted by researchers at the Ohio State University in the US, suggests that pulses of water through wetlands result in lower average emissions of greenhouse gases over the course of the year compared to the emissions from wetlands that receive a steady flow of water.

The study compared the emission of methane from wetlands under two different conditions, one with a pulsing hydrology system designed to resemble river flooding and one with a steady, low flow of water.

Washington, September 24 : In a bid to determine the melting temperature of ice in high atmospheric pressures, scientists have found a sharp increase in the melting curves, which opens up the possibility that water exists as a solid in the deep interior of planets such as Neptune, Uranus and Earth.

Through first-principle molecular dynamics simulations, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists, together with University of California, Davis collaborators, used a two-phase approach to determine the melting temperature of ice VII (a high-pressure phase of ice) in pressures ranging from 100,000 to 500,000 atmospheres.

For pressures between 100,000 and 400,000 atmospheres, the team, led by Eric Schwegler, found that ice melts as a molecular solid.

Washington, Sept 24 : American magician David Blaine is said to have cheated in his latest stunt, which involves him hanging upside down for 60 hours.

An eyewitness photographed him standing upright on September 23, and another reported Blaine had been taking breaks, from being hung upside down, by standing up about three times an hour.

Though the revelation has removed the charm from 35-year-old Blaine''s latest stunt, his representative said that he never intended to stay upside down for 60 consecutive hours.

Washington, September 24 : Astronomers have spotted the mighty collision of two terrestrial planets orbiting a mature sun-like star, an event which is being compared to a hypothetical clash of the Earth and Venus, which may have been the ultimate extinction event.

The collision was detected by astronomers at UCLA, Tennessee State University and the California Institute of Technology, US.