Washington  - Illinois Senator Roland Burris, who filled Barack Obama's vacated Senate seat last month, acknowledged in documents made public Saturday that the state's governor's brother sought donations from him.

Burris, 71, claimed that he didn't respond to the request, which came in the months before his appointment as senator. He said in an affidavit that he refused the request as it "could be viewed as an attempt to curry favour with him (governor) regarding his decision to appoint a successor" to Obama.

Washington, Feb. 15 : The Obama administration has described Senator Dianne Feinstein's comments on drones operating in Pakistan were only based on a news report rather than an intelligence report.

Philip J. LaVelle, spokesperson of Feinstein said her comment was solely based on news reports that drones were operated from bases near Islamabad.

Washington, February 15 : A study on people who often visit websites carrying online games has revealed that most of them play with those who stay in their general geographic area.

Social scientist and engineer Noshir Contractor, of Northwestern University, has revealed his team chose virtual games for their study because tracking a person's social network, which could include hundreds of contacts that serve different purposes, is nearly impossible in the real world.

However, he added, in online virtual games like EverQuest II-where tens of thousands of people leave digital traces as they chat with one another, perform quests together, form groups and buy and sell goods-a gold mine of networking data can be found.

Washington, Feb 15 : A new research has suggested that escaping lizards probably pay a significant ecological cost for losing their tails while escaping predators, in the sense that their jumps turn into uncomfortable somersaults.

According to Gary Gillis from Mount Holyoke College, USA, up to 50 percent of some lizard populations seem to have traded some part of their tails in exchange for escape.

This made Gillis wonder how this loss may impact on a lizard''s mobility and ability to survive. Specifically, how do branch hopping, tree dwelling lizards cope with their loss.

Teaming up with undergraduate student Lauren Bonvini, the pair began encouraging lizard leaps to see how well the reptiles coped without their tails.

Washington, Feb 15 : A leading atmospheric scientist has said that aerosols may have a greater impact on patterns of Australian rainfall and future climate change than previously thought.

Aerosols are fine particles suspended in the atmosphere. Sources of human-generated aerosols include industry, motor vehicles and vegetation burning.

Natural sources include volcanoes, dust storms and ocean plankton. Human-generated aerosols have long been known to exert a cooling effect on climate.

This has partly masked the warming effect of increasing greenhouse gases. As aerosol pollution is predicted to decrease over the next few decades, unmasking of the greenhouse effect may lead to accelerated global warming.

Washington  - Illinois Senator Roland Burris, who filled Barack Obama's vacated Senate seat last month, acknowledged in documents made public Saturday that the state's governor's brother sought donations from him.

Burris, 71, claimed that he didn't respond to the request, which came in the months before his appointment as senator. He said in an affidavit that he refused the request as it "could be viewed as an attempt to curry favour with him (governor) regarding his decision to appoint a successor" to Obama.