World Briefs

The brains of flies are wired to avoid the swatter, US researchers said yesterday. At the mere hint of a threat, the insects adjust their pre-flight stance to flee in the opposite direction, ensuring a clean getaway, they said in a finding that helps explain why flies so easily evade swipes from their human foes.

"These movements are made very rapidly, within about 200 milliseconds, but within that time the animal determines where the threat is coming from and activates an appropriate set of movements to position its legs and wings," Michael Dickinson of the California Institute of Technology said in a statement.

"This illustrates how rapidly the fly's brain can process sensory information into an appropriate motor response," said Mr Dickinson, whose research appears in the journal Current Biology.

Mr Dickinson's team studied this process in fruit flies using high-speed digital imaging equipment and a fancy fly swatter. In response to a threat from the front, the fly moves its middle legs forward, leans back and raises its back legs for a backward takeoff. If the threat is from the side, the fly leans the other way before takeoff.

Gay festival angers Muslims

Plans to hold Bosnia's first gay festival during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan were denounced by the Muslim community yesterday as an affront to religious feelings. As in most of the Balkans, there is little tolerance for homosexuality in Bosnia, where for many it remains a taboo.

"Such an event dangerously threatens our religious feelings. It is not appropriate to hold it during the Ramadan," said Ezher Beganovic, a journalist with the Islamic magazine Saff.

Mr Beganovic has spearheaded a debate about next month's four-day festival. He said in an article this week that the "festival of homosexuality", which is regarded as a sin and disease in Islam, could cloud the holy month of Ramadan and prompt angry reactions from believers. Organisers said the festival was planned a year ago without aiming to provoke.

Neighbourhood passes one-dog rule

Dog lovers beware. A neighbourhood in Peru's capital, Lima, has passed a law prohibiting families living in apartments from having more than one dog. People living in houses are allowed two dogs, while those found with more will be subject to hefty fines.

According to an order published in the country's official gazette, residents of Jesus Maria, a middle-class area in Lima, have said there are just too many dogs - and too much barking.

"Neighbours have complained they cannot live in peace, harmony, or good physical and mental health because... noisy dogs disturb the peace," the order read. Families with more than the permitted number of dogs will face fines of up to 700 soles (€160), and could have their furry friends removed.

The order says nothing about cats, or animals besides the dog.

Loved ones turned into diamonds

Diamonds really are forever. Algordanza, a small company based in the mountainous southeast of Switzerland, uses the ashes of dead people to make diamonds as a permanent memento for their nearest and dearest.

And with prices starting at less than €5,000, the jewels are not solely the preserve of the jetset.

"Some people find it helpful to go to the cemetery and grieve, and they leave their grief in the cemetery," said Algordanza chairman Veit Brimer. "There are some people who, for whatever reason, do not want to have this farewell.

"Astonishingly these are mainly Christian people. They say: 'Why should I say goodbye? I'll see my husband in 15 years in heaven anyway'," Mr Brimer said in his office overlooking the town of Chur and its surrounding steep mountains.

The technology for making artificial diamonds was first pioneered by General Electric in the 1950s, and mirrors nature by subjecting carbon to huge pressure and temperature.

New intrigue on Puccini's love life

A new film on Giacomo Puccini has uncovered letters and documents suggesting the composer may have a second living descendant, in a tangled tale of infidelity and vengeance befitting one of his operas.

Puccini e la Fanciulla (Puccini and the Girl), which premiered at the Venice film festival yesterday, has already attracted the ire of Simonetta Puccini, the composer's only known living heir until now.

Thirty years ago Ms Puccini won a legal battle to prove she was the illegitimate daughter of Puccini's son Antonio, and she has inherited most of the maestro's estate.

Now another woman, Nadia Manfredi, suspects she too could be Puccini's grand-daughter, and has asked for a DNA test to find out the truth.

The film brings to the screen the story of Doria Manfredi, who was Puccini's young maid servant and who committed suicide after being wrongly accused by his wife Elvira of having an affair with the composer.