The Seoul metropolitan government announced that it has started commercial operation of eco-friendly full-size electric buses on the Mt Namsan circular routes. It is the first time in the world that electronic buses have been put into commercial operations.
SMG has worked on the project to develop full-sized electric buses with local technology over the last one-and-a-half-years, since it signed an agreement with Hyundai Heavy Industries and Hankuk Fiber for the development of electric buses in September 2009. (PA)
Return of the dead!
An elderly woman was declared dead – and woke up hours later inside a coffin at the undertakers.
The 88-year-old woman died two days after the incident and police in Brazil’s Minas Gerais state are investigating if poor medical care and the misdiagnosis contributed to her death.
The O Globo newspaper, citing a press release from the Ipatinga mayor’s office, says doctors thought Maria das Dores da Conceicao had died on Wednesday afternoon.
But she awoke inside the coffin four hours later and was rushed back to hospital.
The mayor’s statement said she died on Friday. It did not give a cause, but said she suffered from hypertension. (PA)
‘Facebook feature’
A “Facebook feature” in the brain may be vital to your social life, research suggests.
The amygdala is a small almond-shaped body buried deep within the brain’s temporal lobe.
Previously it was known to be linked to empathy and fear responses but now a new study has shown that people with larger amygdalas have wider and more complex networks of friends and colleagues.
“We found that the amygdala volume positively correlated with the size and complexity of social networks in adult humans,” said study leader Professor Lisa Feldman, a psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, US. (PA)
Animal acupuncture
Dog owner Helen Anthony, from Kilmacolm, Renfrewshire, found an unexpected solution when her Scottie dog Heather was left in severe pain after developing a problem with a disc in her spine.
Conventional medicine did little to help the nine-year-old animal, who still had trouble walking three months after her injury despite rest and medication.
But her pet was referred to a vet who practises acupuncture, which involves inserting needles into the body for therapeutic purposes, and after just one treatment, Mrs Anthony noticed an improvement. After a few more sessions her pet was able to walk up to a mile. (PA)
DNA discovery
Chocolate may soon become even more irresistible thanks to a group of scientists who have pieced together the genetic code of the cacao tree.
It is hoped the DNA sequence will lead to chocolate that is healthier and tastier, and increase the sustainability of cacao crops and benefit millions of farmers.
The US researchers worked with a variety of cacao called Criollo that produces the world’s best chocolate.
It was domesticated by the Maya people of Central America 3,000 years ago but is seldom grown in its pure form today. (PA)
Cocaine seized
Dutch customs said yesterday they had found 200 kilograms of cocaine with a street value of about €10 million in a container at a storage firm in the country’s south.
“An employee of the facility found the merchandise in the container as it was being offloaded, and called customs,” spokesman Mohamed el-Mokaddem said.
The container, which had arrived from South America, contained a number of bags in which there were also smaller packages of cocaine, bound with tape. (AFP)
Wanted: Your old computers
Recipients of new PCs and laptops over the Christmas period are being urged to donate their old models to help schools and hospitals in the developing world.
Charity Digital Links said recycling computers could provide students in poor African countries with much-needed access to vital learning tools.
Supported by the UK government, the initiative has already seen 65,000 computers and digital education materials sent to the continent, improving the health and education of 1.5 million people.
The charity said that 90 per cent of students in sub-Saharan Africa have never touched a computer, with less than one in 10 having access to the internet. (PA)