Zagreb: Mirjana Filipovic is still haunted by the land mine blast that killed her boyfriend and blew off her left leg while on a fishing trip nearly a decade ago. It happened in a field that was supposedly de-mined.
Now, unlikely heroes may be coming to the rescue to prevent similar tragedies: sugar-craving honeybees. Croatian researchers are training them to find unexploded mines littering their country and the rest of the Balkans.
When Croatia joins the European Union on July 1, in addition to the beauty of its aquamarine Adriatic sea, deep blue mountain lakes and lush green forests, it will also bring numerous un-cleared minefields to the bloc's territory. About 750 square kilometers (466 square miles) are still suspected to be filled with mines from the Balkan wars in the 1990s.
Nikola Kezic, an expert on the behavior of honeybees, sat quietly together with a group of young researchers on a recent day in a large net tent filled with the buzzing insects on a grass field lined with acacia trees. The professor at Zagreb University outlined the idea for the experiment: Bees have a perfect sense of smell that can quickly detect the scent of the explosives. They are being trained to identify their food with the scent of TNT....
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07:40 AM, May 20, 2013
Alipore: A lady teacher who was arrested for allegedly banging a class III student's head against a wall as punishment leading to his death was on Saturday remanded to 14 days judicial custody. Alipore ACJM, SM Shahnawaz, remanded Champa Mondal of the Nirdheshkhali Shishu Shiksha Kendra in South 24 Parganas district to judicial custody and she would be produced before the court again on June 1. Mondal allegedly banged the...
06:33 PM, May 18, 2013
California: Facebook made its debut on the stock market a year ago on May 18 in one of the largest IPOs in history and the biggest for any Internet company. The social network's market value was more than $100 billion. Now, Facebook's stock is trading roughly 30 per cent lower and has not hit its IPO price of $38 per share. Today, Facebook is valued at around $63 billion. In...
11:06 AM, May 18, 2013
Vadodara: The top two floors of a five-storey residential building in Vadodara collapsed on Friday night, hours after all the occupants had evacuated it. "Mahavir Swami Apartment located in Kapdipole area of Raopura had developed cracks and started leaning in the wee hours today," acting city engineer of Vadodara Municipal Corporation Shailesh Mistr said. The 16 families living there were asked to vacate and power and piped gas supply to...
11:17 PM, May 17, 2013
London: Welsh actress Catherine Zeta-Jones has reportedly registered at a treatment centre for her bipolar disorder. The 43-year-old actress, who won the Academy Award for best supporting actress for 'Chicago', checked in Monday. She is expected to complete a 30-day programme there, tmz.com reports. A source close to the actress said: "Zeta-Jones' stint in the treatment center is a proactive measure." Another source said: "It's maintenance." Zeta-Jones had been to...
02:49 PM, Apr 30, 2013
Bangalore: Set to be back in the I-League next season after a gap of four years, Mohammedan Sporting's coach Sanjoy Sen was modest in the moment of triumph, saying that his "mediocre" side returned to the top tier riding on "chemistry, dedication and honesty". Mohammedan Sporting qualified for the next edition of I-League first division after they played out a goal-less draw with Bhawanipore FC in their penultimate League match...
04:04 PM, Apr 26, 2013
Tripoli: French embassy in Libya was hit by what appeared to be a car bomb on Tuesday, injuring two guards in the first such attack in the capital Tripoli since the end of the 2011 war that ousted Muammar Gaddafi. Residents living near the embassy compound, in the capital's Hay Andalus area, said they heard two blasts early in the morning around 7 am (0500 GMT). "We think it was...
12:55 PM, Apr 23, 2013
Mumbai: Over three-and-a-half years after receiving draft papers for the proposed IPO of Sahara Prime City Ltd, Sebi has formally closed this file as the company failed to submit clarifications sought by the market regulator. Sebi closed file on the Rs 3,450-crore IPO proposal last week without any go-ahead for public issue, after various clarifications sought from merchant bankers for the share sale remained pending for months together. Sebi had...
09:00 AM, Apr 23, 2013
Buzz is that actors Venkatesh and Akshara are playing the lead pair in a film titled 'Osey Osey Vadhilesi Vellipoke'. Shanmukha Raj is the director and it is presented by M L Laxmi under the S Team Pictures banner. The actors in this movie were trained under Kamal Haasan. The Telugu film will be released on April 19th. The producer Nallapu Ravindra Babu said,"Our movie will give a great relief...
11:28 PM, Apr 15, 2013
Facebook for iOS has been bumped up to version 5.6, giving users the ability to update their cover photos on the go. The ability to set cover images on Facebook has been one of the more significant changes on Facebook in recent times. iPhone users can now take a new cover photo or pick one from their gallery. ...
01:40 PM, Mar 19, 2013
India can still qualify for the third-place playoff if they beat Malaysia and other results pan out in their favour on Saturday. ...
10:04 PM, Mar 15, 2013
India beat Pakistan 3-1 to keep their hopes of winning their sixth Azlan Shah title alive. ...
03:06 PM, Mar 12, 2013
The film will feature some known names of Telugu cinema like Nagarjuna, Mohan Babu, Srihari, Saikumar, Srirama chandra. ...
12:20 PM, Mar 12, 2013
The hosts beat New Zealand 2-1 on Sunday following their 3-1 win over Korea on Saturday. ...
07:42 PM, Mar 10, 2013
With wins over India and Pakistan, the Hockeyroos are well on course to seal a place in the final on March 17. ...
04:43 PM, Mar 10, 2013
What we today know as 'iPhone' could have been named 'iPad'. According to a latest revelation by Apple advertising lead Ken Segall, Apple had mulled over many names before it adjudicated and ended up calling its smartphone 'iPhone', reports 9to5mac. ...
01:56 PM, Mar 05, 2013
A Facebook Inc shareholder has sued the social networking company's Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg and others over its troubled IPO, potentially reviving legal claims that a different court dismissed in February. ...
10:36 AM, Mar 05, 2013
Had Steve Jobs been alive today, it would have been his 58th birthday. The man who shaped contemporary consumer technology was born on February 24, 1955. He battled cancer and other health issues for several years and had a rare form of pancreatic cancer. he died on October 5, 2011. ...
01:49 PM, Feb 24, 2013
Tim Cook, Jobs' successor as Apple chief executive, was opposed to suing Samsung in the first place, according to people with knowledge of the matter, largely because of that company's critical role as a supplier of components for the iPhone and the iPad. ...
02:49 PM, Feb 10, 2013
