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According to the Lundberg Survey, the average price of regular gasoline has jumped 21 cents in the past two weeks to $2.54.

Lundberg Survey is an independent market research company that specializes in the US petroleum marketing and other related industries.

According to Trilby Lundberg, president of Lundberg Survey, gas prices hiked for the third time since June. However, the price is still 97 cents per gallon less than a year ago.

She said that due to high price set by refineries, refiners and retailers are starting to lose attractive marginal returns and this is expected to continue as summer gasoline season approaches.

Retailers had experienced margin decline at 0.21 cents per gallon to a mere 10.48 cents. The lowest was in the week of February 20.

It has been reported that a Swiss solar-powered plane blasted off from Abu Dhabi for its first ever attempt to fly across the world without any fuel.

Sources informed that Andre Borschberg, founder of the Solar Impulse, was at the controls of the single-seater plane during its launch from the Al Bateen Executive Airport.

Furthermore, Mr. Borschberg will swap his control charge with Solar Impulse co-founder Bertrand Piccard during stop-over.

According to Swiss pilots, their aim behind this attempt was to create awareness about replacing old polluting technologies with clean and efficient technologies.

They expect that the plane would reach its first destination, i.e. Muscat, Oman, after about 10 hours of the flight.

The electric-car maker Tesla Motors will cut jobs in China due to disappointing sales in the country. The company led by entrepreneur Elon Musk has gone through a trademark dispute, and it is still battling to convince Chinese customers to buy electric cars made by the company.

As per a China-based newspaper, the automaker will reduce staff count by about 30%. While confirming the job cuts, Gary Tao, spokesman of the company, said that the company has been reducing staff since early this year. The layoff is a part of a larger restructuring plan. Much of the plan has already been implemented and the current team of the company is ‘strong and steady’, Tao added.

Opera singer Sarah Brightman recently revealed that she is nowadays undergoing through 16 hours of training a day. She said that this training is part of her mission to perform in space.

An English classical crossover soprano is enduring the gruelling regime, which includes four hours a day of Russian lessons, at Star City, which is the top space training facility in Moscow Oblast.

Brightman told The Sunday Times that the whole thing is very much like conducting an orchestra or performing a show. It might seem strange analogy to others but it's the only analogy she has.

She explaining about her analogy said that if one is conducting an orchestra then one can’t just understand a bit of it. One has to understand the whole thing from A-Z.

According to researchers at Queen Mary University of London, bumblebees are capable of keeping in mind for long time the patterns, colors and scents of flowers, but that memory can fail. The study has suggested that memories do not help bumblebees in the long run.

For the study, the researchers gave training to bees to feed on a nectar-like substance they found within artificial flowers that were colored either yellow or with black and white rings.

A meteorite is believed to have landed in the Perth Hills area on Monday morning. A bright light in the night sky has been reported by dozens of people in Perth and Western Australia’s South West.

A Gidgegannup resident, Angela Whife, called ABC radio to report that she saw a meteor winking out over her property mid-morning. She reported that she went searching for it in a paddock on her property at Gidgegannup, which is 40km out of Perth in Western Australia.

A number of Perth news crews went to help by 11am. The meteorite that was seen across the sky in Perth was believed to have flashed at about 9.30am. However, Whife said that she didn’t find any trace of the meteor.