Hamburg - Thomas Morgenstern is restricted to Austrian air space with his freshly obtained pilot's licence, but has permission for takeoff on the ski-jumping hills everywhere when he starts his World Cup title defence on the weekend.

Morgenstern, 22, received his pilot's licence last month which allows him to fly single-engine crafts in Austria.

"I am a pilot! ... It is a great feeling," Morgenstern said on a blog on the Red Bull website.

Sydney  - A German doctor with a Down's syndrome child has won his fight to stay in Australia.

Bernhard Moeller, on a temporary visa since arriving in 2005 to work at a small hospital in rural Victoria, had been denied permanent residency because the Immigration Department deemed the public cost of medical treatment for 13-year-old son, Lukas, too high.

On Wednesday, just hours after Moeller lost his appeal before the Migration Review Tribunal, Immigration Minister Chris Evans interceded and used his discretionary powers to grant permanent residency.

Bottrop, Germany  - The German tuning specialist Brabus has given the Tesla electric roadster special treatment with white paintwork, new alloys and a sound generator that simulates engine noise from a V8 to a Formula 1 racing car.

Normally focused on the tune-up of Mercedes and Smart cars, Brabus is planning to unveil its first zero-emission project at the upcoming Essen Motor Show starting on November 29 to December 7.

Ingolstadt, Germany  - Audi is planning to revive its microcar the A2 as a sport model with a high roof to round off the compact A1 and A3 model segments, the German auto magazine Auto Bild reports.

A Sportback version with a longer rear is also being planned for 2014, the magazine said.

An Audi spokesman declined to comment on the Bild report, but Audi CEO Rupert Stadler said earlier: "We are looking at different scenarios including a new A2."

Hamburg  - Even though car air conditioners (AC) work overtime during the summer, they should also be switched on during winter to remove damp air from the cockpit and prevent the windscreen from fogging-up, manufacturers recommend.

The air in the vehicle is not only heated up, but also dried as the defrost function helps clear the windscreen. Many car heating systems automatically engage the air conditioner in the defrost position. But if the car has no automatic climate control, the

defrost position should be adjusted manually.

A car AC is basically designed to move heat from the car interior to the exterior similar to a refrigerator.

Hamburg, Germany  - Ever wonder how hundreds of ants are able to go up and down a narrow twig without bumping into each other?

A team of German scientists want to find out how ants avoid collisions so that they can apply the same principles to cars on the motorways.

The scientists built an ingenious super "ant farm" complete with roads and bridges and a veritable city of ants. Then they observed the traffic patterns of the ants and fed their findings in to a computer.

The Dresden Institute of Technology collective intelligence expert Dirk Helbing and his team set up an ant highway with two routes of different widths from the nest to some sugar syrup, according to their findings, published in New Scientist.