London, September 23: A new study by French and US researchers has suggested that zero-gravity can adversely affect astronauts’ ability to judge size and distance, which may make them bad drivers.

According to a report in New Scientist, the new finding may have implications for the way astronauts pilot spacecraft and perform tasks while on spacewalks.

London  - Britain's battered ruling Labour Party was urged Monday to "defeat fatalism" and replace it with hope despite widespread economic gloom and poor opinion poll ratings for the party and Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

The message of optimism was relayed to delegates at Labour's annual party conference in Manchester by David Miliband, the 43-year- old Foreign Secretary seen as the frontrunner to replace Brown in a possible future leadership contest.

Gary Foster, aged 27-years, suffering from testicular cancer with a 60% survival ratio, was due to get married this month. He died after being given twice the amount of chemotherapy drugs prescribed by his doctor in a government-funded medical trial.  It is reported that his death was due to an error in setting up of the trial on University College London Hospital’s (UCLH) computer system.  A second patient survived a similar mistake; unfortunately Mr. Foster did not prove to be so lucky.

London, September 22: Scientists in Japan are working towards turning the seemingly fictional idea of the world’s first space elevator, into reality.

According to a report in The Times, for chemists, physicists, material scientists, astronauts and dreamers across the globe, the space elevator represents the most tantalising of concepts: cables stronger and lighter than any fibre yet woven, tethered to the ground and disappearing beyond the atmosphere to a satellite docking station in geosynchronous orbit above Earth.

London - A group of British business leaders Monday criticized the government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown for failing to respond effectively to the current global economic crisis and called for a "new direction."

The call in a letter published in the Financial Times Monday came as the Labour Party conference in Manchester was to be dominated by the themes of how best to respond to the challenges of a globalized economy after the turmoil of recent months.

The letter, said to represent the business figures' "private view," called for competitive taxation, less regulation and better control of public spending.

London, September 22: Though the movie “The Great Escape” might have dramatized on the silver screen the story of the prisoners of war who tunneled their way out of Holzminden camp, a tough PoW (Prisoners of War) camp in Germany in 1918, a major exhibition will showcase how the escapees pioneered the subterfuge.

According to a report in The Guardian, the audacious bid for freedom will be featured in the Imperial War Museum London’s show ‘In Memoriam: Remembering the Great War’, marking the 90th anniversary of the armistice on 11 November.

“Everybody’s heard of The Great Escape, but it will surprise our visitors to see that similar escape attempts took place in the First World War,” said Terry Charman, senior historian at the museum.