Singapore - For the third day in a row, hundreds of customers unconvinced of the soundness of American International Assurance (AIA) converged on the service centre in Singapore Thursday with many determined to surrender their policies.

"Even with the AIG bailout by the US government, everything is still uncertain," said Karen Tan, a 42-year-old woman with no intention of keeping her policies.

The US Federal Reserve bank's 85-billion-US-dollar loan to AIA's parent, American International Group (AIG), triggered little solace and so many more questions that the insurer opened a second service centre in the AIA Tower next door.

Wary policyholders were also lining up in Taiwan and Hong Kong.

New York, Sept. 18: Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has retaken a lead over Republican rival John McCain, according to the latest CBS/NYT poll.

The poll indicates Obama as having taken a 48 percent to 43 percent lead over McCain among registered voters.

McCain had a two percentage point lead among registered voters in a CBS News poll released on September 8th, just after the Republican National Convention. Prior to the party conventions, Obama led McCain by three points.

Washington, September 18: Artists, working along with scientists, have created the first model of a Neanderthal based in part on ancient DNA evidence, and have named her as “Wilma”, after the redhe

Washington, Sept 18 : Newly-elected Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari is all set to break the tradition of taking along a huge delegation on foreign visits. He will be accompanied by only three ministers and two officials on his New York visit beginning September 22.

Contrary to the practice of past heads of states, of taking along 100-member delegation, including his predecessor Pervez Musharraf, there will be no media delegation accompanying the President.

Washington, September 18: A Penn State researcher of Indian origin has announced such a scientific advance that may one day help create cars with the metallic finish of some insects or the deep black of a butterfly’s wing, and reflectors patterned on a fly’s eyes.

Akhlesh Lakhtakia, the Charles Godfrey Binder (Endowed) Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics, has revealed that his team has developed a method to rapidly and inexpensively copy biological surface structures.

"Only a small fraction of mutations in evolutionary processes are successful. But, evolution has gone on for at least a billion years. A huge range of biological surface architectures have been created and are available," he says.

Washington, September 18 : Penn State researchers have created a new tool to study hypertension by modifying a honeybee venom toxin.

Research leader Zhe Lu, Professor of Physiology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, has revealed that their tool can be used to study the inner workings of ion channels that control heart rate, and the recycling of salt in kidney.

Ion channels selectively allow the passage of small ions — like sodium, potassium, and calcium — into and out of the cell.

Lu’s team looked at the action of the honeybee venom toxin tertiapin (TPN) on inward-rectifier potassium channels, also known as Kir channels, to identify new approaches to treat cardiovascular disease.