Washington, Feb 11 : Boosting the estrogen levels of male garter snakes triggers them to secrete the same pheromones that females use to attract suitors, and turns them into just about the sexiest reptile on the block - attracting dozens of other males keen to mate.

This experiment in the famed garter snake caverns of Manitoba, Canada, was one of the first in a field setting to ever quantify the effects of estrogen as a stimulant of pheromones, scientists said.

This estrogen, they said, is the same exact chemical found in many animal species, ranging from snakes to amphibians, fish, mammals and humans.

Washington, Feb 11 : US Navy Secretary Ray Mabus has announced that the next Independence variant littoral combat ship will be named after former Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who survived an assassination attempt last year.

Giffords was shot in the head in January 2011 by a gunman outside a grocery store in Tucson, Arizona.

"I am pleased to honor Gabrielle Giffords and the people of Arizona with the naming of this ship," The Los Angeles Times quoted Secreatary Mabus, as saying.

Washington, Feb 11 : Slain America-born Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awlaki personally directed a terror plot to take down a plane over Detroit, which a Nigerian man tried to carry out on Christmas Day in 2009, a memo has revealed.

A Justice Department memo released ahead of the sentencing next week of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, also known as the "underwear bomber," described how Awlaki tested the Nigerian's commitment to jihad, arranged for him to meet a bomb-maker, and told him to get on a US airliner and detonate his explosives over America.

Washington, Feb 11 : The US is gearing for a visit by Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, who is expected to become the country''s next leader, and use the once in a decade opportunity to augment its ties with Beijing.

The move comes in the wake of a heated White House race that is exerting pressure on US President Barack Obama to adopt a tough stance towards China.

The White House administration said it expects to zero in on some of the most contentious issues during a meeting between Obama and Jinping, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Washington, Feb 11 : An American company is likely to salvage the capsized cruise ship Costa Concordia, which ran aground off the Italian island of Giglio in late January.

The Costa Concordia's insurance company has invited Bisso Marine, a fifth-generation family business in New Orleans and Houston that has salvaged some of the world's biggest shipwrecks since 1980, to the ship's wreckage.

"This barge averages 300 days a year doing salvage work. With enough time and money you can do any job," CBS News quoted Bisso Marine's head Beau Bisso, as saying.

New York, Feb 11 : A 34-year-old Indian woman who threw herself and her 19-month-old daughter into the frigid Hudson River two years ago after a sudden onset of psychosis, can now return to her country and children.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro sanctioned the reunion after noting that Devi Silvia has been in remission from bi-polar disorder and reliably continuing with medication and treatment.

Silvia nearly killed herself and her daughter Jessica in the failed murder-suicide bid in 2010.

Washington, Feb 11 : A 22-year-old Uzbek man has admitted to plotting to kill US President Barack Obama.

Ulugbek Kodirov, who was arrested last July and charged with threatening to kill Obama, possessing an automatic weapon and providing material support to terrorists, could face 30 years in jail.

According to the plea agreement, in July 2011 Kodirov came into communication with a man known as "the Emir", who he believed was a member of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.

Kodirov and "the Emir" discussed ways to kill Obama, including by a sniper rifle from long distance, The BBC reports.

Washington, Feb 11 : United States officials have said that rumors claiming that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has been assassinated in Beijing are not true.

Several US officials said there was no validity to the reports that originated on a Chinese social media site and soon spread to micro blogging site Twitter.

"There's nothing to this, " ABC News quoted one US official, as saying, adding that there were no indications that the reports were true.

Washington, Feb 11 : Notorious Internet hacking group Anonymous has claimed responsibility for bringing down the Central Intelligence Agency's website.

"CIA Tango down," a member of the hacker group tweeted.

"Tango down" is an expression used by the US Special Forces when they have eliminated an enemy.

According to news. com. au, the CIA site remained offline on Friday, and a spokeswoman said the agency was looking into the reports.

This would not be the first time the CIA website has been put offline.

In June last year, an Anonymous-affiliated group, Lulz Security, also temporarily disabled the CIA website.

Washington, Feb 10 : Google is working on a home entertainment device, according to a filing with the Federal Communications Commission.

The device uses wireless home networks and "requires testing outside the laboratory environment," the Los Angles Times quoted the filing, as saying.

According to the company, the device is still in the "prototyping phase" and is not yet ready for shipping yet.

Google's move appears to target consumer electronics, which would bring the company into closer competition with Apple.

Washington, Feb. 10 : Former Soviet Union president Mikhail Gorbachev has told students that protests against Vladimir Putin will increase if he retakes the presidency.

Delivering a lecture entitled "My Life in Politics" at the International University he founded, in Moscow, Gorbachev said Putin''s autocratic and top-down Kremlin-centric regime risked repeating many of the errors that led to the downfall of the USSR and could face a mass challenge from the streets if it failed to implement democratic reforms.

Washington, Feb. 10 : A Marines scout sniper team in Afghanistan posed for a photograph with the Nazi SS symbol.

In the image, the Marines are pictured in front of a flag resembling the Nazi SS insignia and the American flag.

The picture was taken in September 2010 in Sangin province, Afghanistan, and the Marines were with the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion out of Camp Pendleton, California.

The U. S. Marine Corps confirmed the event and called it unacceptable.

Washington, Feb 10 : Shyness, grieving and fetishes are soon to be classified as mental illness by a new international diagnostic manual, according to specialists.

In a damning analysis of an upcoming revision of the influential Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), psychologists, psychiatrists and mental health experts said that its new categories and "tick-box" diagnosis systems were at best "silly" and at worst "worrying and dangerous,"

Washington, Feb 10 : Michelle Obama has revealed that every night when her husband is in town, the family has dinner together.

The first lady doesn't let the hectic pace of the West Wing get in the way of the family meal, the Politico reported.

Obama, who is on her Let's Move tour in Fort Worth, Texas, says the meetings stop at 6:30 for family dinner.

"Every meeting stops at 6:30," she said at a stop on her tour. (ANI)

Washington, Feb 10 : The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has permitted construction and operating license for two new nuclear power reactors for the first time since 1978 at a site in eastern Georgia. It gave Southern Co.

the go-ahead to build two new units at its existing Vogtle site in Georgia as the commission voted 4-1 in favor, with NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko casting the solitary vote against granting the license.

Jaczko said he wanted guarantee that new reactors would be tailored to meet suggestions made by the agency's task force on the disaster at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant last year.