Washington, September 16 : Two University of Southern California researchers have written a piece of software that can help create a musical accompaniment in the style of any chosen artist, or even the particular style used in select pieces by the artist.

Elaine Chew, an accomplished pianist and professor at the USC Viterbi School Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, and graduate student Ching-Hua Chuan have revealed that they started developing the system called ASSA (Automatic Style Specific Accompaniment) two years ago.

Washington, Sept 16: The Pentagon has refuted yesterday’s media reports that US-led coalition helicopters based in Afghanistan were fired at in Pakistan and forced to turn back.

“The incident did not happen,” The News quoted Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman as saying.

Media report had yesterday suggested that the incident occurred at the Angoor Adda tribal area.

Whitman added that after studying the facts a statement by a Pakistani security official “didn't appear to be accurate.”

Earlier, there were conflicting reports that shots were fired when US-led coalition helicopters based in Afghanistan neared the border with Pakistan.

Washington, Sept. 16: Reminding everyone repeatedly that you have been a former prisoner of war does not qualify you to be the president of the United States, says a former Naval Academy midshipman of John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee.

Phillip Butler, the former midshipman, who was also a prisoner of war along with McCain in Vietnam, said being a prisoner of war is not a good prerequisite for being president in an advertisement produced by Brave New PAC, a liberal political action committee affiliated with Brave New Films.

Washington, Sept 16: A picture of hot chocolate fudge on a restaurant’s menu card is more than enough to draw you towards the ‘calorie-loaded’ dessert, but a new study has suggested that well-understanding of the emotions elicited while reading the list can help people make healthy food choices.

In their studies authored by Blair Kidwell, David M. Hardesty, and Terry L. Childers (all University of Kentucky), the researchers assessed the "emotional intelligence" of consumers, including obese people.

It was discovered that individuals who made the healthiest choices showed high correlations between their emotional intelligence and confidence in their emotional intelligence—what the authors call "emotional calibration."

Phnom Penh - The United States advocated a bilateral solution to the ongoing border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia, US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said Tuesday.

Wrapping up a three-day official visit during which he met Foreign Minister Hor Namhong and Prime Minister Hun Sen, Negroponte said the US hoped to see a peaceful end to the dispute between the two neighbours.

Washington, September 16 : New simulations have shown that a least in galaxies similar to our own Milky Way, stars such as ours can migrate great distances, which implies that our sun could be far from where it started.

This questions a long-standing scientific belief holds that stars tend to hang out in the same general part of a galaxy where they originally formed.