London, September 11 : Researchers at Curtin University of Technology in Perth, Australia, have developed a computerised system that can prevent unnecessary graffiti, the removal of which involves huge costs.

Project leader Seng Chu Tan has revealed that the new system is particularly aimed at curbing graffiti that is scratched into surfaces, such as Perspex, which is much more difficult to cope with and usually requires the entire surface to be replaced at great cost.

The researcher says that the new device can hear when graffiti is being carved into surfaces, reports New Scientist magazine.

New York, Sept. 10 : When Dr. Sneha Philip''s name is read out on Thursday at Ground Zero, her heartbroken family''s long fight for justice and to redeem her besmirched reputation will be achieved.

Sneha Anne Philip, 32, 2001) was an Indian American physician who was last seen on September 10, 2001 by a department store surveillance camera near her Lower Manhattan apartment.

New York, Sept. 11: Only a third of Americans think that another terrorist attack on the United States is likely, but a majority of the country’s citizens also believe that the United States is prepared for such an attack should it occur. According to a CBS poll, 52 percent of those polled said they thought the U. S. was adequately prepared, compared to 39 percent who said the U. S. was not prepared.

This is the first time since March 2003 - right after the U. S. invasion of Iraq - that a majority held that opinion.

Washington, Sept 11 (: Exercising for the wheelchair bound may soon turn out to be fun, thanks to ‘TrekEase’, an arcade driving game of sorts, which is being developed by the University of Texas alumnus and students.

University of Texas at Austin alumnus, Chris Stanford (MSEE ''91), and Electrical & Computer Engineering undergraduates are working on testing their ideas for a virtual reality treadmill for the disabled.

Washington, September 11 : A new study has indicated that the magma reservoir beneath Mount Vesuvius in Italy has been migrating toward the surface over the past 20,000 years, which might result in a mild eruption.

According to a report in National Geographic News, the finding may be good news for some three million people living under the active volcano’s shadow in Italy’s Campania region, where Vesuvius’s famous A. D. 79 cataclysm buried Pompeii and Herculaneum.

Magma pools at shallower depths are less volatile and less likely to produce violent eruptions, according to a research team led by Bruno Scaillet of the Universite d’Orleans in France.

Washington, September 11 : A new analysis has suggested that old growth forests are usually valuable “carbon sinks”, and they continue to absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and mitigate climate change for centuries.

The analysis of 519 different plot studies, by researchers from Oregon State University (OSU) and several other institutions, found that about 15 percent of the forest land in the Northern Hemisphere is unmanaged primary forests with large amounts of old growth, and that rather than being irrelevant to the Earth’s carbon budget, they may account for as much as 10 percent of the global net uptake of carbon dioxide.