Washington, Sept. 5: Barack Obama’s vice-presidential running mate, Joe Biden, has indicated that a new Democratic administration could pursue criminal charges against the Bush administration over the treatment of detainees in Guantanamo bay.

Washington, September 5: An international team of astronomers has found an unusual object whose backward and tilted orbit around the Sun may clarify the origins of certain comets.

Touted as the first discovery of its kind, researchers from Canada, France and the United States have discovered the object that orbits around the Sun backwards, and tilted at an angle of 104 degrees – almost perpendicular to the orbits of the planets.

“Certain types of comets are not naturally produced after planet formation, especially those with highly tilted orbits,” said University of British Columbia astronomer Brett Gladman. “This discovery may finally show how they transition from the Oort Cloud to become objects like Halley’s Comet,” he added.

Washington, Sept 5: Intellectual activities like reading, or working on the computer, can increase an individual’s calorie intake, suggests a new study.

The new research led by researchers from Universite Laval has found that thinking hard makes people hungrier.

The team led by Dr. Angelo Tremblay measured the food intake of 14 students after each of three tasks: relaxing in a sitting position, reading and summarizing a text, and completing a series of memory, attention, and vigilance tests on the computer.

Washington, September 5: Scientists have uncovered a gene regulatory sequence that appears to encourage the sort of thumb and limb generation in humans that is necessary for the dexterity of their hands.

Led by Eddy Rubin, the Director of Berkeley Lab''s Genomics Division and the U. S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute, a research team introduced the human-accelerated conserved noncoding sequence 1 (HACNS1) into a mouse embryo system.

The researchers observed that the human sequence could influence the molecular machinery to yield human limb and thumb development patterns.

Washington  - US forecasters were keeping watch over three storms in the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday, including one that left more than 60 people dead in Haiti and was on course for the south- eastern United States.

Tropical Storm Hanna, killed at least 61 people in Haiti, dumped rain on the Bahamas on Thursday and was expected to turn northward, taking aim for the US coast, the US National Hurricane Centre said.

It could come ashore on the border between the states of North and South Carolina by late Friday and a hurricane watch had been issued for the area.

Washington  - US space agency NASA on Thursday moved space shuttle Atlantis to a coastal launch pad, in preparation for lift off on October 8.

The shuttle was set to be rolled out Tuesday from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, but the six-hour move was delayed because of two tropical storms brewing dangerously close to the Gulf of Mexico.

Atlantis' crew members are set for an equipment test Friday, with a launch targeted for October 8 as scheduled, a statement from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said.