London, Jan 1 : Housewives in Britain spend almost half their free time online - more than any other social group in the world, a new study has shown.

The survey of more than 27,000 web users in 16 countries has shown that the Chinese spend the largest fraction of their leisure time online. However, UK housewives spend even more than China''s average - 47percent.

Germans are the most likely to meet someone in real life that they first met online; more than three quarters have done so.

London, Dec. 31 : Five of the world''s deadliest conventional weapons have been revealed, and according to Fox News, some of them are terrifying, while others are silent but very effective.

All five are part of the U. S. Armed Forces'' arsenal. Some date back to World War II in concept, but they are still lethal and continue to be used in battle in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The fearsome five are:

Berlin, Dec 30 : The world is gearing up to celebrate 2009 as the International Year of Astronomy.

The International Year of Astronomy 2009 (IYA2009) has been launched by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) under the theme, "The Universe, yours to discover".

Thousands of IYA2009 events are described on the national websites, as well as on astronomy2009. org.

The official IYA2009 Opening Ceremony will take place in Paris on 15 and 16 January 2009.

London, Dec 29 : In what is being considered as an embarrassing series of incidents for the British Government, nearly 3,000 Government computers have been nicked or reported lost since 2002, along with other electronic equipments.

This means that the government has lost a laptop every single day over the course of seven years

According to a report in The Sun, the huge haul includes 1,774 laptops, plus a further 1,035 large desktop computers.

New Delhi, Dec 27 : China has officially started construction of a Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST), which when completed, would be the world's largest radio telescope.

The dish-like telescope, as large as 30 football fields, will stand in a region of typical Karst depressions in Guizhou Province in China, when it's completed in 2013.

Chinese scientists and officials selected Dawodang, Pingtang County as the site, where a Karst valley will match the shape of the huge bowl-like astronomical instrument.