News Snippets
• An international research team plans to publish a detailed map on the Internet of more than 20,000 human genes. The map will be used to find links between gene functions and pathologies. There are about 30,000 genes in human beings, so a detailed map of most of them will be of great help to geneticists, drug researchers and genome scientists.
• Tamasha artistes in Maharashtra have been hit hard by a four-year-long drought in 11 districts of the state. Farmers, the patrons of the artistes, have no money for entertainment because of the drought, which now affects 71 talukas and has become a major election issue.
• The US recording industry has sued 477 people for online copyright infringement as part of its effort to stop music piracy. The Recording Industry Association of America has sued 2,454 people since last September, settling 437 cases for around $3,000 each. The April 29 action was directed at file sharers using commercial Internet service providers as well as people at universities such as Brown, Emory and Princeton.
• Radio and TV evangelists in Nigeria may sue the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission (NBC) over its proposed censorship of religious broadcast in the country from April 30. According to clerics, NBCs order that televised Gospel teachings about miracles should be proved and believable "is ridiculous'.
• The Pakistan government will spend Rs 37 million to train 4,000 of its in open source software. The employees will be trained in Linux operating system, Open Office and other application software.
• Using a new legislation against spam for the first time, US authorities have charged four persons in Detroit for e-mailing fraudulent sales pitches for weight-loss products. Daniel J Lin, James J Lin, Mark M Sadek and Christopher Chung were accused of sending thousands unsolicited e-mails to an estimated one million people.
• Nearly three-fourths of Americans believe integration of schools in the us has improved the quality of education for black students, a poll done by Associated Press has found. The view is more prevalent among whites than blacks. By a 2-1 margin, whites said public schools are doing a good job of serving all children equally, regardless of race. Blacks were evenly split on that question.