World Vignettes

Friday the 13th is not so badCHEMNITZ SAXONY: Scientifically speaking, bad luck day Friday the 13th is a day like any other, says Chemnitz...

Friday the 13th is not so bad

CHEMNITZ SAXONY: Scientifically speaking, bad luck day Friday the 13th is a day like any other, says Chemnitz mathematician Eberhard Lanckau. He says part of his work is to help refute an age-old superstition. Fear of the number 13 and of Friday is already evident in the Bible. Adam is said to have bitten the apple offered by Eve on a Friday, bringing sin into the world. Jesus Christ was crucified on a Friday. At the Last Supper there were 13 men around the table, the thirteenth being the traitor Judas Iscariot. However, there is no evidence in history of any particularly unfortunate events taking place on Friday the 13th. But for banks and stock markets, at least, Friday repeatedly turned out to be a bad luck day.

Growing vessels

DALLAS: Scientists have made human hearts grow tiny new blood vessels by injecting proteins, raising hopes that the procedure may one day be used to treat people with clogged heart arteries. The study was published in Tuesday8217;sissue of Circulation, a journal of the American Heart Association. 8220;Growing new vessels, or angiogenesis, has huge possibilities,8221; said Dr Ronald Crystal, who is pursuing a somewhat different method. 8220;I think that it is going to be a major strategy in parallel with bypass surgery and angioplasty, he said.8221;

Instant brides

BANGKOK: Thai and Dominican women are among the most sought-after exotic lovers and marriage candidates among German men on holiday. Many lightning marriages take place during the holiday itself, despite a host of problems of understanding. Language does not cause any problem. Many German bachelors who want to marry Thai women take the precaution of bringing with them from Germany a certificate proving that they are eligible to marry.

Icy8217; execution

BEIJING: A university lecturer, his brother and five others have been executed for running one of China8217;s largest illegal drug-making rings, a state-run newspaper reported on Wednesday. The intermediate people8217;s courtin southern Guangzhou city held a public sentencing Tuesday morning, and the seven were then taken to an execution ground in the suburbs and shot, the China Youth Daily said.

Rice on the moon

TOKYO: Japanese farmers may be the first to colonise the moon and grow a superfast breed of rice there for their food self-sufficiency. Government-backed Japanese agriculture scientists have developed a rice that can be harvested in just one hundred days from the day of sowing. Normally it takes 160 days for a fast-breed rice to grow.