NASA's Mars Rover Makes Successful First Drill

For the first time ever, people have drilled into a rock on Mars, collecting the powdered remains from the hole for analysis.

Images sent back from NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Wednesday confirmed that the precious sample is being held by the rover's scoop, and will soon be delivered to two miniature chemical labs to undergo an unprecedented analysis. (Related: "Mars Rover Curiosity Completes First Full Drill.")

To the delight of the scientists, the rock powder has come up gray and not the ubiquitous red of the dust that covers the planet. The gray rock, they believe, holds a lot of potential to glean information about conditions on an early Mars. (See more Mars pictures.)

"We're drilling into rock that's a time capsule, rocks that are potentially ancient," said sampling-system scientist Joel Hurowitz during a teleconference from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

A Place to Drill

The site features flat bedrock, often segmented into squares, with soil between the sections and many round gray nodules and white mineral veins.

Hurowitz said that the team did not attempt to drill into the minerals or the gray balls, but the nodules are so common that they likely hit some as they drilled down 2.5 inches (6.3 centimeters).

In keeping with the hypothesis that the area was once under water, Hurowitz said the sample "has the potential of telling us about multiple interactions of water and rock."

The drill, located at the end of a seven-foot (two-meter) arm, requires precision maneuvering in its placement and movement, and so its successful initial use was an exciting and welcome relief. The rover has been on Mars since August, and it took six months to find the right spot for that first drill. (Watch video of the Mars rover Curiosity.)

The flat drilling area is in the lower section of Yellowknife Bay, which Curiosity has been exploring for more than a month. What was previously identified by Curiosity scientists as the dry bed of a once-flowing river or stream appears to fan out into the Yellowknife area.

The bedrock of the site—named after deceased Curiosity deputy project manager John Klein—is believed to be siltstone or mudstone. Scientists said the veins of white minerals are probably calcium sulfate or gypsum, but the grey nodules remain something of a mystery.

Triumph

To the team that designed and operates the drill, the results were a triumph, as great as the much-heralded landing of Curiosity on the red planet. With more than a hundred maneuvers in its repertoire, the drill is unique in its capabilities and complexities. (Watch video of Curiosity's "Seven Minutes of Terror.")

Sample system chief engineer Louise Jandura, who has worked on the drill for eight years, said the Curosity team had made eight different drills before settling on the one now on the rover. The team tested each drill by boring 1,200 holes on 20 types of rock on Earth.

She called the successful drilling "historic" because it gives scientists unprecedented access to material that has not been exposed to the intense weathering and radiation processes that affect the Martian surface.

Mini-laboratories

The gray powder will be routed to the two most sophisticated instruments on Curiosity—the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) and Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin).

SAM, the largest and most complex instrument onboard, operates with two ovens that can heat the sample up to 1,800°F (982°C), turning the elements and compounds in the rock into gases that can then be identified. SAM can also determine whether any carbon-based organic material is present.

Organics are the chemical building blocks of life on Earth. They are known to regularly land on Mars via meteorites and finer material that rains down on all planets.

But researchers suspect the intense radiation on the Martian surface destroys any organics on the surface. Scientists hope that organics within Martian rocks are protected from that radiation.

CheMin shoots an X-ray beam at its sample and can analyze the mineral content of the rock. Minerals provide a durable record of environmental conditions over the eons, including information about possible ingredients and energy sources for life.

Both SAM and CheMin received samples of sandy soil scooped from the nearby Rocknest outcrop in October. SAM identified organic material, but scientists are still trying to determine whether any of it is Martian or the byproduct of organics inadvertently brought to Mars by the rover. (See "Mars Rover Detects Simple Organic Compounds.")

In the next few days, CheMin will be the first to receive samples of the powdered rock, and then SAM. Given the complexity of the analysis, and the track record seen with other samples, it will likely be weeks before results are announced.

The process of drilling and collecting the results was delayed by several glitches that required study and work-arounds. One involved drill software and the other involved a test-bed problem with a sieve that is part of the process of delivering samples to the instruments.

Lead systems engineer Daniel Limonadi said that while there was no indication the sieve on Mars was malfunctioning, they had become more conservative in its use because of the test bed results. (Related: "A 2020 Rover Return to Mars?")

Author of the National Geographic e-book Mars Landing 2012, Marc Kaufman has been a journalist for more than 35 years, including the past 12 as a science and space writer, foreign correspondent, and editor for the Washington Post. He is also author of First Contact: Scientific Breakthroughs in the Hunt for Life Beyond Earth, published in 2011, and has spoken extensively to crowds across the United States and abroad about astrobiology. He lives outside Washington, D.C., with his wife, Lynn Litterine.

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Arias Leaves Stand After Describing Killing, Her Lies

Jodi Arias stepped down from the witness stand today after mounting an emotional effort to save herself from death row, insisting to the Arizona jury that an explosive fight with ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander led to his death, and that her lies about killing him masked deep regret and plans to commit suicide.

Arias, 32, will now face what is expected to be a withering cross-examination beginning Thursday from prosecutor Juan Martinez, who has been aggressive to many witnesses throughout the trial and who is expected to go after Arias' claim that she was forced to kill Alexander or be killed herself.

She is charged with murder for her ex-boyfriend's death and could face the death penalty if convicted.

Catching Up on the Trial? Check Out ABC News' Jodi Arias Trial Coverage

The day's dramatic testimony started with Arias describing the beginning of the fight on June 4, 2008 when she and Alexander were taking nude photos in his shower and she claims she accidentally dropped his new camera, causing Alexander to lose his temper. Enraged, he picked her up and body slammed her onto the tile floor, screaming at her, she told the jury.

Arias said she ran to his closet to get away from him, but could hear Alexander's footsteps coming after her down the hall. She grabbed a gun from his shelf and tried to keep running, but Alexander came after her, she said.

"I pointed it at him with both of my hands. I thought that would stop him, but he just kept running. He got like a linebacker. He got low and grabbed my waist, and as he was lunging at me the gun went off. I didn't mean to shoot. I didn't even think I was holding the trigger," she said.

"But he lunged at me and we fell really hard toward the tile wall, so at this point I didn't even know if he had been shot. I didn't see anything different. We were struggling, wrestling, he's a wrestler.

"So he's grabbing at my clothes and I got up, and he's screaming angry, and after I broke away from him. He said 'f***ing kill you bitch,'" she testified.

Asked by her lawyer whether she was convinced Alexander intended to kill her, Arias answered, "For sure. He'd almost killed me once before and now he's saying he was going to." Arias had earlier testified that Alexander had once choked her.

Timeline of the Jodi Arias Trial

Arias on Ex-Boyfriend's Death: 'I Don't Remember' Watch Video

Jodi Arias Describes Violent Sex Before Shooting Watch Video

Jodi Arias Testifies Ex Assaulted Her, Broke Her Fingers Watch Video

But Arias' story of the death struggle ended there as she told the court that she has no memory of stabbing or slashing Alexander whose body was later found with 27 stab wounds, a slit throat and two bullets in his head. She said she only remembered standing in the bathroom, dropping the knife on the tile floor, realizing the "horror" of what had happened, and screaming.

"I have no memory of stabbing him," she said. "There's a huge gap. I don't know if I blacked out or what, but there's a huge gap. The most clear memory I have after that point is driving in the desert."

Arias said that she decided in the desert not to admit to killing Alexander, a decision that would last for two years as Arias lied to friends, family, investigators and reporters about what really happened in Alexander's bathroom.

During that time she initially claimed she got lost that night while driving to a friend's house and never went to Alexander's home in Mesa,Ariz. She later changed her story and said two masked people, a man and a woman, burst into the home and killed Alexander and threatened to kill her family if she told anyone what happened.

She eventually confessed to killing her ex-boyfriend, but insisted it was self defense.

"The main reason (for lying) is because I was very ashamed of what happened. It's not something I ever imagined doing. It's not the kind of person I was. It was just shameful," she said. "I was also very scared of what might happen. I didn't want my family to know that I had done that, and I just couldn't bring myself to say that I did that."

"From day one there was a part of me that always wanted to (tell the truth) but didn't dare do that. I would rather have gone to my grave than admit I had done something like that," she said.

Arias said that she continued to lie because she figured she would never get caught; she was planning to kill herself before trial.

"I was concerned with how it would affect my family. I wanted to die. I was going to definitely kill myself," she said. "That was my plan. You can purchase different things in jail and I bought a bunch of Advil... and took it all in the next few days so it was in my system. They have razors for shaving, so I got one and took it apart one night with intentions to slit my wrists."

Arias said she balked at slitting her wrists after accidentally cutting herself, but that she still planned to commit suicide sometime in the future. When she told news reporters that "no jury would convict her," she claims she said it believing that she would be dead before they'd have a chance to put her on trial, Arias testified.

Arias said support from the public and her family eventually led her to change her mind.

"My family remained very supportive, and told me 'it doesn't matter what happens, we love you anyway.' I realized even if I told the truth they would still be there and wouldn't walk away," she testified.

"By the time spring, 2010, rolled around, I confessed. I basically told everyone what I could remember of the day and that the intruder story was all BS pretty much."

She said that her testimony today, a third version of events, was the truth.

Arias was arrested a month after Alexander's death, and prosecutors have argued that her behavior during those weeks showed a lack of remorse for the killing and an attempt to get away with murder.

Arias said today that after she killed Alexander and drove away from his Mesa, Ariz., home in a panic, it dawned on her that police would soon be looking for Alexander's killer, and she decided that she would pretend the bloody confrontation had never happened.

"I knew that it was really bad, that my life was probably done now. I wished it was just a nightmare I could wake up from, but I knew I had messed up pretty badly and the inevitable was going to be something I could not really run from," she testified.

"I didn't want anyone to know that that had happened or that I did it, so I started taking steps in the aftermath to cover it up. I did a whole bunch of things to try to make it seem like I was never there," she said.

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Karzai’s dig at Menendez?

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.)
(Kevin Lamarque - Reuters)
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai is not exactly known for a droll sense of humor.

But when new Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) came calling Tuesday in Kabul — his very first stop on his first trip abroad as chairman — Karzai seemed to be trying to tweak Menendez.

Menendez has come under intense fire of late over ties to and favors for a wealthy donor, Salomon Melgen. Menendez had to repay nearly $60,000 to Melgen for flights to the Dominican Republic on Melgen’s private jet. And there have been questions raised about the senator’s support for a Dominican port security contract in which Melgen had an investment.

Menendez has denied any intentional wrongdoing.

After their Kabul meeting, Karzai, whose notoriously corrupt regime has been much criticized by Washington, put out a news release with this headline:

“President Karzai: Fight against corruption requires earnest and sincere cooperation of the international community, particularly of the United States of America.”

Hmmm. Well, at least there won’t be a port security problem in land-locked Afghanistan.

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Tunisia president holds crisis talks over new PM

TUNIS: President Moncef Marzouki was holding urgent talks on Wednesday with political leaders in a bid to steer Tunisia out of a weeks-long crisis exacerbated by the resignation of Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali.

Marzouki was meeting in the morning with leader of the Islamist ruling Ennahda party, Rached Ghannouchi, and later with Maya Jribi of the opposition Republican party, his office said.

Tunisia was plunged into its worst political crisis since the 2011 Arab Spring revolt that ousted President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali when leftist politician Chokri Belaid was shot dead outside his home in Tunis on February 6.

Though no one claimed responsibility, Belaid's family accused Ennahda of being behind the killing, which the party vehemently denied.

The killing did little to ease the misgivings of liberals and secularists who believe Ennahda is failing to rein in religious extremists threatening the stability of the country.

Belaid's murder also sparked deadly street protests as well as strikes, which Jebali attempted to defuse by announcing plans for a non-partisan cabinet of technocrats to lead Tunisia into early elections.

The proposal quickly foundered and Jebali received a final rebuff by his own Ennahda party on Monday, prompting him the following day to carry out his threat to resign if he failed to win sufficient support.

Late on Tuesday he announced the resignation, saying he had failed in a last-ditch effort to push for "another solution" to the long-running crisis in a meeting with Marzouki.

Ghannouchi, whose Ennahda party dominates the national assembly, will be asked by Marzouki to nominate a new prime minister. Names being mentioned are those of Health Minister Abdelatif Mekki and Justice Minister Noureddine Bhiri.

Jribi's opposition Republican party, meanwhile, has in recent days made it clear it is ready to support a cabinet comprising a mix of politicians and technocrats.

The 63-year-old Jebali had said he was convinced a non-political team was "the best way to save the country from wandering off track".

Analysts said it is possible Marzouki will ask Jebali to try again to form a government.

But Jebali said he would not sign on again with "any initiative that does not fix a date for new elections. What about the constitution? What about elections?"

As well as the row over the new government, there is deadlock over the drafting of a constitution, with parliament divided over the nature of Tunisia's future political system 15 months after it was elected.

The prospect of Jebali carrying on is "on the table, but we still have to discuss it, and there are several competent people in the event he refuses," said Ennahda parliamentary bloc chief Sahbi Attig.

Jebali's plans had been bitterly opposed by Ennahda hardliners, represented by Ghannouchi, who refused to give up key portfolios and insist on Ennahda's electoral legitimacy.

The Islamists control the interior, foreign and justice ministries and dominate the national assembly.

The political deadlock has left the country paralysed.

"Everything has stopped. The problem is that nobody thinks about the general interest but only of their special interests," a government official told AFP.

Since the revolution, Tunisia has also been rocked by violence blamed on radical Salafists, and ongoing social unrest over the government's failure to improve poor living conditions.

- AFP/fl

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DRDO says it has capability to produce VVIP choppers

NEW DELHI: With the deal for procuring VVIP choppers from AgustaWestland facing the prospect of being scrapped, DRDO today said it has the capability to manufacture such helicopters even though it contended that producing anything entirely indigenously was impractical.

"We have the capability to manufacture any system. We are manufacturing LCH (Light Compact Helicopter). We have already manufactured ALH (Advanced Light Helicopter) and our own aircraft," DRDO Chief V K Saraswat said.

"There is no dearth of capability and capacity of manufacturing any advanced technology system," he said. Saraswat was asked on the sidelines of a seminar here whether DRDO is capable of manufacturing choppers such as AgustaWestland AW-1O1.

His statement assumes significance against the backdrop of controversy surrounding the Rs 3600 crore deal for acquiring 12 helicopters from AgustaWestland for the use of Indian VVIPs. The Defence Ministry has initiated the process of scrapping the deal in the wake of allegations that kickbacks to the tune of Rs 362 crore were paid to bag the contract.

Saraswat said it is not cost effective to produce each and everything right from needle to an aircraft in the country. "Because, if you produce something which we need 20 in numbers and you set up a facility for producing which will cost Rs 1000 crore, it is meaningless," he said.

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Florida Python Hunt Captures 68 Invasive Snakes

It's a wrap—the 2013 Python Challenge has nabbed 68 invasive Burmese pythons in Florida, organizers say. And experts are surprised so many of the elusive giants were caught.

Nearly 1,600 people from 38 states—most of them inexperienced hunters—registered for the chance to track down one of the animals, many of which descend from snakes that either escaped or were dumped into the wild.

Since being introduced, these Asian behemoths have flourished in Florida's swamps while also squeezing out local populations of the state's native mammals, especially in the Everglades. (See Everglades pictures.)

To highlight the python problem, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and its partners launched the 2013 Python Challenge, which encouraged registered participants to catch as many pythons as they could between January 12 and February 10 in state wildlife-management areas within the Everglades.

The commission gave cash prizes to those who harvested the most and longest pythons.

Frank Mazzotti, a wildlife ecologist at the University of Florida and scientific leader for the challenge, said before the hunt that he would consider a harvest of 70 animals a success—and 68 is close enough to say the event met its goals.

It's unknown just how many Burmese pythons live in Florida, but catching 68 snakes is an "exceptional" number, added Kenneth Krysko, senior herpetologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville.

Snakes in the Grass

Finding 68 snakes is impressive, experts say, since it's so hard to find pythons. For one, it's been unusually warm lately in Florida, which means the reptiles—which normally sun themselves to regulate their body temperature—are staying in the brush, making them harder to detect, Krysko said.

On top of that, Burmese pythons are notoriously hard to locate, experts say.

The animals are so well camouflaged that people can stand right next to one and not notice it. "It's rare that you get to see them stretched out—most of the time they're blending in," said Cheryl Millett, a biologist at the Nature Conservancy, a Python Challenge partner.

What's more, the reptiles are ambush hunters, which means they spend much of their time lying in wait in dense vegetation, not moving, she said.

That's why Millett gave the hunters some tips, such as looking along the water's edge, where the snakes like to hang out, and also simply listening for "something big moving through the vegetation."

Even so, catching 68 snakes is "actually is a little more than I expected," said Millett.

No Walk in the Park

Ruben Ramirez, founder of the company Florida Python Hunters, won two prizes in the competition: First place for the most snakes captured—18—and second place for the largest python, which he said was close to 11 feet (3.4 meters) long. The biggest Burmese python caught in Florida, nabbed in 2012, measured 17.7 feet (5.4 meters).

"They're there, but they're not as easy to find as people think," said Ramirez. "You're not going to be stumbling over pythons in Miami." (Related blog post: "What It's Like to Be a Florida Python Hunter.")

All participants, some of whom had never hunted a python before, were trained to identify the difference between a Burmese python and Florida's native snakes, said Millett. No native snakes were accidentally killed, she said.

Hunters were also told to kill the snakes by either putting a bolt or a bullet through their heads, or decapitating them-all humane methods that result "in immediate loss of consciousness and destruction of the brain," according to the Python Challenge website.

Ramirez added that some of the first-time or amateur hunters had different expectations. "I think they were expecting to walk down a canal and see a 10-foot [3-meter], 15-foot [4.5-meter] Burmese python. They thought it'd be a walk in the park."

Stopping the Spread

Completely removing these snakes from the wild isn't easy, and some scientists see the Python Challenge as helping to achieve part of that goal. (Read an opposing view on the Python Challenge: "Opinion: Florida's Great Snake Hunt Is a Cheap Stunt.")

"You're talking about 68 more animals removed from the population that shouldn't be there—that's 68 more mouths that aren't being fed," said the Florida museum's Krysko. (Read about giant Burmese python meals that went bust.)

"I support any kind of event or program that not only informs the general public about introduced species, but also gets the public involved in removing these nonnative animals that don't belong there."

The Nature Conservancy's Millett said the challenge had two positive outcomes: boosting knowledge for both science and the public.

People who didn't want to hunt or touch the snakes could still help, she said, by reporting sightings of exotic species to 888-IVE-GOT-1, through free IveGot1 apps, or www.ivegot1.org.

Millett runs a public-private Nature Conservancy partnership called Python Patrol that the Florida wildlife commission will take on in the fall. The program focuses not only on eradicating invasive pythons but on preventing the snake from moving to ecologically sensitive areas, such as Key West.

Necropsies on the captured snakes will reveal what pythons are eating, and location data from the hunters will help scientists figure out where the snakes are living—valuable data for researchers working to stop their spread.

"This is the most [number of] pythons that have been caught in this short of a period of time in such an extensive area," said the University of Florida's Mazzotti.

"It's an unprecedented sample, and we're going to get a lot of information out of that."

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Former Navy SEAL on Coming Out of Shadows

It used to be that Navy SEALs didn't just operate in the shadows. They trained in them too. Their whole story stayed shrouded in mystery. Their secret missions stayed secret to the rest of us.

But when they got Osama Bin Laden, snatched back an American cargo ship taken by pirates and rescued two air workers held hostage in Somalia, then suddenly, it seemed that SEALs were headline-makers.

Add to that some SEALs wrote books about SEAL adventures and even acted in a movie about the SEAL experience using live ammunition when they made "Act of Valor." They can't quite be called "the military unit that no one ever talked about" any longer.

Watch the full story on "Nightline" TONIGHT at 12:35 a.m. ET

Rorke Denver played Lt. Commander Rorke in "Act of Valor," a film that used dozens of SEALs and went on to gross $80 million at the box office. Now, with the help of a writer, Denver is doing some pretty decent storytelling in a new book, "Damn Few: Making the Modern SEAL Warrior."

He agrees that with SEALs like him telling their stories that these guys are out in the open like never before.

"We are, at this moment in our history, when the heat is on, the missions are getting press and coverage," Denver said.

Acts of Valor: Four Boyfriends Took Bullets to Save Girlfriends Watch Video

'Zero Dark Thirty' Screenwriter Responds to Film's Controversy Watch Video

When asked if it was a good thing, he said, "time will tell."

"We are in the public eye and I think that mythology is something that people are hugely, hugely interested in and they have an appetite for it," Denver said. "So for us with the movie and then also with 'Damn Few' I had an opportunity, I feel, to authentically represent and hopefully do it from an honorable point of view and accurately do so."

It's mostly his own story Denver tells in "Damn Few," how he joined the SEALs after college -- they didn't want him at first.

"I put in my first application and they said no, and I am glad it went that way. I think the community really values resiliency and toughness and focus and a 'never quit' attitude. For me, when they said no I thought, that ain't going to cut it."

Denver didn't quit. He reapplied and went on to survive the SEALs brutal Hell Week and training, joined the team and deployed all over the world, including the deadly Al Anbar province in Iraq when the war there was at its hottest. His family waited for him to return stateside.

"The families, I feel, are the ones who pay the price of our choices," Denver said. "But I didn't appreciate how much I was asking my family to bear and experience it with me. They really are every bit a part of our experience and frankly they are the ones who are back home and praying and believing that you are going to come home."

But even his family didn't quite know what Denver did at work every day.

"I never ask questions about what he does," said his wife, Tracy.

But "Act of Valor" was revealing in that way, and Denver's wife watched the film.

"For me it was incredibly eye-opening to actually see a submarine mission or running around in the jungle, jumping out of a plane, shooting his weapons," she said. "For me, it was like, oh, so this is what you are doing when you are away. I appreciated it actually."

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S'pore's fiscal surplus for FY2012 expected to surpass govt's estimates: economists

SINGAPORE: Despite booking a slower GDP growth of 1.2 percent last year, economists expect Singapore's fiscal surplus to surprise on the upside for FY 2012.

The projections, which range from S$1.6 billion to nearly S$5 billion, surpass the government's estimates of a S$1.27 billion surplus for the year.

The record number of new homes sold last year despite additional cooling measures and the high property prices are likely to prop up government revenue for FY2012.

Vishnu Varathan, market economist at Mizuho Corporate Bank, said: "If you are looking at adding to the coffers by 30 to 40 per cent, that is not unimaginable given how heated activity was in the property market. Overall, the surplus should come up much stronger than expected and I think that reinforces that Singapore runs a pretty strong budget position year after year."

In addition, economists say motor vehicle taxes, rising COE premiums as well as higher foreign worker levy will all add to the state's coffers.

Meanwhile, corporate and personal income taxes and the Goods & Services tax will remain top revenue generators, accounting for more than half of total operating revenue.

Taking into account higher expenditure outlays due to higher than expected inflation, DBS Bank forecasts a S$1.62 billion overall fiscal surplus for 2012.

Meanwhile, OCBC Bank projects a S$4.96 billion overall surplus while keeping expenditure unchanged from initial estimates.

Economists say with the higher surplus, the government could offer some incentives help lower income households and businesses cope with rising cost.

However, it is unlikely to do a U-turn on foreign manpower policies. In fact, economists expect the government to further tighten foreign labour rules, albeit at a more moderate pace to allow more time for companies to restructure.

Broadly, they expect Budget 2013 to focus on boosting productivity and fostering inclusive growth.

Some economists say the upcoming budget could also focus on interim projects that will be undertaken over the next few years to complement the longer term objectives and targets set out in the Population White Paper.

Among the government's future plans are the doubling of rail networks in Singapore and building another 700,000 homes by 2030 to support a larger population.

Social expenditure could also increase to cater for an ageing population

Irvin Seah, senior economist at DBS Bank, explained: "As the population continues to age in the next 10 to 20 years, social expenditure would continue to rise. Furthermore, the government is embarking on infrastructure capacity expansion exercise. This would be the most extensive and most comprehensive infrastructure expansion exercise ever since independence.

"Those two considerations will definitely take a toll on the fiscal position therefore there is a need to raise the tax revenues. Hiking GST is out of the question due to political concerns. The only area where there is room for increase in tax rate would be income tax rate so we expect a hike of one to two percentage point for income tax for the top income brackets in the upcoming budget."

Different tax rates apply for Singapore residents at between two per cent and 20 per cent depending on the chargeable income for the year.

Currently, Singapore has one of the most competitive personal income tax rate in the world.

The government will announce the Budget on February 25.

- CNA/fa

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UPA won't return to power, Sharad Yadav says

BHOPAL: The Congress-led UPA government was "mired in corruption" and had "failed on all fronts", and there was no way it could return to power at the Centre after next general elections, NDA convener Sharad Yadav said on Tuesday.

"The UPA government has been hit by one scam after another during its second tenure. There is no doubt that it has failed on all fronts and it would not return to power after next year's general elections," Yadav, who had come here for a private visit, told reporters.

Yadav said various issues including scams, corruption and rising prices would be discussed in the Budget session of Parliament starting on February 21.

Asked if Parliament would be allowed to run smoothly, he said he was hopeful that there would be no problem in its functioning this time.

Referring to the alleged choppergate, Yadav, who is also president of Janata Dal(United), said the Indian government did not know anything about the scandal till it became an issue in Italy where the media highlighted it in a big way.

Right from Bofors in the 80s to the bribery in helicopter deal, initial reports about scams first appeared in media abroad, he said.

About controversial remarks by Union home minister Sushilkumar Shinde on saffron terror, Yadav said, "It would be better if Shinde concentrates only on his job and does not waste his time in making meaningless statements".

Responding to a query, he said the CBI's credibility had sunk to a new low thanks to the manner in which the UPA government was handling the investigation agency.

On the unity of NDA, Yadav said, "It was united, it is united and it will remain united in future as well," and added that some more parties may join it before the polls.

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Confirmed: Dogs Sneak Food When People Aren't Looking

Many dog owners will swear their pups are up to something when out of view of watchful eyes. Shoes go missing, couches have mysterious teeth marks, and food disappears. They seem to disregard the word "no."

Now, a new study suggests dogs might understand people even better than we thought. (Related: "Animal Minds.")

The research shows that domestic dogs, when told not to snatch a piece of food, are more likely to disobey the command in a dark room than in a lit room.

This suggests that man's best friend is capable of understanding a human's point of view, said study leader Juliane Kaminski, a psychologist at the U.K.'s University of Portmouth.

"The one thing we can say is that dogs really have specialized skills in reading human communication," she said. "This is special in dogs." (Read "How to Build a Dog.")

Sneaky Canines

Kaminski and colleagues recruited 84 dogs, all of which were more than a year old, motivated by food, and comfortable with both strangers and dark rooms.

The team then set up experiments in which a person commanded a dog not to take a piece of food on the floor and repeated the commands in a room with different lighting scenarios ranging from fully lit to fully dark.

They found that the dogs were four times as likely to steal the food—and steal it more quickly—when the room was dark. (Take our dog quiz.)

"We were thinking what affected the dog was whether they saw the human, but seeing the human or not didn't affect the behavior," said Kaminski, whose study was published recently in the journal Animal Cognition.

Instead, she said, the dog's behavior depended on whether the food was in the light or not, suggesting that the dog made its decision based on whether the human could see them approaching the food.

"In a general sense, [Kaminski] and other researchers are interested in whether the dog has a theory of mind," said Alexandra Horowitz, head of the Dog Cognition Lab at Barnard University, who was not involved in the new study.

Something that all normal adult humans have, theory of mind is "an understanding that others have different perspective, knowledge, feelings than we do," said Horowitz, also the author of Inside of a Dog.

Smarter Than We Think

While research has previously been focused on our closer relatives—chimpanzees and bonobos—interest in dog cognition is increasing, thanks in part to owners wanting to know what their dogs are thinking. (Pictures: How smart are these animals?)

"The study of dog cognition suddenly began about 15 years ago," Horowitz said.

Part of the reason for that, said Brian Hare, director of the Duke Canine Cognition Lab and author of The Genius of Dogs, is that "science thought dogs were unremarkable."

But "dogs have a genius—years ago we didn't know what that was," said Hare, who was not involved in the new research. (See pictures of the the evolution of dogs, from wolf to woof.)

Many of the new dog studies are variations on research done with chimpanzees, bonobos, and even young children. Animal-cognition researchers are looking into dogs' ability to imitate, solve problems, or navigate social environments.

So just how much does your dog understand? It's much more than you—and science—probably thought.

Selectively bred as companions for thousands of years, dogs are especially attuned to human emotions—and, study leader Kaminski said, are better at reading human cues than even our closest mammalian relatives.

"There has been a physiological change in dogs because of domestication," Duke's Hare added. "Dogs want to bond with us in ways other species don't." (Related: "Dogs' Brains Reorganized by Breeding.")

While research reveals more and more insight into the minds of our furry best friends, Kaminski said, "We still don't know just how smart they are."

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