Islamabad, Feb.12 (ANI): The Taliban claiming responsibility for the death 26 people in suicide attacks on two government buildings in Kabul, Afghanistan, suggests that the militant outfit has the potential to come up with new and more violent responses in the coming days.

Given this latest scenario in Afghanistan, it comes as no surprise that security in Pakistan, and particularly in Islamabad, has been tightened to unprecedented levels.

According to Syed Saleem Shahzad, the Pakistan Bureau Chief of the Asia Times Online, the attack on Kabul comes even as both Barack Obama (US) and Gordon Brown (UK) have announced the appointment of Special Envoys for Pakistan and Afghanistan to strengthen Pakistan’s role against the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as trying to bring India into the fold of their strategic partnership.

In an article for the website, Shahzad says that the Taliban has made its bloody presence felt, and the attack on Kabul, is “reminiscent of the Pakistan-linked terror attack on the Indian city of Mumbai last November”.

“The attack, the most complex and brazen in the (Afghan) capital since the Taliban were ousted in 2001, involved five armed militants”, and came a day ahead of a visit by US Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke.

According to Shahzad, it “can be seen as a clear statement that even while furious diplomatic activity is taking place involving among others Washington and Moscow, the Taliban voice will be heard.”

He further says in his article that the attack “comes as something of a surprise as it was widely believed that the Taliban would lie relatively low ahead of this year’s spring offensive.”

He says that on the battlefields in Pakistan and Afghanistan, plans are afoot to launch the strongest offensive yet against militants.

“This could begin once Pakistani army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani returns to Pakistan from the United States where he will discuss in detail the dynamics of the militancy and enhanced cooperation between Islamabad and Washington,” he says.

Across the border, in India, there are also murmurings of al-Qaeda terror cells exploding into action to deter India from aligning with Western forces against the Taliban-led resistance in Afghanistan.

Al-Qaeda assesses 2009 as the year in which it could fight its fiercest – if not decisive – battle: the flames of war could flare at any time, anywhere, he concludes. (ANI)

Washington, February 6 (ANI): Blue colour boosts the brain’s ability to think creatively, and red to notice detail.

Well, these are the findings of a new University of British Columbia study, which was aimed at determining which of the two colours most improves the brain’s performance and receptivity to advertising.

The study showed that both colours could improve the brain’s performance and receptivity to ads, depending upon the nature of the task or message.

Those behind the study say that advertisers and interior designers may find their findings interesting.

“Previous research linked blue and red to enhanced cognitive performance, but disagreed on which provides the greatest boost. It really depends on the nature of the task,” says Juliet Zhu of UBC’s Sauder School of Business, author of the study which will appear in the journal Science Express.

For their study, the researchers tracked over 600 participants’ performance on six cognitive tasks between 2007 and 2008, which required either detail-orientation or creativity.

The team revealed that most of the experiments were conducted on computers, with a screen that was red, blue or white.

The researchers noted that red colour boosted the participants’ performance on detail-oriented tasks, such as memory retrieval and proofreading, by as much as 31 per cent compared to blue.

Conversely, according to them, for creative tasks such as brainstorming, blue environmental cues prompted participants to produce twice as many creative outputs as when under the red colour condition.

Zhu says that the variances were caused by different unconscious motivations that red and blue activate, noting that colour influences cognition and behaviour through learned associations.

The researcher revealed that a series of fictional ads and product packages were used to during the study, with a view to exploring how colour impacts receptivity to consumer packaging and advertising.

The study showed that when the background colour was red, people formed more favourable evaluations of products when its ad featured specific product details as opposed to evocative, creative messaging.

However, when the background was blue, the opposite pattern of results emerged.

Similarly, people were more receptive to a new, fictional brand of toothpaste that focused on negative messages such as “cavity prevention” when the background colour was red, whereas people were more receptive to aspirational messages such as “tooth whitening” when the background colour was rendered in blue. (ANI)

Washington, Jan 13 (ANI): A team of scientists in the UK is digitally restoring a 2000-year-old painted statue of an Amazon warrior to her original glory.

The scientists are from WMG Solutions at the University of Warwick, the University of Southampton, and the Herculaneum Conservation Project.

The Roman statue was discovered by the Herculaneum Conservation Project in the ancient ruins of Herculaneum, a town preserved in the same eruption that buried nearby Pompeii in AD 79.

It is thought to represent a wounded Amazon warrior, complete with painted hair and eyes preserved by the ash that buried the town.

Researchers from WMG at the University of Warwick, Southampton and Herculaneum are now scanning, modelling and digitally recreating the Amazon statue.
Dr Mark Williams, a leader in laser measurement at WMG, took his team and equipment to the site.

“The statue is an incredible find. Although its age alone makes it valuable, it is unique because it has retained the original painted surface, preserved under the volcanic material that buried Herculaneum,” he said.

Dr Williams used state-of-the-art equipment to accurately measure (within 0.05 of a millimetre) every surface of the bust and translated that information into a computer model.

Dr Greg Gibbons, also of WMG, then used rapid prototyping to create a physical 3D model of the head revealing the smallest detail.

Further recording was carried out on site by experts in archaeological computing from Southampton, led by Dr Graeme Earl.

They used a novel form of photography which provided an extremely detailed record of the texture and colour of the painted surfaces.

The Southampton team is now digitally re-modelling and re-painting the sculpture. They are using techniques derived from the film industry to recreate the original carved and painted surfaces.

In the final step, Professor Alan Chalmers, head of WMG’s visualization team and an expert in ultra-realistic graphics, will apply techniques to the computer model to exactly reproduce the lighting and environmental conditions under which the painted statue would have originally been created and displayed.

This visualization will provide archaeologists with an otherwise impossible view of how the original statue may have looked in context, and allow them to experiment with alternative hypotheses.

According to Professor Chalmers, “Our work will be used both for educational and research purposes to give people new insights into the statue’s design, to provide a record for conservators, and to explore how it may have been appreciated over 2000 years ago.” (ANI)