Austral Airlines pilots fired after letting model

Victoria Xipolitakis, 29, took selfies from the jet's cockpit with her arms around the pilots.

The pilots, yet to be named, have been sacked for breaching strict airline regulations.

Xipolitakis was pictured in the cockpit of Austral Airlines Flight 2708 from the Argentinian capital Buenos Aires to the city of Rosario.

In a statement Austral Airlines' parent company Argentinian Airlines said: "Regarding what happened during flight 2708, the pilots were discharged and will be sacked like the rest of the staff who had a responsibility for the incident.

"Legal actions will be issued against the above mentioned and also against the passenger involved for putting the flight's security at risk."

In previous years parents and children were allowed into the cockpit.

But in recent years the practice has ended amid heightened terrorism fears.

Read More

How Do Talk Parrots?

Scientists, including one of Indian-origin, have found key structural differences in the brains of parrots that may explain the birds’ unparalleled ability to imitate sounds and human speech.

These brain structures had gone unrecognised in studies published over the last 34 years, researchers said.

By examining gene expression patterns, the new study found that parrot brains are structured differently than the brains of songbirds and hummingbirds, which also exhibit vocal learning.

In addition to having defined centres in the brain that control vocal learning called “cores”, parrots have what the scientists call “shells” or outer rings, which are also involved in vocal learning.

The shells are relatively bigger in species of parrots that are well known for their ability to imitate human speech, the researchers found.

“This finding opens up a huge avenue of research in parrots, in trying to understand how parrots are processing the information necessary to copy novel sounds and what are the mechanisms that underlie imitation of human speech sounds,” said Mukta Chakraborty, a post-doctoral researcher in the lab of Erich Jarvis, an associate professor of neurobiology at Duke University and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.

Parrots are one of the few animals considered “vocal learners”, meaning they can imitate sounds. Researchers have been trying to figure out why some bird species are better imitators than others.

Besides differences in the sizes of particular brain regions, however, no other potential explanations have surfaced.

Until now, the budgerigar (common pet parakeet) was the only species of parrot whose brain had been probed for the mechanisms of vocal learning.

The researchers from Denmark and the Netherlands donated precious brain tissue for the study.

They characterised the brains of eight parrot species besides the budgerigar, including conures, cockatiels, lovebirds, two species of Amazon parrots, a blue and gold macaw, a kea and an African Grey parrot.

The researchers looked for specific gene markers that are known to have specialised activity in the brains of humans and song-learning birds.

They compared the resulting gene expression patterns in all the parrot brains with neural tracing experiments in budgerigars.

Even the most ancient of the parrot species they studied, the Kea of New Zealand, has a shell structure — albeit rudimentary. This suggests that the populations of neurons in the shells probably arose at least 29 million years ago.

The scientists now want to find out whether the shells give parrots a greater ability to imitate human speech.

Read More

Free Laptops to class X Pass Students

Uttar Pradesh government today announced free laptops for meritorious students, who passed class 10 and 12 examinations conducted by CBSE, ICSE and the state board this year. 

It was decided that 39,600 meritorious students who passed class X and XII would be given free laptops, an official spokesperson said in Lucknow.The decision was taken during a Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav in Lucknow.
Giving details of the decision the spokesperson said, 50 per cent laptops would be for each class X and XII pass outs and it would be distributed among students of different boards according to their results.

The list of laptop recipients would have 20 per cent quota for minorities and 21 per cent for SC/CT students, he added.

The Samajwadi Party government had promised free laptops and tablet computers to intermediate and high-school pass outs in its 2012 Assembly election manifesto.

While over 15 lakh laptops were distributed to intermediate pass outs, the scheme for distribution of tablets could not see light of the day. The laptop scheme was also discontinued after 2012.

Read More