Royal baby: Bets on hair, weight, sex of newborn
London: As the birth of the Royal baby nears, British public is going into a frenzy with bizarre bets being placed from hair colour to the weight of the newborn. Betting house Ladbrokes is offering odds on all things related to Prince William and Kate Middleton’s second child.
Some of the bizarre betting odds being offered include on the hair colour of the newborn, The Mirror reported. Odds of 6/4 are being offered for blonde and brown hair colour with odds of 5/1 for black and red. Bets are also up for grabs on the weight of the newborn with less than 6 pounds having odds of 10/1 and 6 pounds to 15 ounce at 6/1. Bets are also being placed on the day of the birth and on bizarre things like who will be the first leader to congratulate after the royal baby birth — Prime Minister David Cameron or Labour leader Ed Miliband.
Meanwhile, odds of princess have been slashed by Ladbrokes. On the last day of April more than 5,000 pounds was wagered with the firm that a little girl will soon be welcomed into the world, and the weight of the money has forced the odds to be cut into just 4/9, leaving the chance of Prince George being joined by a brother to drift out to its biggest price yet of 13/8. A Saturday (3/1) birth is slightly favoured over Sunday (7/2), however it is actually May 4th (4/1) and May 5th (6/1) that are proving to be the most popular dates. It is now an 8/1 shot the latest member of the Royal Family arrives on polling day — May 7. Jessica Bridge of Ladbrokes said: “Obviously the gender’s a 50:50 shot, but not as far as the money’s concerned. Punters betting with their heart are backing a girl, whereas savvy punters betting with their head reckon it’s a boy.” “There’s a sense of deja vu in the air as the odds favoured a girl back in 2013 and time will tell if it’s second time lucky for Princess backers,” she said. (PTI)
Diabetic Australian boy dies after ‘slap therapy’
Sydney: Police in Australia on Friday launched a probe into the death of a diabetic seven-year-old boy who died here after attending a “slapping therapy” workshop conducted by a self-proclaimed Chinese healer.
Aidan Fenton was getting treatment from the alternative Chinese medicine workshop at the Tasly Healthpac Centre in Hurstville when he died, The Daily Telegraph reported.
Police have spoken to a Chinese therapist, Hongchi Xiao who advocates the use of slapping therapy until patients are bruised to cure illnesses and rid the body of poisons. Hongchi has left the country.
According to police reports, Hongchi has claimed participants in the seminar were asked to fast for three days and to undertake the slapping and stretching exercises that can prompt vomiting and dizzy spells, known as a “healing crisis”.
Hongchi said Aidan looked well during the seminar and had eaten rice but became ill on Monday evening.
Police and paramedics were called to the nearby Hurstville Ritz Hotel where Aidan had been staying with his parents after the little boy was found unconscious. His heart stopped beating on the way to the hospital.
Police are now investigating if the “healer” advised his parents to take Aidan off insulin and instead encouraged alternative therapies to treat him, including massages and slapping. (IANS)
Chinese builder puts up 57-story skyscraper in 19 days
Changsha: A Chinese construction company is claiming to be the world’s fastest builder after erecting a 57-story skyscraper in 19 working days in central China.
The Broad Sustainable Building Co put up the rectangular, glass-and-steel Mini Sky City in the Hunan provincial capital of Changsha using a modular method, assembling three floors per day, company vice president Xiao Changgeng said. The company, which has ambitions to assemble the world’s tallest skyscraper at 220 floors in only three months, worked on Mini Sky City in two spurts separated by winter weather.
Its time-lapse video of the rapid assembly has become popular on Chinese video-sharing sites since it was first uploaded on YouTube. “With the traditional method, they have to build a skyscraper brick by brick, but with our method, we just need to assemble the blocks,” company engineer Chen Xiangqian said. Such modular approaches have been used for high-rise apartment blocks elsewhere, including in Britain and the U.S. Some critics say the method could lead to cityscapes with overly uniform architecture.
Liu Peng, associate director of the engineering consulting firm ARUP Beijing, said the method is worth developing because it could become a safe and reliable way to build skyscrapers rapidly. “But it is not perfect, and it does not meet all kinds of personalized demands,” Liu said. “People nowadays want more personalized architecture.”
Mini Sky City, which has 19 atriums, 800 apartments and office space for 4,000 people, goes on sale in May. The structure is safe and can withstand earthquakes, Xiao said. (AP)
US successfully tests bullets that can change course midair
Washington: Now you don’t have to be a good shooter to hit the mark. The US military has successfully tested self-steering “smart” bullets that have a real-time guidance system to track targets and can change their course if needed. In February, the “smart bullets” — .50-caliber projectiles equipped with optical sensors — passed their most successful round of live-fire tests to date, according to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
In the tests, an experienced marksman “repeatedly hit moving and evading targets,” a DARPA statement said. “Additionally, a novice shooter using the system for the first time hit a moving target. In other words, now you do not even have to be a good shot to hit the mark,” the statement said. The system has been developed by DARPA’s Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordnance programme, known as EXACTO. “True to DARPA’s mission, EXACTO has demonstrated what was once thought impossible: the continuous guidance of a small-caliber bullet to target,” Jerome Dunn, DARPA programme manager said in a statement.
“This live-fire demonstration from a standard rifle showed that EXACTO is able to hit moving and evading targets with extreme accuracy at sniper ranges unachievable with traditional rounds. Fitting EXACTO’s guidance capabilities into a small .50-caliber size is a major breakthrough and opens the door to what could be possible in future guided projectiles across all calibers,” Dunn said. Videos supplied by DARPA showed the bullets making sharp turns in midair as they pursue their targets.
DARPA says the smart bullets will also help shooters who are trying, for example, to hit targets in high winds. The goals of the EXACTO program are giving shooters accuracy at greater distances, engaging targets sooner and enhancing the safety of American troops, DARPA said.
The EXACTO program has developed new approaches and advanced capabilities to improve the range and accuracy of sniper systems beyond the current state of the art. (PTI)
