Hold panchayat polls as per existing quota: SC to Andhra Pradesh

NEW DELHI/HYDERABAD: The Supreme Court on Monday cleared the decks for elections to the panchayati raj (PR) institutions in the state and an upbeat chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy wants to hold the polls at the earliest. With state election commissioner P Ramakanth Reddy stating that his department is fully prepared, the PR polls, touted as an acid test for the chief minister as well as new entrant YS Jaganmohan Reddy, could be held as early as April this year.

In its judgment on Monday, the SC bench of Justice P Sathasivam and Justice J S Khehar directed the state to conduct the polls on the basis of the existing 60.5% reservation for BCs (34%), SCs (18.25%) and STs (8.25%). Following a petition challenging the quota as exceeding the limit fixed by the apex court, the AP High Court had directed the state to hold the PR polls by fixing 50% as upper limit of the quota for the BCs, SC-STs . Monday's decision of the Supreme Court was on the basis of an appeal filed by the state government against the HC order.

Kiran Kumar Reddy's optimism of the Congress putting up a good performance is based on the public assurance given by Union panchayat raj minister Kishore Chandra Deo in Delhi soon after the SC verdict on Monday that Rs 2,400 crore that was held up for the last two years for providing drinking water and sanitation in rural areas will be released as soon as the local bodies are in place. "Assured of the funds, the CM can sway the voters in Congress' favour by announcing several welfare schemes," averred political analysts.

The term of the panchayati raj institutions, namely 1,094 zilla parishad territorial constituency (ZPTC) members , 14,591 mandal parishad territorial constituency members (MPTC), and 21,843 sarpanches , ended in July 2011 and since then, they have been under the control of special officers in the absence of elected councils. The PR polls could not be held till now as the issue was pending in the court.

Confident that he will be flush with funds, the chief minister has directed the concerned departments to be ready for the polls at the earliest . "Jagan is in jail. Telangana is calm. The state government is politically stable. And summer is far away. All this should work in Congress favour ," said a senior Congress leader.

Deo promises to release blocked funds

Although the recently held primary agricultural cooperative societies polls were not party-based , the Congress has claimed that it won a majority. In fact, the Congress claims that candidates owing allegiance to it won the elections even in Telangana, much to the chagrin of TRS and other parties .

The PR polls will be party based and the opposition parties, including the YSR Congress, TDP, TRS, BJP, Left parties and Lok Satta welcomed the SC order and wanted the state to hold the local body elections immediately. Jagan is confident that the polls will prove that he has mass following, while the TDP believes that the elections will pave the way for its leader Chandrababu Naidu's return to power. Panchayat raj department officials said they would initiate the process of delimitation of the constituencies and fixing quota in a week. State election chief Ramakanth Reddy told the media in Delhi that the commission would launch its process once it receives the data from the government.

Welcoming the SC decision, Union panchayat raj minister Kishore Chandra Deo announced that he would release the amount withheld as per the Constitution. "We have withheld Rs 2400 crore in the past two years, meant for providing drinking water and sanitation for rural areas, as there were no local governing bodies. We will release the amount once the local bodies are in place," Deo told media in Delhi.

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Hip implants a bit more likely to fail in women

CHICAGO (AP) — Hip replacements are slightly more likely to fail in women than in men, according to one of the largest studies of its kind in U.S. patients. The risk of the implants failing is low, but women were 29 percent more likely than men to need a repeat surgery within the first three years.

The message for women considering hip replacement surgery remains unclear. It's not known which models of hip implants perform best in women, even though women make up the majority of the more than 400,000 Americans who have full or partial hip replacements each year to ease the pain and loss of mobility caused by arthritis or injuries.

"This is the first step in what has to be a much longer-term research strategy to figure out why women have worse experiences," said Diana Zuckerman, president of the nonprofit National Research Center for Women & Families. "Research in this area could save billions of dollars" and prevent patients from experiencing the pain and inconvenience of surgeries to fix hip implants that go wrong.

Researchers looked at more than 35,000 surgeries at 46 hospitals in the Kaiser Permanente health system. The research, published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, was funded by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

After an average of three years, 2.3 percent of the women and 1.9 percent of the men had undergone revision surgery to fix a problem with the original hip replacement. Problems included instability, infection, broken bones and loosening.

"There is an increased risk of failure in women compared to men," said lead author Maria Inacio, an epidemiologist at Southern California Permanente Medical Group in San Diego. "This is still a very small number of failures."

Women tend to have smaller joints and bones than men, and so they tend to need smaller artificial hips. Devices with smaller femoral heads — the ball-shaped part of the ball-and-socket joint in an artificial hip — are more likely to dislocate and require a surgical repair.

That explained some, but not all, of the difference between women and men in the study. It's not clear what else may have contributed to the gap. Co-author Dr. Monti Khatod, an orthopedic surgeon in Los Angeles, speculated that one factor may be a greater loss of bone density in women.

The failure of metal-on-metal hips was almost twice as high for women than in men. The once-popular models were promoted by manufacturers as being more durable than standard plastic or ceramic joints, but several high-profile recalls have led to a decrease in their use in recent years.

"Don't be fooled by hype about a new hip product," said Zuckerman, who wrote an accompanying commentary in the medical journal. "I would not choose the latest, greatest hip implant if I were a woman patient. ... At least if it's been for sale for a few years, there's more evidence for how well it's working."

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Online:

Journal: http://www.jamainternalmed.com

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Troubled Country Singer Shot Herself, Cops Say

Mindy McCready, the country singer who soared to the top of the charts with her debut album, "Ten Thousand Angels," but struggled with substance abuse, served time in jail and fought a lengthy battle with her mother over custody of her son has died of what appears to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said. She was 37.

Deputies from the Cleburne County Sheriff's Office were dispatched to a report of gun shots fired at McCready's Heber Springs, Ark., home at around 3:30 p.m. today.

There they found McCready on the front porch. She was pronounced dead at the scene from what appeared to be a single self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to a statement from the sheriff's office.

McCready's boyfriend, David Wilson, died in January of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. McCready was ordered to enter rehab shortly after Wilson's death, and her two children, Zander, 6, and 9-month-old Zayne were taken from her. She was released after one day to undergo outpatient care.

McCready scored a number-one Billboard country hit in 1996 with "Guys Do It All the Time," but in recent years, the country crooner has received more media attention for her troubled personal life than her music.

She has been arrested multiple times on drug charges and probation violations and has been hospitalized for overdoses several times, including in 2010, when she was found unconscious at her mother's home after taking a painkiller and muscle relaxant.

Angela Weiss/Getty Images

Her mother, Gayle Inge, was appointed to be her son Zander's legal guardian in 2007 after McCready was arrested for violating probation on a drug-related charge. The boy's father is McCready's ex-boyfriend Billy McKnight.

Following a custody hearing in May 2011, McCready released a statement, saying, "We have progressed in a positive manner to reunite me and my son, Zander. I feel very optimistic this will happen in the near future."

But just six months later, in November 2011, was accused of violating a court order for failing to bring Zander back to her mother in Florida after a visit. The boy was placed in foster care while McCready and her mother worked out the custody dispute.

McCready's struggle with substance abuse was broadcast in 2010 on the third season of "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew."

McCready also claimed to have carried on a decade-long affair with baseball star Roger Clemens that began was she was 15 years old and he was 28. Clemens denied that the relationship was sexual in nature.

"You know what, I don't think I'm ever going to be one of those people that has a normal, quiet existence," McCready told ABC Radio in 2010. "I've been chosen for some reason to be bigger and larger than life in every way. Negative and positive."

McCready, who was born and raised in southern Florida, moved to Nashville when she was 18 to start her music career.

Within a few months, she was starting to work with producer David Malloy, who got her tapes to RLG Records. The company signed her to a contract after seeing her in concert, giving her a record deal less than a year after her arrival in Nashville.

Her debut album, "Ten Thousand Angels," went gold within six months of its release in April 1996, and eventually went multi-platinum. Two more followed: "If I Don't Stay the Night," in 1997; and "I'm Not So Tough" in 1999.

Her most recent album, "I'm Still Here," featuring new versions of her early hits "Ten Thousand Angels" and "Guys Do It All the Time," was released in March 2010.

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Ecuador's Correa cruises to re-election victory

QUITO (Reuters) - Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa swept to a re-election victory on Sunday that allows him to strengthen state control over the OPEC nation's economy and gives a timely boost to Latin America's alliance of socialist leaders.

The charismatic leftist had 57 percent support compared with 24 percent for runner-up Guillermo Lasso, with almost 40 percent of votes counted. The electoral authority said it did not expect the results to change significantly.

"Nobody can stop this revolution," a jubilant Correa told supporters from the balcony of the presidential palace, after claiming victory.

"The colonial powers are not in charge anymore. You can be sure that in this revolution it's Ecuadoreans in control."

The combative, U.S.-trained economist took power in 2007 and has won strong support among the poor by using booming oil revenues to build roads, hospitals and schools in rural areas and shantytowns.

"Our Ecuador needs a president like Rafael Correa. He has been strong and has not allowed anyone to intimidate him," said Julieta Moira, 46, who is unemployed, as she celebrated outside the presidential palace. "I'm very excited, happy and thankful."

Supporters also gathered in a park in the upscale north end of Quito, waving the signature neon-green flags of Correa's Alianza Pais party.

DEDICATES WIN TO CHAVEZ

Correa, 49, may now be in line to become Latin America's main anti-American voice and de facto leader of the ALBA bloc of leftist governments as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has been silenced during his battle with cancer.

Correa said he dedicated his victory to Chavez.

The principal challenge in Correa's new four-year term will be wooing investors needed to boost stagnant oil production and spur the mining industry. A $3.2 billion debt default in 2008 and aggressive oil contract negotiations scared off many.

Critics view Correa as an authoritarian leader who has curbed media freedom and appointed aides to top posts in the judiciary.

"This government has not given us anything good, only insults and taxes. We're tired of all that. I'm concerned that this government has alliances with communist countries," said Celeste Guerrero, a 68-year-old pensioner in Guayaquil.

Even some supporters disapprove of his tempestuous outbursts, confrontations with media and bullying of adversaries.

But the fractured opposition failed to make a consolidated challenge. It fielded seven candidates, making it easy for Correa, and he is now on track for a decade in office.

That is rare stability in a country where three presidents were pushed from office by coups or street protests in the decade before Correa took power in 2007.

He is already the longest-serving president since the return to democracy in the 1970s following a military dictatorship.

Correa's success has hinged in part on high oil prices that allowed for liberal state spending, including boosting cash handouts to 2 million people, and spurred solid economic growth.

He is likely to continue spending heavily to maintain his popularity, but state revenues would dry up if oil prices fell.

He now hopes to diversify the economy away from its dependence on oil, in part by bringing in new investment for the mining sector. Despite promising reserves of gold and copper, mining operations have barely gotten off the ground.

In a news conference on Sunday after polls closed, Correa played down the need for more foreign investment. He insisted the ultimate goal was to ensure economic growth rather than "mortgaging" the country to bring in cash from abroad.

"We welcome foreign investment, and we're already getting plenty of it," Correa said. "Ecuador is one of the most successful economies in Latin America."

Lasso, a wealthy ex-banker and Correa's closest rival, had tried to woo voters with promises of lower taxes. He congratulated Correa on his victory but also took pride in his Creo party taking a quarter of the vote.

"We are now the second-largest political force in the country," said Lasso, who was beaming despite losing.

CONGRESS BATTLE

The other six opposition candidates included former Correa ally Alberto Acosta, former President Lucio Gutierrez and banana magnate and five-time presidential candidate Alvaro Noboa.

Pollsters say some of them focused their campaigns too much on attacking Correa and failed to put forward concrete proposals to entice voters.

Ecuadoreans also chose a new Congress on Sunday.

The Alianza Pais party was expected to win a majority in the legislature, which would let Correa push ahead with controversial reforms, including a media law and changes to mining legislation, without having to negotiate with rivals.

The results of the vote for Congress are not expected to be known for several days, but Correa said he was confident.

"I think we are going to get a majority and we will manage that majority with great responsibility," he told Latin America's Telesur TV network, set up by Chavez and his allies as an alternative to established media.

Correa never shies away from a fight, be it with international bondholders, oil companies, local bankers, the Catholic Church or media that criticize his policies.

He vowed on Sunday to expand state regulations over media groups he has called "dogs" and "hired assassins."

"One of the things we have to fix is an unethical and unscrupulous press that wants to judge, legislate and govern," Correa said. "That goes against the rule of law and we will not allow it."

His criticism of the U.S. "empire" and his clashes with foreign investors and the World Bank have fueled Correa's popularity as a strong-minded leader who stands up to foreign powers that many say meddled in Ecuador's affairs for decades.

He took the global limelight last year when he granted asylum to WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange. Critics say he did it to brush off accusations that he is curbing freedom of expression in Ecuador.

(Additional reporting by Jose Llangari and Eduardo Garcia in Quito and Yuri Garcia in Guayaquil; Editing by Kieran Murray, Andrew Cawthorne and Eric Beech)

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Motor Racing: Early-bird sales of F1 Singapore GP tickets

SINGAPORE: Fans of the Formula One Singapore Grand Prix can buy tickets from Wednesday, with 65,000 general three-day tickets on sale for the early birds.

They will enjoy significant savings and new initiatives for the sixth instalment of the world's only Formula One night race on 20, 21 and 22 September.

As in previous years, race promoter Singapore GP will release the tickets in two phases: the early-bird phase from 20 February to 30 April, and the regular phase from 1 May.

About 85 per cent of the ticket categories on offer are priced the same or lower than in 2012.

Fans can look forward to savings of up to 30 per cent if they buy early as a group under the Group Booking Special scheme.

In response to popular demand, Singapore GP is offering an additional combination package for spectators to explore different parts of the Circuit Park on each of the three days.

Fans can opt for the new Zone 1 Walkabout combination package that consists of a Pit Grandstand ticket for both Friday and Saturday, as well as a Sunday Premier Walkabout ticket at only S$688 during the early-bird phase.

The Turn 1, Padang and Bay combination packages will still be available from S$398 to S$788 at early-bird price.

Following the sell-out success of the Turn 3 Premier Grandstand last year, an additional Premier Grandstand has been launched.

It offers spectators the chance to witness possible overtaking opportunities at the Memorial (Turn 7) up-close.

Tickets are priced at S$1,598 for the Turn 7 Premier Grandstand @ Stamford and S$2,128 for the Turn 3 Premier Grandstand.

- CNA/ir

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British Prime Minister David Cameron on India trade trip amid graft scandal

LONDON: British Prime Minister David Cameron arrives in India on Monday to try to win new investment in the face of fierce global competition as a scandal engulfs an Anglo-Italian helicopter deal.

Making his second visit to India as prime minister, Cameron's trip comes days after a similar trade mission by French President Francois Hollande, underlining how Europe's debt-stricken states are competing to tap into one of the world's fastest-growing economies.

His delegation, which includes representatives of over 100 companies, cultural and educational bodies, is the biggest taken abroad by a British prime minister and includes four ministers and nine lawmakers.

However, the timing of Cameron's trip is not ideal. India said on Friday it wanted to cancel a $750 million deal for a dozen helicopters made by AgustaWestland, the Anglo-Italian subsidiary of Italy's Finmeccanica, over bribery claims.

That will not make Cameron's job of persuading India to buy more civil and military hardware easier, and Indian officials have told the local press they intend to press Cameron for "a fully fledged report" on what Britain knows about the scandal.

Britain has said it wants to wait until the end of the Italian investigation before commenting in full, but has given India an interim report on the subject.

At a time when Britain's government is struggling to get its economy growing, officials see India, projected to become the world's third largest economy by 2050, as a key strategic partner in what Cameron has called a "Global Race".

"I think Britain and India can be one of the great partnerships of the 21st Century," he told the Hindustan Times. "India is going to be one of the great success stories of this century - a rising power in the world. And I want Britain to be one of your partners as you grow and succeed."

He is expected to remind the Indian government that the Eurofighter jet - which is partly built in Britain - remains an attractive option if New Delhi decides to review a multi-billion dollar deal to buy 126 French-made Rafale fighters.

A British government source said on Friday that London had noted that Hollande had not finalised the Rafale fighter jet deal during his own trip and that London would be asking how the talks with the French were going.

Companies travelling with Cameron include BP, BAE Systems, De La Rue, Diageo, EADS UK, HSBC, JCB, Lloyd's, the London Stock Exchange, London Underground, Rolls-Royce and Standard Chartered. He is also taking 30 small and medium-sized firms.

Colonial past

Cameron's visit to India, a country that won independence from Britain in 1947 and whose colonial history remains a sensitive subject for many Indians, will take in Mumbai and New Delhi.

Cameron says the two countries enjoy a "special relationship", a term usually reserved for Britain's ties with the United States, but it is a relationship undergoing profound change. For now, Britain's economy is the sixth largest in the world and India's the 10th. But India is forecast to overtake its old colonial master in the decades ahead.

TATA group, an Indian company that owns car maker Jaguar Land Rover, is now Britain's biggest employer in the manufacturing sector and, in a nod to how the relationship is evolving, London will stop giving India foreign aid after 2015.

Cameron is expected to lobby India to open up its economy to foreign investment to allow retailers, such as Britain's Tesco , to open outlets there amid frustration that many of the sectors in which British business excels remain partly or fully closed to foreign investors.

India is forecast to spend $1 trillion in the next five years on infrastructure and Britain is hoping its firms may win some of those contracts.

Some British companies have run into problems in the past. Mobile phone operator Vodafone has repeatedly clashed with the Indian authorities over taxes and oil company Royal Dutch/Shell has asked the British government to raise a tax dispute it has with India during Cameron's visit.

Cameron's aim is to double trade between the two nations from 11.5 billion pounds in 2010, when he last visited, to 23 billion pounds in 2015. Officials say that goal remains on track.

He is expected to meet Manmohan Singh, his Indian counterpart, as well as President Pranab Mukherjee, and to announce a clutch of deals, including cooperation agreements to help India develop its city metro systems.

His office said those deals would create 500 British jobs and safeguard a further 2,000. British firms were also winning contracts in India, it said, saying the Intercontinental Hotel Group planned to build 13 new hotels in the next few years.

Another big trade mission in 2010 failed to yield the gains Cameron had hoped for.

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UN warns risk of hepatitis E in S. Sudan grows

GENEVA (AP) — The United Nations says an outbreak of hepatitis E has killed 111 refugees in camps in South Sudan since July, and has become endemic in the region.

U.N. refugee agency spokesman Adrian Edwards says the influx of people to the camps from neighboring Sudan is believed to be one of the factors in the rapid spread of the contagious, life-threatening inflammatory viral disease of the liver.

Edwards said Friday that the camps have been hit by 6,017 cases of hepatitis E, which is spread through contaminated food and water.

He says the largest number of cases and suspected cases is in the Yusuf Batil camp in Upper Nile state, which houses 37,229 refugees fleeing fighting between rebels and the Sudanese government.

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Meteor Blast 'Something We Only Saw in Movies'

A day after a massive meteor exploded over this city in central Russia, a monumental cleanup effort is under way.

Authorities have deployed around 24,000 troops and emergencies responders to help in the effort.

Officials say more than a million square feet of windows -- the size of about 20 football fields -- were shattered by the shockwave from the meteor's blast. Around 4,000 buildings in the area were damaged.

The injury toll climbed steadily on Friday. Authorities said today it now stands at more than 1,200. Most of those injuries were from broken glass, and only a few hundred required hospitalization.

According to NASA, this was the biggest meteor to hit Earth in more than a century. Preliminary figures suggest it was 50 feet wide and weighed more than the Eiffel Tower.

SEE PHOTOS: Meteorite Crashes in Russia

NASA scientists have also estimated the force of the blast that occurred when the meteor fractured upon entering Earth's atmosphere was approximately 470 kilotons -- the equivalent of about 30 Hiroshima bombs.

Residents said today they still can't believe it happened here.

"It was something we only saw in the movies," one university student said. "We never thought we would see it ourselves."

Throughout the city, the streets are littered with broken glass. Local officials have announced an ambitious pledge to replace all the broken windows within a week. In the early morning hours, however, workers could still be heard drilling new windows into place.

Authorities have sent divers into a frozen lake outside the city, where a large chunk of the meteor is believed to have landed, creating a large hole in the ice. By the end of the day they had not found anything.

They are not the only ones looking for it.

Meteor hunters from around the world are salivating at what some are calling the opportunity of a lifetime. A small piece of the meteor could fetch thousands of dollars and larger chunks could bring in even hundreds of thousands.

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Bomb kills 64 in Pakistan's Quetta

QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Sixty-four people including school children died on Saturday in a bomb attack carried out by extremists from Pakistan's Sunni Muslim majority, police said.

A spokesman for Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Sunni group, claimed responsibility for the bomb in Quetta, which caused casualties in the town's main bazaar, a school and a computer center. Police said most of the victims were Shi'ites.

Burned school bags and books were strewn around.

"The explosion was caused by an improvised explosive device fitted to a motorcycle," said Wazir Khan Nasir, deputy inspector general of police in Quetta.

"This is a continuation of terrorism against Shi'ites."

"I saw many bodies of women and children," said an eyewitness at a hospital. "At least a dozen people were burned to death by the blast."

Most Western intelligence agencies have regarded the Pakistani Taliban and al Qaeda as the gravest threat to nuclear-armed Pakistan, a strategic U.S. ally.

But Pakistani law enforcement officials say Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has become a formidable force.

TENSIONS

Last month the group said it carried out a bombing in Quetta that killed nearly 100 people, one of Pakistan's worst sectarian attacks. Thousands of Shi'ites protested in several cities after that attack.

Pakistani intelligence officials say extremist groups, led by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, have escalated their bombings and shootings of Shi'ites to trigger violence that would pave the way for a Sunni theocracy in U.S.-allied Pakistan.

More than 400 Shi'ites were killed in Pakistan last year, many by hitmen or bombs, and the perpetrators are almost never caught. Some hardline Shi'ite groups have hit back by killing Sunni clerics.

The growing sectarian violence has hurt the credibility of the government, which has already faced criticism ahead of elections due in May for its inability to tackle corruption and economic stagnation.

The schism between Sunnis and Shi'ites developed after the Prophet Muhammad died in 632 when his followers could not agree on a successor.

Emotions over the issue are highly potent even today, pushing some countries, including Iraq five years ago, to the brink of civil war.

Pakistan is nowhere near that stage but officials worry that Sunni extremist groups have succeeded in dramatically ratcheting up tensions and provoking revenge attacks in their bid to destabilize the country.

(Reporting by Jibran Ahmed; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Stephen Powell)

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Aviation industry dons 'shark skins' to save fuel

FRANKFURT: In its never-ending quest to develop more aerodynamic, more fuel-efficient aircraft, the aviation industry believes the ocean's oldest predator, the shark, could hold the key to cutting energy consumption.

Germany's biggest airline Lufthansa announced earlier this month that two of its Airbus A340-300 jets would take part in trials starting this summer to test the properties of shark skin in flight.

For the two-year trials, eight 10 by 10 centimetre (4 by 4 inch) patches of a new type of coating are being painted on to the fuselage and wing edges of the aircraft.

A new state-of-the-art varnish, developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Technology and Advanced Materials (FAM) in Bremen, attempts to mimic the skins of fast-swimming sharks.

The skin of sharks is covered in tiny riblets that reduce turbulent vortices and the drag they cause, thereby diminishing surface resistance when moving at speed.

The phenomenon of the streamlined shark skin has been known for about 30 years and has fascinated research scientists in a wide range of fields, from military applications to aerospace and aeronautics and from naval construction to wind technology.

More recently, its use in sports such as swimming and athletics has brought the special properties of shark skin to much wider attention.

High-tech swimsuits were developed that enabled athletes to move ever faster through water, breaking one swimming record after the next until the suits were eventually banned as unfair in competition.

In the past, says Volkmar Stenzel, the project's head at the Fraunhofer Institute, sheets of plastic imitation shark skin were glued to the aircraft's exterior.

"But the foil had major disadvantages: it was rather heavy and the added weight cancelled out the amount of fuel that could be saved," Stenzel said.

"Also, it was difficult to stick the foil to curved surfaces without creasing and wrinkling," he said.

Another problem was that aircraft have to be stripped of their paint and recoated every five years "and that was just not possible with these foils," the expert explained.

Thus, in collaboration with European aircraft maker Airbus and the DLR German Aerospace Center, scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute have developed a new technique to emboss the structures of shark skin into aircraft paints.

The idea is to make surfaces more aerodynamic and reduce fuel consumption by about one percent and lower operating costs.

The trials on Lufthansa jets represent the last phase before possible industrial application, said Denis Darracq, head of research and flight physics technology at Airbus.

"The expected results have been achieved in terms of performance. It's now a matter of measuring operational efficiency and durability," Darracq said.

"An airline must not have to clean its aircraft after every flight. The paint needs to last for several years," he said.

The engineer estimated that if an aircraft was covered by between 40-70 percent in the new paint, it can cut fuel consumption by around one percent for very little outlay.

And with high fuel prices and customers becoming increasingly sensitive to the environmental impact of flying, that would represent an "enormous benefit" for an airline, Darracq argued.

Nature is also the inspiration for another state-of-the-art technology that is already being used by the industry and may have wider applications.

The leaf of the lotus plant has a unique microstructure consisting of tiny bumps topped with tiny hairs that make the leaf highly water repellent.

Special surface coatings have been developed to mimic this effect and they are already used in the interior of the A380 to make it easier to clean.

But Airbus is also looking into whether such coatings can be used on the exterior of aircraft as well.

"De-icing is a real problem for planes and represents a substantial cost factor. If there were surfaces where water cannot collect, they wouldn't freeze over and that would represent a big step forward," said Darracq.

Airlines' growing interest could therefore help accelerate research in surface technologies "and these may be ready for industrial application in a number of years," the engineer said.

- AFP/ir

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