08_05_2015_017_f65bf3cbf16138e80b8c52831cbc5688-1

THE TIMES OF INDIA, NEW DELHI FRIDAY, MAY 8, 2015 17TIMES TRENDS

THE CURATOR

Another restoration fails

WONDER REDUX: A new version of the lighthouse

The lighthouse of Alexandria, also called the Pha-ros of Alexandria, was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It was one of the tallest man-made structures in the world for many centuries. Badly damaged by three earthquakes between 956 and 1323, it then became an abandoned ruin. It was the third-longest surviving ancient wonder. Now, Egyptian authorities want to rebuild it. The plan is to rebuild the lighthouse a few metres away from where it once stood in the coastal city of Alexan-dria, as the original location is now occupied by the Qaitbay Citadel, the Cairo Post reports. Egypts per-manent committee on antiquities has approved the proposal and now its just down to the Alexandrias regional government to sign off on it, Mostafa Amin, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities told the Youm7 website.

FOR MORE: THECAIROPOST.COM

You remember Cecilia Giminez, the 80-year-old woman who made headlines across the world after attempting a DIY restoration that left the 19th century fresco of Christ at her local church in Borja resembling a monkey. It looks like she isnt alone. Turkeys culture ministry is investigating reports that a number of valuable Roman mosaics were badly damaged during botched restoration work at an ar-chaeological museum, according to Turkish media.Authorities are looking into the claims of a local craftsman who raised concerns over the condition of at least 10 mosaics at the Hatay Archaeology Muse-um. Before and after photos of the mosaics present-ed by Mehmet Daskapan show the restored ver-sions looking very different from the originals.

FOR MORE: BBC.COM

Its getting harder and harder to get your kids do their chores these days, and parents have to try every trick in the book and some not written down to get their kids to work. Take Joey and Chad Mudd from Florida, the parents of teen daughters. The Mudds were arrested on Monday after they al-legedly admitted to police they regularly used drugs in their parenting of their two teenage daughters, aged 13 and 15, as a bribe to get them to do house-hold chores and excel in school. Its hard to imag-ine the girls excelling in school while high on coke.

FOR MORE: GAWKER.COM

To the Pharos

Parenting with cocaine

Corbis

Doug Bolton

Denmark has moved one stepcloser to becoming theworlds first cashless socie-ty, as the government proposesscrapping the obligation for retail-ers to accept cash as payment.

The Danish government hassaid that as of next year, businesssuch as clothing retailers, restau-rants and petrol stations should nolonger be legally bound to acceptcash payments. The proposal ispart of a package of economicgrowth measures, which are beingreleased ahead of this years Dan-ish election. It aims to reduce costsand increase productivity for Dan-ish businesses.

Finansrdet, a Danish financeindustry lobbying group, says thechange would free retailers from

the last decade.However, Danske Bank has tak-

en steps to fight fraud, by linking in-dividuals MobilePay accounts totheir national insurance numbers.The change would need to be ap-proved in a vote at the Folketing,the Danish parliament, but the tim-ing of the vote has not yet been set.

However, in a country wherecashless payments are so common,it looks unlikely that the proposalwill face much opposition. The Nor-dic countries of Denmark, Sweden,Norway, Finland and Iceland leadthe world in cashless payments cash payments for even the small-est items, such as a packet of chew-ing gum, are commonplace. In 2013,a Swedish bank robber left empty-handed, after he found out that theStockholm bank he held up did notcarry any cash. THE INDEPENDENT

a sensor at the till, allowing you toconfirm payments with a swipe onyour smartphones screen.

Similar technologies like Paymare available in the UK, which al-lows users to transfer money to oth-ers by entering their mobile num-ber. Google Wallet turns yourphone into a contactless card, al-lowing you to tap your deviceagainst readers to transfer money -however, it is currently only availa-ble in the USA. But both of thesetechnologies are still yet to see thelevel of adoption that MobilePayhas in Denmark.

There are fears that moving tototally cashless payments could in-crease the risk of fraud in Swe-den, a nation with one of the high-est numbers of bank transactionsper person in the European Union,cases of card fraud have doubled in

the cost of security, and the burdenof managing change and notes.

Although it seems like a drasticstep, the Danes are already movingaway from paper and metal money.Almost a third of the population us-es an official Danske Bank appcalled MobilePay it links yourmobile to other users phones or to

Denmark set to turn cash-free Govt To Give Shops, Restaurants Right To Refuse Payment In Notes & Coins

DIGITAL WORLD

Barry Austin/Moodboard/Corbis

Washington: Deep beneaththe Atlantic Ocean betweenGreenland and Norway, scien-tists have found microorgan-isms they call a missing linkconnecting the simple cellsthat first populated Earth to thecomplex cellular life thatemerged 2 billion years ago.

The researchers said onWednesday a group of microor-ganisms called Lokiarchaeota,or Loki for short, were re-trieved from the inhospitable,frigid seabed about 2.35 km un-der the ocean surface. The dis-covery provides insight intohow larger, complex cell typesthat are the building blocks forfungi, plants and animals in-cluding people, a group calledeukaryotes, evolved from sm-all, simple microbes, they said.

The Lokiarchaeota haverelatively simple cells lackinginternal structures such as anucleus. But the researchersfound the Lokiarchaeota sharewith eukaryotes a significantnumber of genes. These geneswould have provided Lokiar-chaeota with a starter-kit tosupport the development ofcellular complexity, said evo-lutionary microbiologist Lion-el Guy of Sweden's UppsalaUniversity. REUTERS

Missing linkof cellular life found

The 10 biggest earth-quakes recorded since1900 have taken morethan 1.5 million lives notcounting the toll from the 7.8magnitude temblor in Nepal,which has killed over 8,000and counting. Theres somehope that the big quakes of thefuture could be less lethal because well see them com-ing. Or at least, the rats will.

A research team workingfrom three continents recent-ly pored over data from a ma-jor earthquake in Peru andconcluded that wild animals especially rodents knowwhen the ground is about tobuckle. Days before the 7-mag-nitude Contamana earth-quake that struck a remoteAndean village in 2011, mo-tion-triggered cameras re-

vealed that most wildlife inthe Yanachaga-Chemillen na-tional park had already fledthe area, returning only afterthe quake had run its course.

Investigators caution thatany conclusions are still ten-tative, but the initial findingsare intriguing. By trackingwildlife, the researchers saythey might be able develop adata-based early warning sys-tem that could help govern-ments and first responders toevacuate danger areas.

Prior to the quake, rocksbegan to shift underground,generating electrical chargesthat reached surface waterand released positive ions intothe lower atmosphere. It wasthis ionized air that apparent-ly made animals disorientedand hyperactive. BLOOMBERG

Rodents may predictthe next big quake

London: In a bizarre offer, ahotel in Tokyo has launchedspecial crying rooms forwomen that are equipped witha selection of tear-jerking mo-vies, eye masks and luxury tis-sues to allow female guests tocry heartily. The Mitsui Gar-den Yotsuya hotel said it is pro-viding the rooms to help wom-en de-stress and overcomeemotional problems, and thatit hopes the rooms would allowwomen to cry heartily and inprivate. At $83 a night, therooms are equipped with a se-lection of tear-jerking aides,metro.co.uk reported.

These include movies suchas Forest Gump, the SouthKorean film A Moment to Re-member, where a young cou-ple faces the debilitating ef-fects of Alzheimers and ATale Of Mari And Three Pup-pies (a Japanese film about thetrue story of a dog and her pup-pies who survived the 2004Chuetsu earthquake). Therooms also have sad mangacomics for those who wouldprefer to read and shed tears.The rooms also contain tissueswhich are described as soft ascashmere, eye masks andmakeup remover to help fe-male guests cry in comfort. PTI

Now, a Japanese hotel offerscrying rooms for women

WEIRD WORLD

LOVE HOTELS | Short-stay hotels designed for amorous couples in search of seclusion. Japan has 30,000 of them, with around 1.4m couples said to visit one each day

CUDDLE CAFE | This cafe allows male customers to sleep next to a girl for a fee. Sexual requests are not allowed

MAIDDREAMIN | Visitors are given smiley face cupcakes and teddy-shaped ice

cream sundaes by girls in maid outts

CAPSULE HOTEL | It

features a set of small capsules designed for basic overnight accommodation for those on a budget

USAGI | It is a multi-oor bunny cafe where visitors can stroke and cuddle rabbits

OWL CAFES | Baby birds sit on perches while larger ones on guests arms

ROBOT RESTAURANT| Tokyos red light district provides a unique laser show with dancing robots, who are actually humans in costume

LOCK UP | A dungeon-themed cafe in Tokyo featurs tables in cells, cabinets of skulls and cocktails decorated with entrails served in test tubes

MR KANSO | A bar where only canned food is served. Guests are

given plastic cutlery to eat directly from their tins

Some unusual hotels and cafes in Japan

People who dont have space

in their homes to keep a pet can play with furry animals for a small

fee

CAT CAFES |

PICS: CORBIS

HAWK EYEAFP

ELECTRIC MONITOR: A man drives the Iris viseo, the first electric surveillance vehicle with a telescopic cockpit, in Noyelles-Godault,France, on Wednesday. The drivers cabin can go as high as 9.8 feetwhile the car is still being driven. It was recently used for surveillanceat a carnival near Paris. The single-seater is powered by an electricbrushless 95kW engine, while electricity comes from a 48V battery.The body of the Iris viseo is made of polyester fibre and 95% of thecar is recyclable. But the vehicle is not fast, 25kmph is its top speed