The recruits, five males and two females, are pilots between 35 and 30 years old. The male recruits were previously fighter pilots, while the women were transport plane pilots.

They all have excellent skills with good psychological qualities and are qualified both in clinical and space medicine, officials of the General Armament Department of Chinese People's Liberation Army said Friday.

Their training will begin soon to help them accustom with the space programme.

China began to select astronauts in 1998. In 2003, China sent its first astronaut Yang Liwei into outer space in the Chinese-made spacecraft Shenzhou-5.

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the leader of the country's southern region of Kalymkia, has spoken about his having met aliens at a primetime television show.

He said he was taken on a spaceship sent to Earth and met extra-terrestrials wearing yellow spacesuits, The Sun reported Thursday.

Ilyumzhinov told Channel One April 26 that he had spent several hours in the company of aliens, who visited his apartment in Moscow Sep 18, 1997.

He said that he was about to fall asleep when someone called out to him from the balcony. He went out and said he saw the 'half-transparent half tube' spaceship. He went in and met human-like creatures, who gave him a tour of their spaceship.

'I am often asked which language I used to talk to them. Perhaps, it was on a level of the exchange of ideas,' he was quoted as saying.

He said aliens had come to Earth to take samples.

Russian MP Andre Lebedev has sought a probe into the claims and demanded formulation of guidelines on what politicians should do if they are kidnapped by aliens.

The milestone was reached Friday the same day the company released its 3G version of the much-hyped device, as sales of the tablet continued to build, Apple said Monday.

'One million iPads in 28 days-that's less than half of the 74 days it took to achieve this milestone with iPhone,' Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs said.

'Demand continues to exceed supply and we're working hard to get this magical product into the hands of even more customers,' he was cited as saying by PC magazine.

The iPad first went on sale on April 3. The company had celebrated the sale of the 500,000th iPad on April 14. In its first 28 days, iPad users have downloaded more than 12 million apps and 1.5 million e-books, Apple said.

The 5,000th iPad app was recently introduced in the iTunes App Store. Including those apps designed for the iPhone, that's a total of more than 200,000 apps that can run on the device.

The company on Friday began selling a 3G version of the device, and consumers had cleaned out many of the company's stores by Sunday.

Apple stores in San Francisco, New York, Boston and Houston told The Wall Street Journal they didn't have any iPad 3G models left by Sunday.

Apple last month said it would delay the international launch of the iPad because it has been unable to keep up with stronger-than-expected US demand.

It had planned to start selling the iPad overseas in late April but is moving the launch to the end of May.

Rather than harm mankind, he said, their (aliens') spaceships have provided us information for triggering today's microchip and IT revolution on our planet.

Hawking has recently warned humanity against contacting aliens. 'If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans,'' the British astrophysicist has said.

According to Hawking, if human beings tried to contact aliens, they could invade us and take away our most important resources. 'If they (aliens) wanted to use our solar system, for some super project, our complaints would be like an ant colony protesting the laying of a parking lot,'' Hawking has said in a new documentary.

Hawking has also said that though most extraterrestrial life could be only in the form of small animals, but there could also be 'nomads, looking to conquer and colonize'' other planets. Taking issue with Hawking Sunday, the former Canadian defence minister, who himself is an expert on the subject and has has been speaking about aliens for years, said aliens have already visited earth and contributed to our technological advancement.

Hellyer told the Canadian Press that 'the reality is that they (aliens) have been visiting earth for decades and probably millennia and have contributed considerably to our knowledge.'' He said our computer screens have their origins in alien spaceships. 'Microchips, for example, fiber-optics, they are just two of the many things that allegedly - and probably for real - came from crashed vehicles,'' the Canadian said.

Blaming Hawking for scaring mankind about aliens, he said, 'He (Hawking) is indulging in some pretty scary talk there that I would have hoped would not come from someone with such an established stature. 'I think it is really sad that a scientist of his repute would contribute to what I would consider more misinformation about a vast and very important subject.''

'The website, www.sirsyedtoday.org, has been designed by AMU alumnus Masarrat Ali, who has claimed it is the largest digitization work on any individual or institution in India,' AMU official spokesperson Rahat Abrar told reporters here.

'The website has more than 110,000 pages of historical documents related to Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, founder of AMU, and history of the varsity,' he added.

The website was launched at the central hall of Maulana Azad Library of AMU. Aligarh is about 300 km from Lucknow.

Ali, who has designed the website, joined AMU in 1971 and received a gold medal in M.Sc. (Biochemistry) in 1977.

He is the first Indian Muslim who was nominated as an official candidate of US President Barack Obama's Democratic Party to run for the House of Representatives elections in Texas, a statement issued by the varsity said.

According to Ali, the purpose of the website was to revive the Aligarh Movement. It is his humble tribute to the founder of his alma mater, the statement added.

One of the effects of oxytocin is that it triggers labour pains. It also strengthens the emotional bond between a mother and her new-born child. It is released on a large scale during orgasm too.

Fortyeight healthy males participated in the experiment. Half received an oxytocin nose spray at the start of the experiment, the other half a placebo.

The researchers then showed participants emotionally charged photos of a crying child, a girl hugging her cat, and a grieving man.

The subjects were then invited to express the depth of feeling they experienced for the people shown.

Rene Hurlemann of Bonn University in Germany said: 'Significantly higher emotional empathy levels were recorded for the oxytocin group than for the placebo group.'

The males under test achieved levels which would normally only be expected in women. Under normal circumstances, the 'weak' sex enjoys a clear advantage when it comes to the subject of 'empathy'.

In a second experiment, the participants had to use their computers to complete a simple observation test.

Correct answers produced an approving face on the screen, wrong ones a disapproving one. Alternatively, the feedback appeared as green (correct) or red (false) circles.

'In general, learning was better when the feedback was shown in the form of faces,' states Keith Kendrick of the Cambridge Babraham Institute in Britain.

'But, once again, the oxytocin group responded clearly better to the feedback in the form of facial expression than did the placebo group,' he added.

In this connection, amygdala seems to play an important role. This cerebral structure is involved in the emotional evaluation of situations.

Certain people suffer from an extremely rare hereditary disease which progressively affects the amygdala, says a Bonn University release.

'We were lucky to be able to include two female patients in our study group who were suffering this defect of the amygdala,' says Hurlemann.

'Both women reacted markedly worse to approving or disapproving faces in the observation test than did other women in a control group.'

Steve Squyres, a scientist at Cornell University who has been a key researcher on the Mars rover project, said an ongoing once-a-decade review of solar system science to recommend projects to NASA has developed a long-list of potential projects focussed on the search for life in space.

'Astrobiology is really central to what we should be doing next in exploration,' he told reporters.

Possible missions include a Mars trace gas orbiter to study methane in the Martian atmosphere, which could be a byproduct of life; a three-step mission to bring rock and dirt samples from Mars back to Earth; an orbiter with radar to look for signs of a possible liquid ocean under the ice of Jupiter's Europa moon; and an orbiter to visit Saturn's Titan moon.

The review of possible projects should be completed later this year after scientists narrow down their wish list of possible expeditions.

The company also unveiled the new BlackBerry Pearl 3G, its smallest smartphone yet.

'The new BlackBerry Bold 9650 is an extraordinary smartphone that we think customers will love,'' said RIM president and co-CEO Mike Lazaridis. 'Whether at work or at play, the new BlackBerry Bold 9650 offers a truly impressive communications, multimedia and connectivity experience,'' he said at the launch of the latest smartphones.

About the new BlackBerry Pearl 3G, he said, 'The BlackBerry Pearl 3G is unlike any other smartphone in the world and we expect a broad range of new and existing customers will be drawn to its powerful features and compact design.''

Beside a keyboard, optical trackpad and built-in Wi-Fi, the new smartphone also allows users to talk on the phone while browsing the web or sending and receiving email.

Loaded with 512 MB Flash memory and an expandable memory card slot that supports up to 32 GB microSDHC cards, the BlackBerry Bold 9650 smartphone supports 3G networks.

Built in stylish design with glossy black finish and chrome highlights, the new device features large high-resolution display which allows pictures, videos and web pages with great contrast and detail, the RIM statement said.

Apart from a 3.2 megapixel camera with flash, zoom, image stabilization, autofocus and video recording, the new BlackBerry Bold also features advanced media player for videos, pictures and music, a 3.5 mm stereo headset jack and support for Bluetooth.

The new BlackBerry Pearl 3G measures less than two inches wide and weighs only 93g. It also features an optical trackpad for smooth navigation, a 3.2 MP camera with flash for quality pictures, and support for up to 32 GB of personal content.

Both the new devices will support mobile applications built by third parties for RIM and carry built-in GPS with support for geo-tagging, BlackBerry Maps and other mapping applications.

'The BlackBerry Bold 9650 fuses form and function in a striking design and, in addition to providing premium phone and multimedia features, it of course delivers the industry's leading mobile solution for email, messaging (IM, SMS, MMS) and social networking,'' the company said in its statement.

(IANS Business can be contacted at biz@ians.in)

The construction of the plant started Sunday in Changjiang County of Hainan province with an estimated investment of 19 billion Yuan ($2.78 billion), Xinhua news agency reported.

The new plant will consist of two water reactors, with a capacity of 650,000 kw each. The first reactor will be completed and connected to the grid by the end of 2014, the provincial government said.

China's nuclear power giants, China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) and China Huaneng Group (CHG), will jointly finance and develop the project, Xinhua said.

Hainan needs more energy to sustain and boost its rapid development as an international tourist destination. The safe and clean nuclear power was chosen to avoid affecting the island's ecology, said provincial governor Luo Baoming.

The province has little coal resource, while 66 percent of its hydropower resource has been utilised, leaving little potential for future development, Luo added.

As far back as the 1880s scientists have known that increased snow over the Himalayas can be linked with weaker summer monsoon rains over India. However, the mechanisms explaining this link were never properly understood.

New research shows that greater snowfall reflects more sunlight and produces a cooling over the Himalayas.

This means a weakening of the monsoon winds that bring rain to India. The relationship is strongest in the absence of warm (El Nino) or cold (La Nina) conditions in the tropical Pacific, because these are normally the dominant control over Indian rains.

Andy Turner, lead study author, from the Walker Institute at the University of Reading says: 'Our work shows how, in the absence of a strong influence from the tropical Pacific, snow conditions over the Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau could be used to help forecast seasonal monsoon rainfall for India, particularly over northern India during the onset month of June.

'The onset timing of the monsoon is very important for agriculture; a lack of rainfall early in the growing season can have a devastating impact on crops,' Turner said.

Previous studies have also found links between snowfall over a much larger area of northern Eurasia but this study suggests that the Himalayan region has a stronger influence on Indian rainfall.

The monsoon rains over India and the rest of South and East Asia are relied on by more than a third of the world's population, says a University of Reading release.

This study shows in detail the mechanisms linking heavy snowfall over the Himalayas and Tibet in winter and spring with summer monsoon drought, particularly in the early part of the season (June).

These findings were published in Climate Dynamics.