Spice Girls voted the worst band

LONDON: Readers of the British pop newspaper Melody Maker have voted top pop groups Oasis and the Spice Girls as the worst bands of 1997. Ginger Spice, whose real name is Geri Halliwell, was also branded least sexy female while Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher was voted least sexy man and fool of the year. The poll by Melody Maker suggested that Radiohead and The Verve were set to take over the top spots in the battle of the bands. Readers of the music weekly voted Radiohead as best band. The Spice Girls were named as the worst, with Oasis in second place. Melody Maker editor Mark Sutherland said: “Our readers have a well deserved reputation for being ahead of the pack so, on reading these results, I’m sure Radiohead and The Verve will be popping the champagne corks while Oasis and the Spice Girls will be trembling in their boots.”

Prawn genes

SYDNEY: Australian scientists have announced that they have developed the world’s first gene map for prawns, as the first step towards developing bigger, faster-growing crustaceans. The team from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization CSIRO said on Tuesday that the genetic linkage map was the first for any crustacean species and will be used to identify traits of flesh quality, disease resistance and growth rate. Using the map as a guide, large increases in the rate of genetic improvement of farmed prawns are possible, a statement from the CSIRO said.

Scribes released

MOSCOW: Seven Chechen journalists who had been held hostage for nine days were released on Wednesday in the Russian Republic of Daghestan in the northern Caucasus, the Moscow news agency Itar-Tass reported. The reporters, some of whom were under contract to foreign news organisations, were seized while covering clashes between rebels and Russian forces in the Daghestan town of Buynaksk.

Frozen embryos

SYDNEY: Hundreds of frozen embryos will be destroyed on Thursday under new laws in the Australian state of Victoria, while hundreds more have a three-month reprieve as doctors search for donor couples. Under Victoria’s new in-vitro fertilisation IVF laws which will come into effect from Thursday, any IVF embryo unused for five years must be defrosted and destroyed. But the infertility treatment authority, the state’s regulatory body, has given couples three months to seek an exemption from the new IVF law.

Bird islands

LHASA: Seventeen secluded islands in Tibet autonomous region have turned into virtually heaven’ for birds, harbouring thousands of birds including several rare species. A six-year survey conducted by Chinese experts has revealed that Tibet has more bird islands than previously imagined and most of the 17 bird islands, each with an area of one hectare, are scattered far and wide on the lakes at 4,200-5,000 metres high above sea level, Liu Wulin, a wild-animal expert said on Wednesday.

Thousands of birds dwell on the islands, including rare species such as brown-headed sea gulls, Liu said adding there was an average of one or two rare birds, or ten sea gulls for every square metre of the island.