ZAP INFO

By Pelin Turgut / Istanbul Sunday, Apr. 05, 2009 American presidents have visited Turkey before but never this soon into their presidency. That's just one reason why Barack Obama's arrival this Sunday evening has all of Turkey aflutter. Turks see Obama's visit as proof of his commitment to building bridges with the Muslim world, as well as a reflection of the new administration's desire to have Turkey — with a Muslim majority but officially secular, democratic and a candidate for E.U. entry — play a much bigger role in the wider region. Before his election Obama promised to visit a Muslim country within his first few months as president — and he has chosen one that had fraught relations with his predecessor in the White House. In 2003, Ankara broke with its traditional ally by refusing U.S. troops passage through Turkish territory to neighboring Iraq, an act of defiance from which ties never fully recovered. Public support for the U.S. in Turkey fell to historic lows a...

Thu Feb 19, 3:58 pm ET WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US space agency's Fermi telescope has detected a massive explosion in space which scientists say is the biggest gamma-ray burst ever detected, a report published Thursday in Science Express said. The spectacular blast, which occurred in September in the Carina constellation, produced energies ranging from 3,000 to more than five billion times that of visible light, astrophysicists said. "Visible light has an energy range of between two and three electron volts and these were in the millions to billions of electron volts," astrophysicist Frank Reddy of US space agency NASA told AFP. "If you think about it in terms of energy, X-rays are more energetic because they penetrate matter. These things don't stop for anything -- they just bore through and that's why we can see them from enormous distances," Reddy said. A team led by Jochen Greiner of Germany's Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics deter...

By RONI CARYN RABIN Published: January 8, 2009 More than one third of mothers who chose to undergo a repeat Caesarean section had their babies earlier than medical guidelines recommend, and the earlier the babies were born, the more likely they were to experience a medical complication like respiratory distress, a large study has found. Although babies born by Caesarean section after just 37 weeks of pregnancy are considered full-term, the study found they were twice as likely to suffer complications as those born by Caesarean after 39 weeks. Infants born by Caesarean at 38 weeks were 50 percent more likely to have a medical problem than those born at 39 weeks. The complications included respiratory distress, infections, hypoglycemia, being admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit, or being hospitalized for five or more days. The study, funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, was published on Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine. It is bei...

By ReutersJanuary 8, 2009 12:25 PM PST LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A small, private memorial service was held on Thursday for John Travolta's son Jett as the actor called the outpouring of love around the world "a beautiful reminder of the inherent goodness in the human spirit." The service in Florida, where Travolta and his actress wife Kelly Preston have their main home, took place six days after Jett, 16, died of a seizure while on vacation in the Bahamas. Jett had a history of seizures, according to the family. Travolta and Preston have said only that Jett suffered from the little-known Kawasaki syndrome when he was a toddler. But friends said he had developmental disabilities that meant he was not heard speaking. "I observed that (Jett) was significantly mentally handicapped," actress Anne Archer, a friend of Travolta was quoted as telling People magazine in its Friday edition. "But it was very apparent with the two of them that they treated him as if he w...

By 'Duk Wed Jan 07, 2009 5:50 pm EST The strange story goes like this: Last summer, Bernice Gallego pulled an old baseball card from a box of antiques. She figured it might be worth something to someone, so she listed it on eBay. The starting bid was $10. But after getting a flurry of inquiries about whether the card was authentic or not, Gallego started to suspect she was holding something a little more valuable and immediately ended the auction. Turns out her hunch was correct. She did have something more valuable. The card she found was made in 1869 and featured the "Red Stocking B.B. Club of Cincinnati," the sport's first professional team. It's considered one of the first baseball cards ever produced and its actual value could be worth more than $100,000 when she puts it back on eBay (with a higher starting price, of course). Of course, the news that she had found a rare piece of early baseball history came as a shock to the 72-year-old Fresno, Calif., resid...

Tuesday, December 30, 2008 Provided by: Bankrate.com For most people, wealth does not come in a windfall but instead gathers gradually as a result of years of hard work and diligence. Bankrate readers offer their tips for growing wealth. You'll find no winning lottery numbers or surefire stock recommendations among them, but all are sensible suggestions for savings. 1. Grow Your Own Food I have a plot in our local community garden that I share with two of my friends. It is a fun, inexpensive hobby for us -- plus it keeps us active and teaches our children important life skills. We keep our 20- by 30-foot parcel planted year-round, and it provides our three families with fresh, organic produce. 2. Set Limits and Stick to Them I try to save at least three to four part-time paychecks so that I can elect to make a hefty payment on a credit card account and buy myself a little something I waited to get. Also, I have inventoried my home and gathered up all half-full or almost empty bottl...

Posted on Mon Jan 5, 2009 3:11AM EST SEOUL (AFP) - South Korea's Samsung Electronics on Monday unveiled what it says is the world's slimmest LCD (liquid crystal display) TV. The new product, measuring only 6.5 millimetres (0.26 inch) thick, is thinner than any other existing TV set, and even slimmer than most mobile handsets, Samsung said in a statement. Its thickness is one seventh of Samsung's "Bordeaux 850" LCD TVs, which is currently the thinnest on the market, the company said. The new product, which adopts an LED (light emitting diode) backlighting system, will be on display at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas from January 8 to 11, Samsung added.