World Vignettes — Robot’s successful brain surgery

BEIJING: Chinese scientists have developed the country's first robot capable of performing complicated brain surgery, a report here said. C...

BEIJING: Chinese scientists have developed the country’s first robot capable of performing complicated brain surgery, a report here said. Combining robotics, computer and sterotaxic neurosurgery technologies, the robot has been developed by the Robot Institute associated with Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the general hospital of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s navy wing.

The robot had passed the technical assessment by the Chinese departments concerned and was capable of precision surgical techniques. The robot can work in a shorter period and does not use general anaesthesia during the operation.

The PLA hospital here successfully carried out a brain operation using the newly-developed robot on May five to remove a tumour from the craniopharyngeal canal of a nine-year-old boy.

Oldest anteater

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LITTLE ROCK: Elmer, a 1.5 metre black-and-grey myrmecophaga tridactyla, has turned 25 years, becoming the worls oldest anteater in captivity and perhaps the oldest anywhere. “The life expectancy of an anteater is only about 25 years, and records indicate no other zoo anywhere in the world has one even close to Elmer’s age,” said David Westbrook, director of the Little Rock municipal zoo.

The Little Rock zoo, where Elmer has spent virtually his entire life, celebrated his quarter-century on Sunday with a day in his honour. Scores of children and adults surrounded the spacious walled garden that Elmer and six other anteaters call home, and zoo attendants led an impromptu chorus of a rousing rendition of “happy birthday.”

Anti-Islamic film

CAIRO: Egyptian state television has decided not to screen a controversial film by director Yussef Shahin, which no cinema has dared show for the past two years because of Islamic fundamentalist opposition. The film L’emigre (the emigrant) was to be shown on Sunday as part of a tribute to Shahin who won the 50th anniversary festival prize at the Cannes film festival a week earlier. But Egyptian television’s president Soheir el Etreiby decided not to broadcast the film after an Islamist lawyer presented a copy of a court ruling forbidding it to be shown, a television official said.

Vietnam veterans

WASHINGTON: Tens of thousands of motorcycle-riding Vietnam veterans roared through the Washington area yesterday to honour fallen comrades and press for answers on the fate of those still listed as missing. In what has become a memorial day weekend tradition, organisers said they expected as many as 1,50,000 people to join in the rally, called rolling thunder, after a Vietnam-era B-52 bombing campaign.

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The riders gathered at the Pentagon’s north parking Lotin suburban Arlington, before crossing memorial bridge over the Potomac to Washington.