MELBOURNE, Mar 14: While they live up to their image of aggressive creatures, more often than not Crayfish use bluff to make their opponents back off from a fight, pretending they are stronger than they really.

According to a report in the ABC, Crayfish would lose a fight if they were called on their bluff.

“Most male crayfish are extremely aggressive and can fight over just about everything including females, food and shelter,” said Queensland University researcher Robbie Wilson.

Their principal weapons are their two front claws, which are capable of grabbing and throwing the opponent around, ripping off a claw or even killing. It’s amazing to witness a fight. It can go on for as long as an hour,” Wilson said.

He said but most crayfish disagreements are sensibly settled before it reaches this stage, by crayfish sizing each other up.

For example, in one ritual, a crayfish will lay down his claws while his opponent taps and rubs them.

After this, one crayfish usually backs off in the belief that they are no match for their opponent’s apparent strength.

But, Wilson and his co-author of Arizona State University have found that crayfish can bluff their opponents.

They studied the interaction of about 70 crayfish and tested the actual strength of their claws by measuring the force with which they pinched two pieces of metal together.

The researchers found that the size of a crayfish’s claws does not reflect its actual strength. Some crayfish in their study displayed large claws but had very little muscle power.

“We call this dishonesty. They were displaying to others that they were strong, high-quality males, but in actual fact they were cheating. They were actually weaker than what they were actually displaying,” Wilson said.

“Unlike soft-skinned humans whose muscles are on display for everyone to see, crustaceans’ hard shell, or exoskeleton, is particularly good at hiding how strong they are. It’s like putting a shell around a human arm and you have no idea how strong the person is until they start punching you,” he says.

Given that 80 per cent of disagreements are settled at the sizing-up stage, this leaves a lot of room for deception.

As well as some large claws actually having very little strength due to a lack of muscle, some small claws can be stronger than larger ones.

To add to this complexity, the two front claws on a crayfish can differ in size and the larger claw may be stronger, weaker or the same strength as the smaller claw.

“It’s very difficult for an opponent to actually know the animal’s overall strength but also which is going to be the stronger claw. But the fact that it’s also costly if you get your bluff called limits the evolution of deception. If you do get figured out, you get severely punished,” he says. (PTI)

LONDON, Mar 14: More than two years after splitting with old flame Chelsy Davy, Britain’s Prince Harry has claimed that he’s struggling to find a new girlfriend as he belongs to the royal family.

At the end of his 10-day Caribbean tour to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee this year, the third-in-line to the British throne was asked if being a royal comes in the way of having a love life.

He replied: “Not at all. As any girl would ever tell you, it’s sort of, ‘Oh my God, he’s a prince’. I mean, look at me, I’m 27, and not so much searching for someone to fulfil the role, but trying to find someone willing to take it on.”

Prince Harry has also claimed how sometimes he and his brother, Prince William, just wish they were “normal”, ‘The Sun’ reported.

He said: “Me and my brother are very privileged in the position that we are, but with great privilege comes great responsibility. There’s a lot of times when both myself and my brother wish we were just completely normal.” (PTI)

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 13: Three Pakistani police personnel, serving in one of the United Nations’ peackeeping missions in Haiti, have been found guilty in a sexual exploitation case and will be imprisoned on their return to Pakistan.

According to the UN Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), a military justice procedure was conducted by Pakistani authorities in Port-au-Prince against three members of the Pakistani Formed Police Unit.

“The three individuals were found guilty of sexual exploitation and abuse through a court martial proceeding undertaken in accordance with the national laws of Pakistan,” UN spokesman Martin Nesirky told reporters here during his daily briefing.

The police personnel were based in Gonaives and a senior Pakistani official had visited Haiti on March 8 and 9 to meet with Haitian authorities regarding the case.

Nesirky said according to the Pakistani authorities, the three would be punished, including through “dishonourable discharge from service with loss of benefits”.

They will also serve a jail term immediately after they return to Pakistan.

“The guilty parties have been repatriated and the United Nations is further liaising with the Pakistani authorities to examine the formal details of the procedures and to ensure appropriate follow-up,” Nesirky added.

He said he would not comment on how long the prison sentence would be and on other details of the punishment since that is a matter between Pakistan and Haiti.

Nesirky added that the UN considers this to be a “case of the most serious sexual exploitation and abuse”. (PTI)

MELBOURNE, Mar 14: Women who had a Caesarean section for their first child births are likely to face more health risks if they go for a vaginal birth of their second baby, a new research by Australian experts have claimed.

According to a report in ‘The Australian’, a study which included over 2,300 women at 14 hospitals in Australia who were preparing for their second child, was published in open access journal PloS One.

The report said that about half signed up for a vaginal birth after C-section, or VBAC, and the other half chose to repeat the surgery.

Women who planned a repeat C-section had a significantly lower rate of complications than women who chose to deliver vaginally the second time — 2.4 per cent risk of death or serious complication compared to 0.9 per cent in the surgery group, it noted.

Similarly, the risk of complications to the mother, such as major bleeding or haemorrhage, was 2.3 per cent for women who delivered vaginally compared to 0.8 per cent for a planned repeat C-section.

“Until now there has been a lack of high-quality evidence comparing the benefits and harms of the two planned modes of birth after previous Caesarean,” lead author Caroline Crowther from the Australian Research Centre for the Health of Women and Babies, part of the University of Adelaide, was quoted as saying by the report.

“The information from this study will help women, clinicians and policy makers to develop health advice and make decisions about care for women who have had a previous Caesarean”. (PTI)

WASHINGTON, Mar 14: The US is looking forward to work with the new head of Inter-Services Intelligence of Pakistan, Pentagon said, noting the US-Pak relationship is critical for the region and Afghanistan.

“We look forward to working with the new chief,” the Pentagon spokesman, Navy Captain John Kirby, said yesterday, when asked about announcement of the new ISI Chief.

On March 18, Lieutenant Gen Zaheer ul-Islam would replace Lieutenant Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha as the new ISI chief.

Under Pasha, Americas relationship with Pak’s top spy agency had hit a new low.

“We look forward to having a good partnership with Pakistan moving forward. That’s what our focus is on. We believe it is critical for the region and for the mission in Afghanistan,” Kirby said.

However, he said that the US has nothing to say on the appointment and the decision.

“This is the decision that the civilian leadership of the nation of Pakistan get to make. It is not for us to make the comment one way or the other their appointments to high office,” said the Pentagon spokesman. (PTI)

AMMAN, Mar 14: Heavily armed forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad fought today with rebels controlling a main district of the southern city of Deraa on the border with Jordan, opposition activists said.

Around 20 tanks and armoured vehicles surrounded the al-Balad area of city, which is right on the border, and fired anti-aircraft guns into buildings, activist Rami Abdelhaq told Reuters by phone from Deraa, where the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began a year ago.

(agencies)

BEIJING, Mar 14: Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao today branded the Tibetan government in exile in India as a “theocratic” establishment, and accused it of trying force the secession of Tibetan-inhabited areas from China.

The Premier also decried the recent suicides by monks and nuns in Tibetan-dominated areas, seeking the return of spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, as “radical” moves.

Answering questions for the first time on the situation in Tibet and the four neighbouring provinces, following over 25 self-immolation attempts, Wen said at his annual press conference today that China is opposed to such radical measures.

“The so-called Tibetan government in exile in Dharmashala in India is by nature a theocratic one, both under the direct control of the Dalai Lama or under his indirect influence,” he said in his last annual press conference before his expected retirement later this year.

“The purpose of it is to separate Tibet and the Tibetan inhabited areas, the four provinces from China. We have a firm position and principle on this matter,” he said.

“At the same time I should point out that all should recognise that Tibet and Tibetan inhabited areas of four provinces are inseparable part of China’s territory,” he said.

Referring to the recent spate of suicides and attempted self immolations, he said such behaviour was distressing.

“We are opposed to taking such radical moves which disturb and undermine social harmony. The young Tibetans are innocent. We are deeply distressed by their behaviour,” he said.

Chinese officials have blamed the Dalai Lama for instigating the suicides though Wen did not directly blame the Tibetan spiritual leader.

At the same time, Wen admitted that development in Tibetan areas had lagged behind compared to mainland China. (PTI)

BASTION AIRFIELD, AFGHANISTAN, Mar 14: US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta arrived in Afghanistan on an unannounced visit today, as the United States tries to contain fallout from a massacre of 16 Afghan civilians by an American soldier.

Panetta’s two-day trip had been scheduled before Sunday’s shootings, but it takes on new meaning as political pressure mounts on Afghan and US officials over the unpopular war, now dragging into its eleventh year.

Panetta was scheduled to hold talks with Afghan leaders including President Hamid Karzai, as well as provincial officials in southern Helmand province during the visit.

He was also due to speak with American troops in Afghanistan, who could become the targets of any backlash over the killings of villagers, including nine children, by a rogue American soldier. The Afghan Taliban threatened to retaliate by beheading American troops.

Panetta’s arrival at Bastion Airfield in southern Helmand province came just a day after the first protests over Sunday’s massacre flared in the eastern city of Jalalabad.

Some 2,000 demonstrators chanted ‘Death to America’ and demanded Karzai reject a planned strategic pact that would allow US advisers and possibly special forces to remain in Afghanistan beyond 2014.

Panetta, the most senior US official to visit Afghanistan since the shootings, told reporters at the start of his trip that he believed the US strategy was working and would withstand fallout from the massacre.

‘I think we’re on the right path now. And what we’ve got to do is convince people that despite these kinds of events we ought not to allow these events to undermine that strategy,’ Panetta said on Monday. (agencies)

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