Italian police seize Maradona’s diamond studs

Rome, Sep 19 (ANI): Beleaguered football legend Diego Maradona had to hand over his diamond studs to police as part payment for the millions he owes the Italian tax authorities.

Italian officials paid the holidaying Argentinean coach a visit at the luxury hotel he was staying in and seized the earrings worth nearly 4,000 pounds, Sky News reports.

Police claimed that Maradona still owes some 20 million pounds, dating back to his seven-year stint at the Italian club Napoli, where he frequently failed to pay income tax.

After fleeing Buenos Aires on Monday following Argentina’s four defeats in five matches of 2010 World Cup qualifier, Maradona, 48, is currently staying at a spa in the town of Merano in north-eastern Italy, where he is trying to lose weight.

Italian authorities had seized two of his Rolex watches worth 11,000 pounds in 2006, when he was staying near Naples.

In 2005, they seized the money he was to receive for taking part in a TV dancing show.

Four years earlier, he was met by 20 police officers as he got off a plane in Rome.

Italy’s Supreme Court ordered the ex-footballer to pay 36 million euros in unpaid taxes.

According to the association of Italian taxpayers, Maradona still has 22.4 million euros to pay.

Recently, Brazilian legend Pele took a blow at Maradona, saying he feels another Argentine-born player, Alfredo di Stefano, is the best player ever.

“Maradona was a great player, but he could not kick with his right foot and did not score goals with his head.

The only time he scored an important goal with his head, it turned out he had used his hand,” Pele said referring to Maradona’s ‘Hand of God’ goal against England in 1986 World Cup. (ANI)

Emma Watson used gap year to design teen summer wear for People Tree

London, Sep 18 (ANI): Harry Potter star Emma Watson has revealed that she spent her gap year designing a ‘complete teenage summer wardrobe’ for the fair trade fashion brand People Tree.

Watson, 19, who has just enrolled at Brown University in the US, acted as a creative advisor for the ethical fashion collection, which will reach shops in February.

“I wanted to help People Tree produce a younger range because I was excited by the idea of using fashion as a tool to help alleviate poverty and knew it was something I could help make a difference with,” Sky News quoted her as saying.

“I think young people like me are becoming increasingly aware of the humanitarian and environmental issues surrounding fast fashion and want to make good choices but there aren’t many options out there.

“It has been the most incredible gap year project,” she added.

Among items that the teen actress has had a hand in designing were knitwear, cotton t-shirts, jersey dresses, and poplin shorts.

Her range also includes some more bizarre items, including “bohemian hand embroidered bed throws, recycled sweetie wrapper jewellery, banana fibre slouchy beanies and head scarves.”

They will be sold by People Tree, a company which aims at supporting developing countries and promoting environmental projects. (ANI)

Adebayor lifts lid on his abusive treatment by Arsenal

London, Sep 18 (ANI): Emmanuel Adebayor has criticized Arsenal after getting a three-match ban for his stamp on striker Robin van Persie.

“There is only so much abuse a man can take until he reaches breaking point,” Adebayor said.

Adebayor lifted the lid on his treatment by the Gunners and their fans that led to his outrageous behaviour in Saturday’s 4-2 win, and insisted: “Arsenal players refused to shake his hand before the game.”

He suffered 60 minutes of non-stop abuse from away fans before he turned the tables on them with his goal, The Sun reports.

Arsene Wenger completed his 25 million pounds summer move from Arsenal behind his back.

Adebayor, banned for Sunday’s Manchester derby, said: “I could not understand some of the Arsenal players being disrespectful towards me.”

“I was being abused by people who six months ago were singing my name. The abuse was for no reason. It wasn’t my fault I left, it was Arsene who wanted to accept the offer for me,” he added. (ANI)

Putin hands over 5500 dollar Swiss watch to cheeky Russian factory worker

Moscow, Sep.16 (ANI): Russian Prime Minister Vladmir Putin handed over a 5000 dollar Swiss watch to a weapons manufacturing factory worker in Tula.

According to The Telegraph, the metalworker put Putin in a spot after he gave a speech on the economy in the town of Tula.

“Vladimir Vladimirovich, maybe you’ll give me something to remember you by?” Viktor Zagaevsky asked.

A bemused-looking Putin gestured he had nothing to give before jokingly asking what the worker wanted. “Maybe your watch,” the worker shot back.

After a short pause, Putin handed the watch over, leaving those present stunned.

The watch, made by Swiss company Blancpain, sells for around 5,500 pounds, what an average Russian earns in a year.

Putin’s love of chunky Swiss watches matches his macho action man image that goes down so well with Russian voters. He famously wears his watch on his right hand, a quirk that prominent members of his United Russia party have mimicked to show their loyalty.

The most expensive watch Putin has been spotted wearing is a model by Swiss firm Patek Philippe that sells for about 35,000 pounds.

Last month, he “spontaneously” took a watch from his wrist and gave it to an impoverished shepherd’s son in Siberia in a choreographed Kremlin propaganda exercise. (ANI)

Shoe throwing Iraqi journalist’s release from jail postponed by a day

Baghdad, Sep. 14 (ANI): Iraq has postponed the release of the journalist who threw his shoe at former US President George W Bush in Baghdad last year.raqi television journalist Muntazer al-Zaidi will be released from prison a day later than expected, his brother said.

“He called me from the prison and said ‘they won’t release me today, they will free me tomorrow’,” The Telegraph quoted Durgham al-Zaidi, as saying in tears.

Zaidi, 30, was initially sentenced to three years for assaulting a foreign head of state but had his jail time reduced to one year on appeal. He is being freed early because of good behaviour.

Zaidi shouted “it is the farewell kiss, you dog,” at Bush on December 14 last year, seconds before hurling his size-10 shoes at the man who ordered Iraq be invaded and occupied six-and-a-half years ago.

Although Bush, who successfully ducked to avoid the speeding footwear, laughed off the attack, the incident caused massive embarrassment, to both him and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Zaidi faces the prospect of a very different life from his previous existence as a journalist for Al-Baghdadia television, a small, privately owned Cairo-based station, which has continued to pay his salary in jail.

Zaidi’s boss has promised the previously little-known reporter a new home as a reward for loyalty and the publicity that his actions, broadcast live across the world, generated for the station.

But there is talk of plum job offers from bigger Arab networks, lavish gifts such as sports cars from businessmen, a celebrity status, and reports that Arab women from Baghdad to the Gaza Strip want his hand in marriage. (ANI)

Four giant stone-age axes found in African lake basin

Washington, September 13 (ANI): A team of archaeologists has found four giant stone hand axes from the dry basin of Lake Makgadikgadi in the Kalahari Desert in Africa, dating back to the Stone Age, which suggests that the region was once much drier and wetter than it is today.

The discovery of the axes is part of the finding of thousands of stone tools on the lake bed, which sheds new light on how humans in Africa adapted to several substantial climate change events during the period that coincided with the last Ice Age in Europe.

Researchers from the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford are surveying the now-dry basin of Lake Makgadikgadi.

Their research was prompted by the discovery of the first of what are believed to be the world’s largest stone tools on the bed of the lake.

Although the first find was made in the 1990s, the discovery of four giant axes has not been scientifically reported until now.

Four giant stone hand axes, measuring over 30 cm long and of uncertain age, were recovered from the lake basin.

Equally remarkable is that the dry lake floor where they were found is also littered with tens of thousands of other smaller stone-age tools and flakes, according to the researchers.

According to Professor David Thomas, Head of the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford, “Many of the tools were found on the dry lake floor, not around its edge, which challenges the view that big lakes were only attractive to humans when they were full of water.”

“As water levels in the lake went down, or during times when they fluctuated seasonally, wild animals would have congregated round the resulting watering holes on the lake bed,” he said.

“It’s likely that early human populations would have seen this area as a prolific hunting ground when food resources in the region were more concentrated than at times when the regional climate was wetter and food was more plentiful and the lake was full of water,” he added.

The research team has investigated islands on the floor of the lake – remnants of former sand dunes – which suggest the region’s climate has also been both windier and markedly drier than it is today.

“The interior of southern Africa has usually been seen as being devoid of significant archaeology. Surprisingly, we have found and logged incredibly extensive Middle Stone Age artefacts spread over a vast area of the lake basin,” Professor Thomas said. (ANI)

‘Osama’s handshake was limp, like shaking a wet fish’

London, Sep 12 (ANI): The handshake by world’s most dreaded terrorist Osama bin Laden has been described as limp, and like shaking a wet fish by a producer of CNN who met the terror mastermind.

CNN producer Peter Bergen, who wrote The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al-Qaeda’s Leader, met the most dreaded terrorist in March 1997 when he went to film his first television interview.

Bergen narrates about the extra security around bin Laden and how they were taken to his hideout at night changing vehicles blindfolded.

The interview took place near the Tora Bora region of eastern Afghanistan where Bergen and his crew were electronically swept for tracking devices, and had to pass through three groups of guards armed with sub-machineguns.

“Bin Laden made no effort at small talk, wanting to get the interview done as soon as possible. Peter Jouvenal, our British cameraman, remembers that bin Laden’s handshake was limp, like shaking a wet fish,” The Times quoted him, as saying.

“I don’t recall shaking his hand but I do remember that he took frequent sips from a cup of tea, giving him an air that was more feline than fierce, and his blistering diatribe against the US for its policies in the Middle East was delivered in a barely audible whisper. After an hour he was gone, as suddenly as he had arrived,” he adds.

He also narrates Abdel Bari Atwan, a London-based Palestinian journalist who interviewed him in Afghanistan in 1996, as saying that Bin Laden, it seems, had prepared for life as a fugitive for years, adopting a monk-like detachment from material comforts.

Zaynab Khadr, whose family lived with the al-Qaeda leader in Afghanistan during the late 1990s, was quoted by the author as saying that he did not even allow his children to drink cold water because he wanted them to be prepared for the day when there’s no cold water.

He quotes Bin Laden as once instructing his followers: “You should learn to sacrifice everything from modern life like electricity, air-conditioning, refrigerators, gasoline. If you are living the luxury life, it’s very hard to go to the mountains to fight.”

In a tape posted to Islamist websites in February 2006, he says bin Laden confirmed his willingness to be martyred: “I have sworn to only live free. Even if I find bitter the taste of death, I don’t want to die humiliated or deceived.” (ANI)

‘Overpopulation’ fear makes Rebecca Romijn say no more babies

Washington, September 12 (ANI): Actress Rebecca Romijn has revealed she has no plans of having more children in fear of “overpopulating the world”.

The ‘X-Men’ star, who looks after her eight-month-old twins with husband Jerry O’Connell, said she was happy to have a four-member family.

“I’m pretty sure that this is it. We feel like the world was made for pairs. Four feels like the perfect number,” Contactmusic quoted her as saying to E!.

“Also, we’re not interested in overpopulating this world. So we feel like we don’t want to leave more than we are when we leave this planet,” she added.

The former model also spoke about the heartache about staying away from the kids due to work.

She added: “Mother’s guilt is no joke. I feel like any stretch of time I spend away from them, I’m worried that I’m missing out on just these little miracles.

“Like you watch them stare at their hand for an hour and they go take a three-hour nap and they wake up and they can do something that they didn’t do before – like wave!” (ANI)

Scientists develop robotic hand that ‘restores sense of touch’

London, Sept 10 (ANI): The first robotic hand to give amputees a sense of touch has been created by Swedish scientists.

When pressed against an object the 40 sensors in the Smarthand get activated. It also has four motors, which move the thumb and fingers.

They stimulate nerves in the arm to activate the appropriate part of the brain. This allows patients to feel objects they are holding, reports Sky News.

“It’s a feeling I have not had in a long time,” said Robin af Ekenstam, the first amputee to try the hand.

“When I grab something tightly I can feel it in the fingertips. It’s strange since I don’t have them any more! It’s amazing,” he added.

The motors are connected to nerves in the arm that once moved Robin’s real digits. Thanks to the “hand”, he’s able to pick up a plastic water bottle, without crushing it, and pour himself a drink.

Professor Goran Lundborg, a surgeon at Malmo University Hospital, said the artificial hand was a significant advance.

“If you find the right spot the correct areas of the brain cortex will be activated. If you put pressure on the index finger of the artificial hand then the index finger area of the brain will be activated,” he said.

The research is funded by the European Commission. (ANI)

Pak Qaeda hand in 2006 trans-Atlantic bomb plot revealed

London, Sep.8 (ANI): New evidence put before a British jury during a retrial of three Brit Muslim convicts suggests that the men used code words to discuss their plans with an al-Qaeda fixer based in Pakistan.

The e-mails and conversations suggest that the plot was in its final stages, possibly days away from execution in 2006.

The seven daily flights highlighted by the three plotters were: 14.15 United Airlines Flight 931 to San Francisco; 15.00 Air Canada Flight 849 to Toronto; 15.15 Air Canada Flight 865 to Montreal; 15.40 United Airlines Flight 959 to Chicago; 16.20 United Airlines Flight 925 to Washington; 16.35 American Airlines Flight 131 to New York; 16.50 American Airlines Flight 91 to Chicago.

According to The Telegraph and the Daily Express, the batteries the gang planned to use as part of their detonators were bought in Pakistan.

An ingredient in the bomb mix was the orange soft drink Tang – sold in Pakistan – which had a high sugar content to aid the explosion.

A British intelligence source said: “The use of drink bottles sold in Pakistan and batteries sold in Pakistan underline the plot’s ties to that country. The foot soldiers were from Britain – but the organisers were in Pakistan.”

A security source said of the conspiracy: “It was very clever and the airport scanners would not have picked up the devices at all.”

Prosecutor Peter Wright told the Woolwich Crown Court in South East London how the would-be bombers were “a cell of home-grown terrorists activated and directed by a designated leader in Pakistan.”

That was confirmed by a government source in Pakistan, who said the plot was believed to have originated “with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.”

Seized e-mails showed the chain of terror stretched from there, across the lawless border to Pakistan, to London and to the woods of High Wycombe where explosives were buried.

The aim was to mirror the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, which killed 259 passengers and 11 in the Scottish town.

Aliases exposed during the trial revealed the terror kingpin in Pakistan was dubbed “Paps” or “Papa”.

Ali called himself Imran and Chacha and also set up email accounts in the bogus names Tippu Khan and Jameel Masood.

His co-conspirators used aliases such as Fatty, Arro and Nigga.

Hydrogen peroxide was known as “aftershave”, police surveillance as “skin problems” and martyrdom videos were referred to as “wedding tapes”.

It is also thought that the bomb makers received training at an al-Qaeda camp in Pakistan.

A mystery Pakistani, thought to be a top al-Qaeda envoy, made contact with the three would-be suicide bombers during a flying visit to Britain in June 2006.

Experts who tested the explosive mix on the aircraft were horrified.

A witness said: “It was absolutely devastating.” (ANI)

Manipur police personnel behind Imphal bomb attack

Imphal (Manipur), Sep 6 (ANI): In an astonishing revelation, the India Reserve Battalion (IRB) was involved in a bomb attack at a private hospital in Imphal, leaving Manipuris flabbergasted.

It is reported that militants gave Rs 5000 to an IRB rifleman to set off a grenade at the Chamber of Commerce Hospital at Thangal Bazaar in Imphal that left three persons injured.

The rifleman was identified as T. Munal, and has been apprehended by the police.

“There will be a strict control room exclusively for the commandos, so that the control room will have details about their duties and there will be a general diary which will give record of what all activities they are doing. With this sort of things and a little more check, I think with that we should be able to weed out those black sheep,” said Y. Joykumar Singh, The Director General of Police (DGP) of Manipur.

T. Munal was posted at the Battalion headquarters at Khuman Lampak in Imphal and was allegedly involved in several other attacks carried out in the state.

Munal has disclosed that a cadre of KCP (MC) militant outfit had given him the hand grenade.

The incident has shocked the people in the state. They condemned the act.

“Security forces protect us but if they do such things, the people of Manipur will be no more. We condemn the act,” said Zathlingthang, a local.

“They are here to protect the people and a rifleman committing such crime is condemnable act. The people of the state are suffering because of such crimes,” added Khomi, another local.

Meanwhile, reacting to the involvement of state police personnel in the incident, Union Home Secretary G.K Pillai, who was on a visit to assess the overall law and order situation in the state, urged the state government to bring transparency in the recruitment of constables.

“If constables come into the police force on merit, you will get a much better, more efficient police force. Complain has come that some of the people who have been recruited did not undergo adequate screening of some of them. Screening would be done by the Manipur police to remove all the undesirable elements from the state police forces,” Pillai said. (ANI)

Action against party men who discuss ‘Jinnah’: Rajnath Singh

Rohtak (Haryana), Sep 6(ANI): Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Rajnath Singh on Sunday warned the party members to avoid talking about Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the man who BJP holds responsible for the division of the country and massacre of lakhs of people, failing which would invite a strict action from the party.

“Jinnah was responsible for dividing the country into two. We won’t accept a person like Jinnah, who was responsible for the massacre of lakhs of people. So, if anybody talks about him, we won’t hesitate to take a strict action against him or her,” Rajnath Singh said.

BJP crisis boiled over after senior party leader Jaswant Singh was expelled for writing a book sympathetic to Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and BJP hold Jinnah responsible for India’s partition, and its strong views on that were notices at the expulsion of Jaswant Singh.

Singh further said that BJP was not against Muslims, on the other hand it has always sought to unite people belonging from different religions and creed. (ANI)

Obama’s team found Brown “dour and depressing”, Cameron “dynamic”

Wellington, Sep. 5 (ANI): US President Barack Obama’s team thinks British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is rather “dour and depressing,” it has been claimed.

Richard Wolffe, a former Newsweek White House correspondent, who travelled with Obama on his election campaign, made this revelation.

The Daily Express quoted Wolffe as saying that Obama team’s views were formed after the 48-year-old president-elect met the Brown, 58.

“They found the experience faintly depressing, a sort of end-of-regime feel about the whole thing,” he said.

However, the US President’s team was impressed by Tory leader David Cameron ‘s “energy, verve and dynamism”.

“He was really taken with Cameron. He and his aides thought that he had energy and verve, a dynamism that suggested he was a good candidate. Brown on the other hand, really they found very lack-lustre, his mood and his dourness. (ANI)

Sohail’s diatribe against Butt for Pak’s World Cup hosting fiasco

Lahore, Sep.4 (ANI): Former Pakistan captain and left hand opener Aamir Sohail has criticized Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chief Ijaz Butt for misleading board patron, President Asif Ali Zardari and the public on the 2011 World Cup hosting issue.

Sohail, who resigned from the National Cricket Academy’s (NCA) Director post recently, flayed Butt for calling general public ‘naove’.

Let me assure Mr. Ijaz that the people of Pakistan are not naove. They are passionate about cricket, knowledgeable and fully aware of what is going on in the world of cricket. With all due respect Mr. Ijaz, you are the one who is wearing blinkers and do not have a clue as how to handle the affairs of cricket domestically and internationally,” Sohail said.

Sohail, in his statement, said Butt has no idea about tackling issues at international forums and held him responsible for the 2011 World Cup hosting fiasco.

“His letter to the ICC president accusing the chief executive officer of the ICC of influencing full members to support the IDI’s (commercial arm of the ICC) decision to relocate matches from Pakistan does not augur well with diplomatic norms when you are handling international matters, Mr Ijaz must know,” Sohail stated.

He lambasted Butt for the inept method in which the probe regarding March 3 terror attack on the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore proceeded.

Sohail raised questions over the laid back attitude of the PCB, saying the whole issue was mishandled by the board.

“It was a major contributory factor in the subsequent developments vis-a-vis the World Cup 2011. The co-hosts were not contacted after the incident despite strong advice from some of his staff. Instead, he castigated ICC match referee Chris Broad. This did not go well in the world cricket regulatory body,” The Daily Times quoted Sohail, as saying.

“It was height of incompetence of the PCB officials that rather than accepting the responsibility they tried to persistently pass the buck on the government,” he added. (ANI)

Lunar clock to be built by River Thames by 2012

London, September 3 (ANI): Scientists and artists are planning to build a 40m-wide lunar clock by the River Thames by the year 2012.

According to a report by BBC News, the aim is to create a new London landmark close to the proposed Olympic stadium as a monument to a more natural way of marking time.

The proposed site is at East India Dock, six miles along the river from Westminster Palace. It is currently a bedraggled nature reserve.

The designers of the clock hope that the instrument will become as iconic as Big Ben, which has been marking time for 150 years.

Laura Williams, an East London artist, explained that the clock would be powered by the tides from the Thames.

“There are three giant concentric rings made from recycled glass. Light shines through from the glass in time with the Moon’s cycles so the largest ring shows the lunar phase,” she said.

“Gradually, the light waxes on all the way around the ring and connects full circle when it’s full Moon,” she added.

“The second ring is like the big hand of the clock. It’s a marker of light that tracks the Moon around the globe so that’s the lunar day cycle,” said Williams.

“The third ring – the smallest – is the small hand that tracks the tide as it goes from high tide to low,” she said.

The clock has been called Aluna. It is a word from the Kogi indigenous people of Colombia.

“It means memory, possibility. It’s also being in tune with the planet’s rhythms and living in harmony with our planet,” said Williams.

According to Dr Usama Hasan, an astronomer, in this age of iPods and atomic clocks, there is a greater need than ever for an older way of measuring time.

“Aluna is a project which tries to connect us back to the cosmic cycle, with nature. I think that’s very important especially in the very technological age we live in,” said Hasan. (ANI)

How birds and mammals evolved to have 4-chambered hearts

Washington, Sep 3 (ANI): Scientists have discovered the first genetic link that can explain how the heart evolved from being a three-chambered to four-chambered organ.

The discovery has shed light on how cold-blooded birds and mammals became warm-blooded.

Frogs have a three-chambered heart consisting of two atria and one ventricle, which sends a concoction of blood that is not fully oxygenated to the rest of the frog’s body.

On the other hand, turtles’ hearts have three chambers, but the single ventricle starts developing a wall, or septum, which makes the heart send blood that is slightly richer in oxygen than the frog’s.

However, birds and mammals have a fully septated ventricle-a bona fide four-chambered heart, which ensures the separation of low-pressure circulation to the lungs, and high-pressure pumping into the rest of the body.

As warm-blooded animals, we use a lot of energy and therefore need a great supply of oxygen for our activities. The four-chambered heart gives us an evolutionary advantage- we’re able to roam, hunt and hide even in the cold of night, or the chill of winter.

But many humans suffer from congenital heart disease, a very common birth defect, which is usually caused by VSD, or ventricular septum defects-a condition that is frequently correctable with surgery

Benoit Bruneau of the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease, who studies the transcription factor, Tbx5, in early stages of embryological development, has called it “a master regulator of the heart.”

He teamed up with scientists at Michigan State University to examine a wide evolutionary spectrum of animals and found that in the cold-blooded, Tbx5 is expressed uniformly throughout the forming heart’s wall.

On the other hand, warm-blooded embryos showed the protein very clearly restricted to the left side of the ventricle, which allowed for the separation between right and left ventricle.

Interestingly, in the turtle, the molecular signature was found to be transitional as well.

A higher concentration of Tbx5 is found on the left side of the heart, gradually dissipating towards the right.

“The great thing about looking backwards like we’ve done with reptilian evolution is that it gives us a really good handle on how we can now look forward and try to understand how a protein like Tbx5 is involved in forming the heart and how in the case of congenital heart disease its function is impaired,” concluded Bruneau. (ANI)

Andromeda galaxy expanded by cannibalizing on stars from other galaxies

London, September 3 (ANI): A new research has shown that the vast Andromeda galaxy appears to have expanded by cannibalizing on stars from other galaxies.

According to a report by BBC News, when an international team of scientists mapped Andromeda, they discovered stars that they said were “remnants of dwarf galaxies”.

This consumption of stars has been suggested previously, but the team’s ultra-deep survey has provided detailed images to show that it took place.

This shows the “hierarchical model” of galaxy formation in action.

The model predicts that large galaxies should be surrounded by relics of smaller galaxies they have consumed.

The scientists charted the outskirts of Andromeda in detail for the first time. They discovered stars that could not have formed within the galaxy itself.

Pauline Barmby, an astronomer from the University of Western Ontario told BBC News that the pattern of the stars’ orbits revealed their origin.

“Andromeda is so close that we can map out all the stars,” she said. “And when you see a sort of lump of stars that far out, and with the same orbit, you know they can’t have been there forever,” she added.

Andromeda, which is approximately 2.5 million light years away from Earth is still expanding, say the scientists.

The researchers also saw a “stream of stars” of a nearby galaxy called Triangulum “stretching” towards Andromeda.

According to Dr Scott Chapman, reader in astrophysics at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, “Ultimately, these two galaxies may end up merging completely. Ironically, galaxy formation and galaxy destruction seem to go hand in hand.”

Nickolay Gnedin, an astrophysicist from the University of Chicago, described the work as showing “galactic archaeology in action”. (ANI)