Credit: R. KAYLIN/GETTY IMAGES

Scorecard

Fake thunderstorms

European researchers have become the first to deliberately trigger electrical discharges in thunderclouds using lasers.

Fragrant spring breezes

The fragrance of flowers travels only around one-quarter as far in today's polluted city air as it did two centuries ago, according to a University of Virginia study. Perhaps this is one cause of sharply declining bee populations.

Number Crunch

960 is the number of significant 'natural hazard losses' — events often more colourfully described as 'acts of God' — in 2007, according to figures compiled by German insurance firm Munich Re.

US$82 billion is the total financial cost of these events, of which the insurance industry repaid around $30 billion.

49 fatalities occurred in the most financially costly event, Europe's Winter Storm Kyrill. The deadliest event, Cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh, cost only one-third as much, but claimed more than 3,000 lives.

Robot News

Gender watch

Japanese company Omron has developed a system that allows security cameras to tell the difference between male and female faces automatically. It could lead to even more targeted snooping into shoppers' habits.

Sources: Opt. Soc. Am., Atmos. Environ., Munich Re, Omron Corp.