South Korea’s customs first to use cloned sniffer dogs

by Iva Skoch on

All the smugglers out there should be very, very scared. South Korea has managed to clone their best sniffer dog and got seven cloned puppies.

The puppies have been created using cells taken from a labrador sniffer dog considered by customs officials to be “their best,” BBC reports. The puppies were born last year after the country’s customs service paid a biotechnology company to reproduce a Canadian Labrador Retriever.

All puppies are apparently already showing the same high level of skill as the original dog. Only about 30% of naturally-born sniffer dogs make the grade, but South Korean scientists believe that could rise to 90% using the cloning method. The puppies were born to three surrogate mothers after scientists used the nuclei of somatic cells from a sniffer dog called Chase. Puppies should report for duty in June after completing a second round of training.

Glad to know that all the brain power that has gone into cloning will be used to make the life of customs officials easier (she said facetiously).

United Airlines posts staggering $537M Q1 loss, plans to cut jobs

by Grant Martin on

United Airlines posted its quarterly earnings yesterday and they weren’t pretty. The Chicago based carrier lost 537 million dollars in the first quarter, nearly a third of its market value as its stock plunged 37%. It was the company’s largest loss since it came out of bankruptcy in the first quarter of 2006.

In tandem with these numbers, the airline also announced that it would be cutting over 1,000 jobs and reducing flights in an effort to save cash.

And thus we see how a major carrier weathers the storm of high oil prices and a tight market. Fortunately for them, they had the assets and bandwidth to handle a few consecutive quarters of rough seas. Carriers like ATA and Skybus could not. The real question is thus: How many months of high oil prices can the airlines handle?

I have a feeling that this is not the end of woes for the industry — each and every domestic carrier is facing the same market influences. It will be interesting to see how other airlines cope in the new oil market, what they do to keep ticket prices low and competition high. Perhaps they will raise fees on all likes of service from checked baggage to changed tickets. Or perhaps, as Richard Anderson of Delta Airlines suggested this week, they’ll all just raise ticket prices 20%.

Americans on vacation: Spot this rare creature out there somewhere if you can

by Jeffrey White on

It’s certainly no news flash that Americans are overworked and for their trouble are rewarded by the world’s most pathetic vacation allowances.

Still every once in a while a little factoid jumps out that is surprising (well, at least to me), like this one over at Expedia that says that despite being dead last in the world in terms of vacation days earned, Americans will still leave an average of 3 days untouched. That means your average American is going to get out of the office for a whopping 11 days this year. Europeans take more days off sick than that.

Folks, they give them to you for a reason.

Expedia says a third of all Americans don’t take the vacation they deserve. Now, the Web site’s eighth annual “vacation depredation survey” is coming from a company whose business is in part to send Americans on vacation, but the numbers they tout still jive with what’s pretty well known: Europeans are the world’s best vacationers.

Your average Briton will earn 26 days of vacation this year (and take 23). Germans? Twenty-seven (and 25). The Spanish? 31 (and 27). And let’s not forget the French, who were pretty much born on vacation: they’ll get 37 vacation days this year, and will on average use all but two of those puppies.

None have any qualms of taking these days in one lump, either.

Europeans hold their right to go on holiday as sacrosanct. I worked for two years in the Czech Republic and I would have Czech employees call out sick for two weeks only to go on vacation the day after they return. My father likes to tell me the story of a French colleague of his who was out more than three months on maternity leave, and upon returning to work in the summer, promptly left on the three-week summer holiday common throughout France.

Europeans will defend all this with teeth bared as an offspring of their societies’ generous social welfare benefits. And let’s face it, which one of us wouldn’t love to have a month vacation every year?

Check out Expedia’s survey.

How much vacation are you getting this year? Will you take it all?

Get your super jumbo jet today! Airbus to raise price of A380 by $4m

by Grant Martin on

Good thing I’ve already got my order in. EADS and Airbus just announced that they’re increasing the price of the A380 because the dollar keeps tanking. While the European conglomerate still does most of their business in Euros, the problem is that their aircraft are priced in dollars. This means that when the dollar falls against the euro it cuts into their bottom line.

It also makes competition difficult because Chicago based Boeing, their primary rival, does most of their business in dollars and their costs have fallen with the dollar. Now, potential aircraft customers are going to find Boeing aircraft a better deal than Airbus.

In that respect, EADS is sort of between a rock and a hard place. EADS CEO Louis Gallois referred to the Euro as a “Sword of Damocles” for the struggling company(obviously). Why can’t American CEOs use obscure Ancient Greek references as metaphors for modern economics?

Photo of the Day (4/23/08)

by Jamie Rhein on

What makes a scene look distinctive of a place? Clothes people are wearing? The way paint is peeling on a door? This shot by Marni Rachel captures a detail of a young woman’s world in France. It could be a young woman’s world anywhere, except that building does not look like one in the U.S. The building materials and style are different.

The contrast of the youth and freshness of the young woman and the worn quality of the building visually pulled me to this shot. One of the pleasures of travel is watching ordinary people doing things that look the same, but there is something about the details that say you’re not in a place that is familiar. The subtle tones and textures are quite lovely.

To share the shots you’ve captured as you travel, send them our way at Gadling’s Flickr photo pool.