News In Brief

THAT GOES FOR LAPTOPS, TOO

OK, you're a passenger on a commercial airliner, and a flight attendant announces over the public address system that you may not operate your cellphone once the plane pushes away from the terminal. But that's not because it will interfere with the navigation system, right? Isn't it so you'll have to use the pay phone mounted in the seat in front of you? Well, consider what happened earlier this week aboard an Adria Airways flight from Slovenia to the capital of Bosnia, Sarajevo. Suddenly, the cockpit electronics malfunctioned, indicating a fire somewhere on the plane. The jet turned back and made an emergency landing at Ljub-ljana. An exhaustive search turned up the reason: a cellphone in the cargo compartment that hadn't been shut off.

Best company for deserted island: inventors, teens say

Inventors made out well in an annual survey by the Lemelson-MIT Program in Cambridge, Mass. The program, which encourages youngsters to think about becoming inventors, found almost half of all teens would choose the company of an inventor if stranded on an island. What's more, the 500 teen respondents ascribed noble reasons for becoming inventors. Forty-three percent said they'd do it to help mankind; 34 percent to preserve the quality of life. On the down side, the respondents didn't rate inventors highly among people they'd like to meet: Only 8 percent said so, versus 30 percent for musicians. The percentage of teen respondents who'd want somebody from the following fields as a companion on a deserted island:

Inventors 46%

Musicians 19%

Actors/actresses 13%

US president 9%

Athletes 6%

- Associated Press, PR Newswire

(c) Copyright 2001. The Christian Science Publishing Society

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