Families used them to announce births and deaths, the government used them to post job openings, young lovers sent them to tell their folks that they had eloped.

No longer.

On Monday, the state-run telecommunications company will send its final telegram, closing down a service that fast became a relic in an age of email, reliable landlines and ubiquitous cellphones.

The fact that the telegram survived this long is a testament to how deeply woven it is into the fabric of Indian society. In much of the rest of the world, telegrams long ago were relegated to novelty services used by people who wanted to indulge in a bit of nostalgia.

Just 30 years ago the telegram was king in India. But the service has lost $250 million in just the last seven years as national cellphone subscriptions hit 867 million in April, more than double the number of just four years ago.

"Most people who come in now are those who want to send a telegram for an official reason," said Lata Harit, a telegraph officer at Delhi's historic Kashmere Gate Telegraph Office. "It's no longer about a birth in the family or a death. For that people rely on their telephones or cellphones."

The nearly empty telegraph office was a far cry, she said, from the days when long lines of customers crowded in the British-colonial style building close to the teeming heart of old Delhi to send a telegram. From 10,000 telegrams a day, the office now sends about 100.

The government still uses telegrams to inform recipients of top civilian awards and for court notices. India's armed forces recognize telegrams from troops extending their vacation or from soldiers' families demanding their presence at home for a funeral. Lawyers still send telegrams to create an official record, for example, to prove to a judge that they had complained their client was subjected to police abuse.

When Harit joined the service more than three decades ago, she underwent six months of training at a school for telegraph operators. Telegrams were sent using the complex dots and dashes of Morse code that had to be decoded at their destination.

"It required enormous concentration to decipher, but some of us were so good at our work, and so fast, that at the end of a day, we would feel exhilarated," she said. "It made us feel proud."

Other operators felt they were important messengers for crucial news.

Baljit Singh, who became a telegraph operator in 1972 and will retire in a few months, recalled the frenetic rush following the 1984 assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and the days of political turmoil and street violence that followed.

"People came in droves to send telegrams. We worked round the clock. I don't think we went home for days," he recalled.

Over the years, Morse code gave way to telex machines and teleprinters, and finally electronic printers and computers.

Before India overhauled its erratic landline network in the 1980s and 1990s and well before the mobile phone revolution the telegram was the only dependable means of conveying news across this vast nation.

At its peak less than three decades ago, a network of 45,000 telegraph offices served the sprawling country. Now there are only 75.

At the Kashmere Gate office, the growing irrelevance of the telegram is reflected in the flyblown calendars on walls graying with age, soot-blackened ceiling fans and a dust-covered chart showing 43 commonly used telegram messages to help customers find the shortest one for the occasion.

For the rare telegram user, it's the end of a way of life.

Abhilasha Kumari, a New Delhi-based sociologist, recalled the crucial role telegrams played in her small hometown of Sitamau in central India.

"The telegram was the only source for getting news quickly. So whenever there was any development in the large extended family whether it was a death, or a birth, or news about that much-coveted government job, the telegram was the quickest way to get the news," she said.

In countless remote towns and villages, the telegraph worker knew everyone and their family business.

Kumari recalled the time a telegram informed her family that a cousin died in an accident.

"The postmaster himself came to deliver the telegram. We saw him at the door, and realized something drastic had happened," she said.

While most of the remaining telegraph workers will be given new assignments in the telecommunications company, the informal economy that thrived on the telegram will disappear.

For nearly 35 years, Jagdish Chand Sharma has made a living helping illiterate customers write telegrams from his mat in a dusty corner of the Kashmere Gate office's patio.

In the 1980s, he would write about 150 telegrams a day, conveying the joys and sorrows of his customers with brevity and precision for a small fee.

Today, he might get three customers on a good day.

Sharma has already equipped himself with packaging material and sealing wax, and has switched to helping people send parcels and mail packages.

"But it's not the same. With a telegram, you instantly made a connection with people when you wrote out a telegram for them," said Sharma, idly swatting flies as he waited in the sweltering heat, a pile of dog-eared telegram forms gathering dust beside him.

Since the June 12 government announcement about the telegram's end, telegraph offices across the country have seen a small rush of people wanting to send some last historic messages.

"We've decided to send telegrams to each other," said Tarun Jain, an IT professional, who had come to the telegraph office with a friend. "Soon this will all be history. Our last telegrams will become collector's items."

Export prices fell by 0.1 percent, matching the expectation in a Reuters poll, Labor Department data showed on Thursday.

The drop probably reflects weakness in global demand which has been hit by Europe's debt crisis and slowing growth in China.

Import prices slipped 0.2 percent last month, dragged down by another month of declining costs outside of the fuels category. Petroleum prices rose 0.2 percent.

Prices for both imports and exports have fallen every month since March, the longest such streak since 2008 when the world was mired in a financial crisis.

The drop in prices last month for imported cars and other consumer goods could help some U.S. consumers. However, some economists are worried an environment of weak inflation could raise the specter of deflation. That would be very bad, as deflation entails a spiral of falling prices and wages which is very difficult for central banks to fight.

Economists polled by Reuters had expected import prices to be unchanged last month.

(Reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

that had been erected around the orbiter on the deck of the aircraft carrier-turned-museum. That first show opened July 19, 2012, but closed for extensive refurbishment after the storm. Finally, thefor business.

"One word: wow," said Zina Best of Brooklyn, N.Y., who brought her 6-year-old son, A.J. to see the exhibition. "I'm speechless. They did a superb job. " []

A.J. was similarly impressed, calling the display "amazing," and saying he hoped to become an astronaut some day. "I will be the first astronaut on Saturn," he said.

Many who came to see Enterprise were awed by its size.

"I'm surprised how big it is," said Matt Morales, age 13, of Montvale, N.J. "It's a different experience to see it in real life."

Kate Novak of New York agreed. "It's really intense. I thought it was going to be much smaller. It's surreal."

never flew to space, but was used by NASA in the 1970s for glide flights from the upper atmosphere to test the space shuttle design. The vehicle is displayed in a darkened tent with a deep blue ceiling that evokes the depths of space. Around it are numerous exhibits explaining the science and history of the 30-year space shuttle program and the role Enterprise played in getting it off the ground.

"The exhibit seems to be fitting, the colors. [Enterprise] is kind of orbiting in the center," said Emily Potter-Ndiaye of Brooklyn.

While many in the crowd today were locals, some visitors from far-flung locales decided to check out the precursor to America's shuttle program.

"It's super impressive. We don't have anything like this in Australia," said Lily Grealy, who was visiting New York from Sydney, Australia.

Intrepid officials said they're hoping the display helps inspire children to pursue science, math and engineering, and maybe even travel to space one day.

"It's pretty cool," said 10-year-old Georgia Wallace, who was visiting Enterprise with her father Daniel Wallace. Despite being wowed by the shuttle, though, Georgia said she didn't want to go to space herself. "There's no showers."

The Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum is located at Pier 86 (46th Street and 12th Avenue) in Manhattan. Access to the Space Shuttle Pavilion costs $7 for adults and $5 for children ages 3 to 17, in addition to regular admission. The Intrepid is hosting a public SpaceFest, July 25-29, 2013, with NASA astronaut appearances, free movie screenings, hands-on demonstrations and more to celebrate all things space.

Follow Clara Moskowitz onand. Follow us,and. Original article on.

The study, published today (June 27) in the journal Science, found that one type of bacteria dominates in warm climates, whereas another is more prevalent in cooler areas. Combined with climate models, the findings suggest that the cold-loving bacteria could completely disappear from their current habitats as the climate warms.

That disappearance, in turn, could have unpredictable ripple effects across the entireecosystem, study researchers said, as the biocrusts are important resources for desert plants and help mitigate dust storms. []

"For the first time, we have shown that the distribution of microbes is also prone to changes due to global warming," said study co-author Ferran Garcia-Pichel, a microbial ecologist at Arizona State University. "We simply don't know the consequences of this."

Ubiquitous organisms

Throughout the arid regions of the western United States, desert soil is permeated by a cryptic collection of photosynthetic organisms, including microbes, lichens and mosses. These mostly bacterial biocrusts anchor the soil, preventing sandstorms and erosion. They also play a critical role in cycling carbon and providing nitrogen in the soil, which feeds the growth of .

Yet these soils remained virtually unstudied by researchers.

To get a better picture of these cryptic species, Garcia-Pichel and his colleagues conducted a thorough survey of the microbial constituents in biocrusts at 23 sites throughout the western United States. They found that two species Microcoleus vaginatus and M. steenstrupii each dominated in different regions.

Hot and cold

M. vaginatus predominated in cooler deserts near the California-Oregon border and in Utah, whereas M. steenstrupii was the main bacteria in the , New Mexico and California. The researchers looked at several potential causes for the difference in distribution, such as rainfall and soil composition, but found that temperature was the best predictor of which microbe thrived in each region.

To help confirm that this was the major driver behind the distribution, the team then took the bacteria back to the lab and cultured them at different temperatures. Sure enough, M. steenstrupii flourished in warmer conditions and was more tolerant to extreme heat, while the opposite was true for M. vaginatus.

Next, they looked atmodels, which predicted that the desert regions in the United States would increase in temperature over the next 50 years. With this projected warming, M. vaginatus could completely disappear from the arid regions of the western United States, the researchers said.

The team realized "this is enough temperature to push one of them out of our map,'" Garcia-Pichel told LiveScience.

Unknown consequences

Unfortunately, so little is known about the mysterious M. steenstrupii that no one is sure how this change will impact desert ecosystems, said Jayne Belnap, an ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Moab, Utah, who was not involved in the study.

"These are the only game in town to prevent dust storms and erosion, so they're really, really critical parts of this ecosystem," Belnap told LiveScience. "Yet we've never asked the question, 'who's really in there, and what's going to happen there as things shift?'"

Follow Tia Ghose on and .FollowLiveScience,&. Original article on.

Tribune said the move will let one company take advantage of growth in broadcasting and allow the other to focus on newspapers, an industry where revenue has been declining for years.

Chicago-based Tribune owns 23 TV stations and cable network WGN America. Earlier this month, it announced plans to buy Local TV Holdings and its 19 television stations for $2.73 billion. It also owns eight daily newspapers, including The Baltimore Sun, Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times.

Fellow media company News Corp. completed a split into separate publishing and entertainment companies late last month.

Since the split became final on June 28, shares of News Corp., now a standalone publishing company that includes The Wall Street Journal, have edged up about 1 percent to $15.37 by late trading Wednesday. Shares of Twenty-First Century Fox Inc., the entertainment company, have risen about 3 percent to $29.95.

The split would divide a company with a long, storied past. It was founded in 1847 with a hand-cranked print run of 400 copies of the Chicago Tribune. The company founded the WGN broadcasting brand with a radio station in 1924 and TV station in 1948. Tribune first went public in 1983 and expanded through the purchase of newspapers and TV stations. But a debt-heavy acquisition by Chicago real estate mogul Sam Zell in 2007 caused it to file for bankruptcy protection a year later.

Tribune, which emerged from bankruptcy protection at the end of 2012, said that over the past several months its board and management have been looking at ways to ensure long-term growth and boost value for its stakeholders and long-term growth.

Tribune said in February that it hired a pair of investment banks to help it sell its newspapers. The move was largely at the behest of the group of lenders that took over the company as part of its reorganization.

Under the proposal announced Wednesday, the newspapers would be spun off into an independent company to be called Tribune Publishing Co.

Alan Mutter, a media consultant and former newspaper editor, said the move "indicates Tribune could not find buyers to pay the price it was hoping to get for its publishing assets," he said.

Tribune's newspapers have been hurt by an industrywide shift that has driven more advertisers to the Internet. The downturn in print advertising was one of the factors that caused Tribune to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2008.

The remaining company, which would keep the Tribune Co. name, would include Tribune's local television stations; WGN radioand cable networks; its television production, digital and media services ventures; and its interests in Classified Ventures, CareerBuilder, the Food Network and real estate.

By holding onto the growing digital classifieds business and the real estate, Tribune Co. is decreasing the value of its newspaper group by at least a third, according to Ken Doctor, a newspaper industry analyst with Outsell Inc. Doctor previously valued Tribune's newspaper business between $450 million and $700 million.

Doctor said he expects Tribune will still try to sell the newspapers individually or as a group, but the spinoff will help clarify its focus on TV assets.

"They want to make sure these assets don't muddy the broadcast play and they set the clock to do that," Doctor said.

Tribune said its board will develop a detailed plan for the split over the next nine to 12 months. After the split is complete, the companies will have separate boards and management.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Rose Kennedy's public image as the stoic matriarch of America's most famous political family is one that she carefully cultivated, but writer Barbara Perry reveals a more vulnerable side in "Rose Kennedy: The Life and Times of a Political Matriarch."

The biography of Rose Kennedy, who lived to age 104, includes hundreds of details from her voluminous personal diaries and letters made public by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in 2006.

Perry, a senior fellow and associate professor in the Miller Center's Presidential Oral History Program at the University of Virginia, has written other books, including "Jacqueline Kennedy: First Lady of the New Frontier."

Perry spoke to Reuters about her interest in the Kennedy family and her research process.

Q: What sparked your lifelong interest in the Kennedys?

A: My mother took me to a JFK rally in Louisville when I was four. On October 5, 1960, my mother piled me and my two older brothers into our '56 Chevy and drove to downtown Louisville. It helped me to understand his grip on the American people.

Q: Was there a process for deciding who would write Rose Kennedy's biography?

A: No. Presidential libraries are sponsored by the National Archives, in part, and they are public facilities. Anyone can go into the archive room at the library and say "I'm here to look at the Rose Kennedy papers."

In my case, I had to figure out how to narrow down from the 250 boxes what would be most useful. What was difficult was the sheer voluminous numbers of papers, and files, and photographs. She lived to 104 and kept everything.

Q: How did you work through the volumes of papers?

A: I decided to begin with her 1974 memoir, "Times to Remember." There's a huge component of Rose Kennedy's papers devoted to producing that book. Particularly, I was interested in her image creation.

I began combing through all of the things she collected to do that book and then very quickly got into what I will call the oral history - the many, many taped conversations that her ghost writer, Robert Coughlan, did with her and of her as they began to produce that book.

Q: Your book shows a less perfect side. What were you trying to do by bringing out those details?

A: First of all, let Rose be Rose. I just felt her voice had often been subsumed under the men's. That was one of my goals - to let her speak through her diary and through her letters, memos and oral history.

But it's not always an edifying message - because she could be a difficult woman, so caught up in this image making that I think she maybe sometimes lost the larger meaning of life or put people off in her own family. The concept of creating an image of oneself, or ones' family is going to involve some sleight of hand. I came across that on occasion.

Q: I really liked her bouffant hair.

A: Yes, that she was so proud of. She was pretty proud she didn't go gray, just like her mother.

On her travel list, I discovered a wig stand and a wig. Ladies like that had their hair done at least once a week and at least more often. I'd see in her date book - whenever she was about to do a big event, off to the hairdresser she would go, or the hairdresser would come to her home.

She was totally into the image thing. The matron of makeover.

(Reporting by Suzanne Barlyn; Editing by Patricia Reaney and Dan Grebler)

The 40-year-old All-Star right wing was captain of the Senators and his decision not to re-sign with the team was a surprise.

Alfredsson will join a Red Wings roster featuring fellow Swedes Henrik Zetterberg, Johan Franzen, Gustav Nyquist, Niklas Kronwall and Jonathan Ericsson.

Media reports said Alfredsson had signed a one-year $5.5 million deal.

There were 20 signings in the first hour of free agency, including forward Nathan Horton going to the Columbus Blue Jackets for a seven-year contract.

Horton had spent the past three seasons with the Boston Bruins and is facing time off for shoulder surgery in the off-season.

Ottawa brought in left wing Clarke MacArthur on a two-year deal after he scored eight goals and 20 points for the Toronto Maple Leafs last season.

The Edmonton Oilers snapped up defenseman Andrew Ference on a four-year deal, reported to be worth $13 million.

The 34-year-old Ference, born in Edmonton, entered free agency after playing with Boston for seven seasons.

The Bruins, defeated by the Chicago Blackhawks in this season's Stanley Cup finals, were busy making deals of their own with a 'blockbuster' trade with the Dallas Stars.

The Bruins signed forwards Loui Eriksson, Reilly Smith and Matt Fraser and defenseman Joe Morrow from Dallas for centers Tyler Seguin and Rich Peverley and defenseman Ryan Button, the teams announced on Thursday.

The New York Islanders re-signed Kazakh goaltender Evgeni Nabokov and the Philadelphia Flyers added goaltender Ray Emery from Chicago. Both were one-year deals.

The Carolina Hurricanes brought in defenseman Mike Komisarek on a one-year deal after Toronto allowed him to enter free agency.

(Reporting By Simon Evans in Miami, editing by Gene Cherry)

Launched in March 2009, NASA's has detected more than 3,000 potential alien planets. But that exoplanet hunt stalled in mid-May of this year, when the second of Kepler's four orientation-maintaining reaction wheels failed, hobbling the spacecraft.

Since then, the Kepler team has been working on possible fixes for the reaction wheels and plans to try them out out in the coming weeks, officials said. []

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - American engineer Shane Todd committed suicide in Singapore last year, a coroner's inquiry in the city-state concluded on Monday, in a verdict at odds with his family's belief that he was murdered because of his work.

The case had threatened to become an issue between Singapore and the United States as Senator Max Baucus, who represents Todd's home state of Montana, had pressed for more American involvement in the investigation.

The possibility of diplomatic discord appears to have diminished, even though Todd's parents have vowed to push for an investigation at home.

After the verdict, the U.S. embassy in Singapore said: "The inquiry into Dr. Todd's death was comprehensive, fair and transparent". The statement also expressed "heartfelt sympathy" to his family, friends and colleagues.

Todd died of "asphyxia by hanging" and there was "no foul play involved in the deceased's death," said the summary of the findings by District Judge Chay Yuen Fatt, issued after two weeks of testimony by dozens of witnesses in May.

Singapore law requires a coroner's inquiry for deaths that are not a result of illness. Through their lawyer, the Todds said they would issue a statement after they had gone through the 145-page report.

Todd, 31, was found hanging from the bathroom door of his apartment in June 2012, two days after he left his job at Singapore's Institute of Microelectronics (IME). He had been researching an advanced semiconductor material called gallium nitride (GaN) that has commercial and military applications.

Todd's parents believe he was murdered over what they said was his role in a project between state-linked IME and Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd that involved the transfer of sensitive technology to China.

Huawei and Singapore officials have denied the accusations, saying they did not proceed beyond initial discussions into a possible project involving GaN, which can be used in equipment ranging from mobile phone base stations to military radars.

The judge concurred.

"The potential GaN power amplifier project did not even materialize. Even if it did, which I did not find, the listed specifications show it would not have violated general export control laws, nor could it have been used for military applications," he said.

"The deceased was not in possession of confidential and valuable classified information in the course of his employment at the IME."

Huawei has been blocked from some projects in Australia and is deemed a security risk by the U.S. Congress on the grounds that its equipment could be used for spying.

Rick and Mary Todd attended the inquiry for several days before pulling out and leaving Singapore, saying they had lost confidence in the system investigating their son's death.

"What has made us say that we can no longer stay here is the testimony from the beginning, saying they are always only looking at suicide, never murder," Rick Todd told Reuters Television on May 22. "The outcome was pre-determined."

FORENSIC REPORTS BACKED BY U.S. PATHOLOGISTS

During the inquiry, Singapore government lawyers presented forensic reports that showed Todd died by hanging, based on injuries around his neck. Their findings were backed by two U.S. pathologists, who said the manner of death pointed to suicide.

In June, Senior State Counsel Tai Wei Shyong said there was a "conspicuous absence" of any evidence to support the theory that Todd was murdered.

The parents walked out of the hearing after a U.S. medical examiner they had hired retracted a statement that Todd had been garroted and the judge refused their request to delay testimony by another witness so they could go through it.

The Todds' belief that their son was murdered was based on documents on a hard disk drive they said they found in his apartment. Singapore disputes the Todds' account, saying police had returned the hard drive to the family after examining it.

(Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Ron Popeski)

LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists have for the first time created a functional human liver from stem cells derived from skin and blood and say their success points to a future where much-needed livers and other transplant organs could be made in a laboratory.

While it may take another 10 years before lab-grown livers could be used to treat patients, the Japanese scientists say they now have important proof of concept that paves the way for more ambitious organ-growing experiments.

"The promise of an off-the-shelf liver seems much closer than one could hope even a year ago," said Dusko Illic, a stem cell expert at King's College London who was not directly involved in the research but praised its success.

He said however that while the technique looks "very promising" and represents a huge step forward, "there is much unknown and it will take years before it could be applied in regenerative medicine."

Researchers around the world have been studying stem cells from various sources for more than a decade, hoping to capitalize on their ability to transform into a wide variety of other kinds of cell to treat a range of health conditions.

There are two main forms of stem cells - embryonic stem cells, which are harvested from embryos, and reprogrammed "induced pluripotent stem cells" (iPS cells), often taken from skin or blood.

Countries across the world have a critical shortage of donor organs for treating patients with liver, kidney, heart and other organ failure. Scientists are keenly aware of the need to find other ways of obtaining organs for transplant.

The Japanese team, based at the Yokohama City University Graduate School of Medicine in Japan, used iPS cells to make three different cell types that would normally combine in the natural formation of a human liver in a developing embryo - hepatic endoderm cells, mesenchymal stem cells and endothelial cells - and mixed them together to see if they would grow.

They found the cells did grow and began to form three-dimensional structures called "liver buds" - a collection of liver cells with the potential to develop into a full organ.

When they transplanted them into mice, the researchers found the human liver buds matured, the human blood vessels connected to the mouse host's blood vessels and they began to perform many of the functions of mature human liver cells.

"To our knowledge, this is the first report demonstrating the generation of a functional human organ from pluripotent stem cells," the researchers wrote in the journal Nature.

Malcolm Allison, a stem cell expert at Queen Mary University of London, who was not involved in the research, said the study's results offered "the distinct possibility of being able to create mini livers from the skin cells of a patient dying of liver failure" and transplant them to boost the failing organ.

Takanori Takebe, who led the study, told a teleconference he was so encouraged by the success of this work that he plans similar research on other organs such as the pancreas and lungs.

A team of American researchers said in April they had created a rat kidney in a lab that was able to function like a natural one, but their method used a "scaffold" structure from a kidney to build a new organ.

And in May last year, British researchers said they had turned skin cells into beating heart tissue that might one day be able to be used to treat heart failure.

That livers and other organs may one day be made from iPS cells is an "exciting" prospect, said Matthew Smalley of Cardiff University's European Cancer Stem Cell Research Institute.

"(This) study holds out real promise for a viable alternative approach to human organ transplants," he said.

Chris Mason, a regenerative medicine expert at University College London said the greatest impact of iPS cell-liver buds might be in their use in improving drug development.

"Presently to study the metabolism and toxicology of potential new drugs, human cadaveric liver cells are used, " he said. "Unfortunately these are only available in very limited quantities".

The suggestion from this new study is that mice transplanted with human iPS cell-liver buds might be used to test new drugs to see how the human liver would cope with them and whether they might have side-effects such as liver toxicity.

(This story refiles to fix a typo in the name "Yokohama" in the eighth paragraph)

(Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Janet Lawrence)