Day: July 14, 2024

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Inaugural Dubai Premier Padel P1 to be held in November


DUBAI: Dubai Premier Padel P1, part of the newly unified 25-tournament season spanning 18 countries across five continents, is set to be held under the patronage of H.H. Sheikh Mansoor bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Chairman of Dubai Sports Council,

The event will be held at Dubai Duty Free Tennis Stadium and feature the world’s best players. Organised by Gallop Global, the event will feature 256 players in separate formats for male and female pairs. The accumulated prize pool for both categories is 470,000 euros (AED 1.89 million).

Dubai Premier Padel P1 is coming to Dubai for the first time, following a multi-year hosting agreement between the UAE Padel Association (UAEPA), the Department of Economy and Tourism (DET), Dubai Sports Council (DSC), Premier Padel, and Dubai-based Gallop Global.

Sheikh Saeed bin Maktoum bin Juma Al Maktoum, UAEPA President, said, ‘The support of the inaugural Dubai Premier Padel P1 from His Highness Sheikh Mansoor will be a significant motivating factor in organising mor
e events in the country. Since the sport’s formal introduction to the UAE in 2013, the UAE leadership has supported various padel events, as well as other events that followed in subsequent years.’

Saeed Mohammed Hareb, Secretary-General of the Dubai Sports Council, added, ‘We have witnessed tremendous development and growth of padel in the UAE in general, and Dubai in particular, in terms of the number of practitioners and courts, as well as the organisation of international tournaments, attracting top-ranked players in the world. This reflects the hard work of the UAE Padel Federation, headed by Sheikh Saeed bin Maktoum bin Juma Al Maktoum, UAEPA President, and showcases the efforts to spread padel culture and the numerous benefits of playing the sport.’

Source: Emirates News Agency

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Korea’s average export price of cars hits record high in H1


SEOUL: The average price of Republic of Korean automobiles shipped overseas hit a new record high in the first half of 2024, data showed Sunday, following the growing demand for premium models, Yonhap News Agency reported.

According to data compiled by the Korea Automobile and Mobility Association, the average price of car exports reached US$25,224 over the January-June period, up 0.5 percent from $25,079 recorded a year earlier.

The increase came amid growing demand for eco-friendly models, as well as SUVs and commercial cars, which typically come with higher price tags.

The combined value of automobile exports, meanwhile, reached $37 billion in the first half of this year, up 3.9 percent over the period.

South Korea’s exports of hybrid cars rose 19.5 percent on-year in the first half, with those of commercial vehicles also increasing by 6 percent, according to separate data compiled by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.

Source: Emirates News Agency

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Brain-imaging study reveals curiosity as it emerges


WASHINGTON: A research team based at Columbia’s Zuckerman Institute has for the first time witnessed what is happening in the human brain when feelings of curiosity like this arise.

In a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience, the scientists revealed brain areas that appear to assess the degree of uncertainty in visually ambiguous situations, giving rise to subjective feelings of curiosity.

Curiosity has deep biological origins,” said corresponding author Jacqueline Gottlieb, PhD, a principal investigator at the Zuckerman Institute. The primary evolutionary benefit of curiosity, she added, is to encourage living things to explore their world in ways that help them survive.

“What distinguishes human curiosity is that it drives us to explore much more broadly than other animals, and often just because we want to find things out, not because we are seeking a material reward or survival benefit,” said Dr. Gottlieb, who is also a professor of neuroscience at Columbia’s Vagelos College of Physicians and
Surgeons. “This leads to a lot of our creativity.”

In the study, researchers employed a noninvasive, widely used technology to measure changes in the blood-oxygen levels in the brains of 32 volunteers. Called functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, the technology enabled the scientists to record how much oxygen different parts of the subjects’ brains consumed as they viewed images. The more oxygen a brain region consumes, the more active it is.

To unveil those brain areas involved in curiosity, the research team presented participants with special images known as texforms. These are images of objects, such as a walrus, frog, tank or hat, that have been distorted to various degrees to make them more or less difficult to recognize.

The researchers asked participants to rate their confidence and curiosity about each texform, and found that the two ratings were inversely related. The more confident subjects were that they knew what the texform depicts, the less curious they were about it. Conversely, t
he less confident subjects were that they could guess what the texform was, the more curious they were about it.

Source: Emirates News Agency