London, Apr 3: Bribing your child with a chocolate bar to finish his or her maths homework is an excellent idea, according to researchers who claim that the yummy treat could improve the brain''s ability to do the most “dreadful” subject.

According to Prof David Kennedy, director of the brain, performance and nutrition research centre at Northumbria University, and a co-author of the study, chocolate could be beneficial for mentally challenging tasks.

London, Apr: Too much grapefruit can swell the risk of blood clots from the Pill, it has been claimed.

American doctors have reported that a woman who went on an intense grapefruit-based diet developed a blood clot in her leg and risked losing the limb.

The case, reported in the Lancet medical journal, said that the unnamed woman came to the casualty department of the Providence St Peter Hospital in Olympia, Washington state after she had problems walking, shortness of breath and felt light-headed, The BBC reported.

By the next day her left leg had turned purple.

Beijing  - Ministers from 27 nations have backed a 15-billion-dollar plan to provide universal access to diagnosis and treatment of multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) by 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Friday.

The ministers agreed to remove barriers to TB care, guarantee supplies of medicines, and develop full management and training systems for treatment of MDR-TB and extremely drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB), the WHO said in a statement.

Washington, April 3 : In what may eventually hold great significance for patients who have suffered myocardial damage as a result of a heart attack, a study has shown that cells in a human heart can develop into adulthood and their age is, on average, six years younger than the individual.

Scientists from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Karolinska Institute, Universite Claude Bernard Lyon, Lund University, and Lund University Hospital made these findings by using the amount of carbon 14 in the atmosphere from above-ground nuclear testing in the 1950s and 1960.

Washington, Apr 3: Snoozing does more than help us recover from tensions and weariness - it helps the brain clear clutter accumulated after a long day''s work and make way for new learning.

Shutting down during the night helps the body to produce new synapses which connect brain cells.

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis believe if synapses are not renewed they become saturated with knowledge which stops people absorbing new information.

Hong Kong - One form of fatal strokes is more likely to affect people in winter than the summer, a team of Hong Kong medical experts said Friday.

Neurologists found a far higher incidence of strokes caused by aneurismal subarachnoid haemorrhage, a rupture that leads to blood filling the space surrounding the brain, in winter when temperatures are lower and atmospheric pressure higher.