Washington, March 27: American scientists have made a significant advance in finding a way to endow human skin cells with embryonic stem cell-like properties without inserting potentially problematic new genes into their DNA.

Washington, March 27: Those who think mineral water is “clean” better think again, for a study in Germany has suggested that plastic mineral water bottles contaminate drinking water with estrogenic chemicals.

Martin Wagner and Jorg Oehlmann, from the Department of Aquatic Ecotoxicology at the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, analysed commercially available mineral waters, and found evidence of estrogenic compounds leaching out of the plastic packaging into the water.

London, Mar 27 : Women who stop smoking early enough in pregnancy can cut the risk of having premature or small babies, says a new study.

The British Medical Journal study suggests that pregnant females who do not quit by 15 weeks, are three times more likely to give birth prematurely and twice as likely to have small babies compared to women who have stopped smoking.

London, Mar 27 : Follow your mum's advice and drink tea five to ten minutes after making, for a new study has found, steaming tea increases the risk of throat cancer.

The British Medical Journal research claims that drinking very hot tea (70 degree Celsius or more) can raise the risk of cancer of the oesophagus, the muscular tube that carries food from the throat to the stomach.

Cancers of the oesophagus kill more than 500,000 people worldwide each year and oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is the commonest type.

Washington, Mar 27 : People who are considered at low or moderate risk of cardiac problems can now use a simple, non-invasive finger sensor test to know their chances of future heart events, such as heart attack or stroke, according to researchers at Mayo Clinic.

EndoPAT, the noninvasive finger test device, developed by Itamar Medical, measures the health of endothelial cells by measuring blood flow.

EndoPAT consists of digital recording equipment and two finger probes that look like large thimbles.

London, Mar 26 : A team of Canadian researchers has found a novel way to stop the most aggressive cancerous tumours from growing and spreading.

They found that simply modifying a natural tumour-inhibiting protein, von Hippel-Lindau, could suppress growth in even the most dense tumours.

A study, conducted on mice, showed that the disease was stopped in its tracks and tumours shrank by 50 per cent.

According to researchers, one day the discovery could be used as a therapy for patients suffering aggressive cancers of the breast, prostate, colon, brain, lungs and kidneys.