Melbourne, Australia  - A massage in his hotel room was the only celebration that Rafael Nadal allowed himself after winning his first edition of the Australian Open.

Exhaustion after a match that lasted over four hours Sunday did not encourage much more, and anyway the world number one does not want to relax when the season has only just started.

"The goal is to think about what lies ahead - Rotterdam. There is no margin for relaxation here," Nadal told a small group of reporters Monday in Melbourne.

After midnight, he beat Roger Federer 7-5, 3-6, 7-6 (7-3), 3-6, 6- 2 to win the Australian Open.

Melbourne  - Spanish tennis star Rafael Nadal on Monday stood up for US swimmer Michael Phelps, who apologized after being photographed with a pipe usually used for marijuana consumption.

"It does not portray the best possible image, but everyone can have a slip-up. In the end sportsmen are just not machines," tennis world number one Nadal said. "Everyone is free to do whatever they want."

Melbourne, February 2 : A leading public health group has advised Australians to have less red meat and dairy for their own good and that of the environment as well.

According to the Public Health Association of Australia, a more integrated approach was required towards dietary guidelines, in place of sole concentration on nutrients.

The Association''s Chief, Michael Moore suggested cutting down on red meat and dairy products to help reduce carbon emissions

"A small reduction in eating red meat and dairy would be a positive step for the environment and generally a positive step for health," News. com. au quoted him as saying.

Melbourne, February 2 : Goodness may go unrewarded, and recession is to blame. Such was the case with an Australian couple who were given the pink slip only weeks after saving the life of one of their bosses.

Sharon and David Hegyi, who have worked on Tipperary Station for seven years, were shocked to learn that they were being fired due to "down-sizing", especially when the mum-of-five had saved Station finance manager David Breed after he suffered a heart attack.

Sharon, a registered nurse, had rushed to help her suffering chief, giving him medication, hooking him up to oxygen and calling an ambulance.

Melbourne, Feb 2 : Making a stem cell breakthrough, Aussie scientists have produced the country's first human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell line - basically a cell that acts like an embryonic stem cell but instead was made from an adult skin cell.

The new technique by a Victorian and NSW team of researchers, could help in the understanding of crippling illnesses such as Parkinson''s Disease, without raising any ethical problems regarding the use of stem cells taken from human embryos.

According to Dr Paul Verma, Program Leader for Stem Cell Biology at the Monash Institute of Medical Research, Australian institutes had to earlier import iPS stem cell lines from the United States or Japan.

Melbourne, Feb 02 : Schools should allow the use of mobile phones in classes, says an Australian researcher.

University of Tasmania researcher Martin Beattie said that school rules to stop students text messaging have little effect so teachers should embrace the technology instead of trying to ban it.

Over 90 per cent of high school students surveyed used their mobile phones at school.