London, Nov 5 : A new study challenges claims made by previous researches that video games help boost memory power and multitasking ability.

The research team led by researchers from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign showed that playing video games doesn’t improve cognitive skills.

They found no improvement in memory skills or the ability to multitask after kids spent more than 20 hours on one of three video games.

The researchers claim that while a few hours playing an action game could improve concentration, but its not enough for other cognitive skills.

New York, Nov 5: Hugh Hefner’s former No1 girlfriend Holly Madison has taken a ‘jibe’ at the Playboy mogul, saying that she hasn’t had sex in a long time.

In an interview with In Touch magazine, Madison made a not-so-subtle attack at the octogenarian tycoon.

"I haven''t had sex in a really long time. And that''s the honest truth," she said.

Madison is quite excited about dating new men, the only condition being— they shouldn’t be like her ex-beau— ‘high maintenance’.

"It might be refreshing to date someone who is not high maintenance," The New York Daily News quoted Holly Madison as telling in an interview to Extra.

Union IT and Communications Minister, A. Raja announced that under the rural broadband project by 2012, all Gram Panchayats, Government High Secondary Schools and Public Health Centres will be provided broadband connectivity.

Speaking at the National Round Table Conference on ‘Telecom Sector in Education Development’, the minister said that funds from USO are being extensively deployed to increase broadband connectivity at each block and village level.

New York, Nov 5 : The US media have pinned hopes from the new President Barack Obama, saying he won the poll simply because he was the better of the two candidates, which was proved by his life full of struggle and perseverance.

The papers talked about issues which the present incumbent George Bush couldn’t resolve or neglected altogether.

London, Nov 5 : An original drawing of favourite AA Milne character Winnie the Pooh, featuring Tigger and Piglet, has fetched 31,200 pounds at an auction.

The oval pencil sketch by E. H. Shepard, one of children''s literature''s most famous illustrators, shows Pooh dipping his paw into a pot of honey while sitting at a table as Piglet and Tigger look on, reports Times Online.

Auctioneer Bonhams said the successful telephone bidder was from Germany and bought the picture for his wife, a long-time Pooh fan.

Another work by Shepard, a first sketch for The Wind in the Willows, sold for 7,440pounds.

Washington, Nov 5: A daily dose of an investigational drug, known as MK-677, which stimulates growth hormone secretion in the body can boost muscle mass in older adults, report researchers at the University of Virginia Health System.

The discovery may prove safe and effective in reducing age-related frailty.

Published in the November 4, 2008 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine, the study showed that levels of growth hormone (GH) and of insulin-like growth factor I (IGF- I) in seniors who took MK-677 increased to those found in healthy young adults.

The drug restored 20 percent of muscle mass loss associated with normal aging.