Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia has imposed an indefinite ban on chicken imports from China following the deaths of five people from the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus this year, news reports said Wednesday.

The ban, which has been in place since January 16, would only be lifted once China has been cleared of avian influenza by the World Health Organization, said Malaysian Veterinary Services Department director-general Abdul Aziz Jamaluddin.

London, Jan 27 : Think twice before choosing a window seat on the plane, for a new study has found that the view chair increases the chance of deep vein thrombosis.

According to researchers, those sitting by the window face double the risk of a potentially deadly blood clot.

The dangers are even greater for obese passengers, who are six times more likely to develop a blockage than if they sit next to the aisle, reports the Telegraph.

Stockholm - Drinking moderate amounts of coffee may protect people from dementia in later life, according to a study by Finnish and Swedish researchers.

Coffee drinkers ran a lower risk of dementia in middle age and Alzheimer's disease later in life compared to those who drank little or no coffee.

The researchers at the University of Kuopio, Finland, and Karolinska Institutet of Stockholm, Sweden, studied 1,409 individuals aged 65 to 79 who were members of a group surveyed in 1972, 1977, 1982 or 1987 and who completed a re-examination in 1998.

Hamburg - Sensitivity to light, a steady decline in eyesight or blurred vision can all indicate the formation of a cataract.

Cataracts, a thickening of the eye's lens, impairs vision and can occur at any stage of a person's life, though they are more common among the elderly.

Bonn, Germany - Retirement once meant imminent death in many cases. People stopped working at age 65 and some dropped dead a few months later.

"This was a much greater problem in former times," remarked Uwe Kleinemas, director of the Centre for the Cultures of Ageing at the University of Bonn. Thanks to improved working conditions, people today were no longer so physically exhausted at the end of their working lives.

Kleinemas noted a wholly different problem faced by many older people, however: "They want to continue working but are not permitted to do so." This, too, can be hazardous to health.

Durham, England - A study conducted on 200 university students has linked high caffeine consumption to a higher tendency to hallucinate.

The study, carried out at Durham University in England and reported in a German magazine for physicians, asked students to outline the amount of coffee, tea, caffeine tablets and energy drinks consumed. Their stress levels and tendency to hallucinate were then recorded.