A recent study has said that suicide rates in the U.S. have shown an increase largely due to an increase in suicides among middle aged white men and women. This increase has come about after a decade long decrease in suicide rates.

The study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine said white people in the age group of 40 to 64 have "recently emerged as a new high-risk group for suicide." White women constituted the largest increase in suicides with a 4 % increase although white men still make up the largest number of people who kill themselves though there rate has increased by 3 %.

Obesity of mother directly affects the child. Previous studies have shown that an overweight mother has a higher chance of giving birth to a plump baby. Obesity increases the risk of many diseases.

The recent study found that slightly undernourished rat pups were healthier adults, while overfed babies were fatter.

A separate UNSW study showed that pups from obese mother rats fed more milk were almost twice as heavy as those born to lean mothers feeding normally.  
 

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the former Libyan intelligence agent, 56, is serving a life sentence with a minimum term of 27 years for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103. This plan crash took lives of 270 people, including all 259 passengers on board and 11 residents of Lockerbie, the Scottish town, where the plane crashed. He was convicted in 2001 since than he is fighting a legal battle to overturn the guilty verdict.

Dr Geoffrey Hackett from the Good Hope Hospital in Birmingham said that erectile dysfunction is not taken seriously despite the fact that erectile dysfunction is the best predictor of cardiovascular risk in men.

ED gives a two to three year early warning of a heart attack. Erectile dysfunction is a symptom of vascular disease in the smaller arteries, doubles the risk of heart disease, a risk equivalent to being a moderate smoker or having an immediate family history of heart disease.

Recent study has shown a better way to diagnose tuberculosis (TB). Traditional methods to test TB sometimes result in showing wrong people in need of treatment of TB whereas people with TB infection are diagnosed healthy. Researchers claim that that new blood test will equip doctors to more accurately pinpoint patients likely to develop the symptoms of tuberculosis.

Traditional testing method involves injecting the subject with components of the TB bacterium; a resultant swelling of the skin can signal dormant tuberculosis.  

The Supreme Court, on Wednesday, rejected a plea for CBI probe into the rape of a nun in Kandhamal district of Orissa. At the same time the Court has asked the Nun to co-operate in Crime Branch enquiry.

A three judge bench headed by Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan also asked the Orissa government to take generous view in re- building churches in the riot-hit Kandhamal.

The bench, consisting of Justice P. Sathasivam and Justice J.M. Panchal, rejected the plea for a CBI probe of Cuttack Archbishop Raphel Cheenath saying that the state police have already arrested nine accused.