Washington, Oct 22 : A research team, involving an Indian origin scientist, has developed a new self-assembling hydrogel drug delivery system that can ill not only deliver clinically approved drugs in high concentrations, but also do away with any toxic residue in the process.

Developed by scientists from Harvard-MIT Division of Health Science and Technology (HST) at Brigham and Women''s Hospital, the system is biocompatible, efficient at drug release, and is also easy to tailor.

The structures will do way with carriers for the drug or generating toxic components—a problem encountered with hydrogel systems until now.

New York, Oct 22 : Many would pass the purple flower that sprouted between two concrete slabs in a Queens backyard as another unwanted weed, but Jamaican resident Sam Lal thinks that the plant resembling Lord Ganesh holds holy powers.

He claims that the growth of unusual amaranth plant has cured his back ailments.

The plant, which is not native to the area, has a trunk that resembles the elephant-headed god.

And now Lal, a Hindu by religion, is seeing an inundation of neighbours and friends to have a glimpse of the almost four-foot-tall flower that started growing in August.

Lal, 60, claimed that it was the flower that relieved him of the pain due to a bone spur near his spine and bulging discs in his neck.

Washington, Oct 22 : Boys with a history of childhood physical or sexual abuse are four times more likely to use sexually coercive behaviour against an unwilling female partner in later life, according to a new study.

The study led by Erin Casey, a University of Washington Tacoma assistant professor of social work, has found that victims of childhood abuse are at an increased risk of indulging in sexually coercive behaviour as adolescent or young adult.

"Although there can be physical force involved in sexual coercion, it more often involves such tactics as pressure, persuasion, insistence, manipulation and lying to have sex with an unwilling female partner," said Casey.

Reno (Nevada, US), Oct.

A new survey reveals that the people of US become obsessed with their carbon footprints. Their extreme environmental awareness may create a generation of “carborexics”, warns Psychiatrists in US.

According to a new survey 7% of Americans qualify as ‘dark green’ and become hard core recyclers. The New York Times report describe their lifestyles that might considered as ‘carborexic’.

Washington, Oct 22 : A new research has explored the possibilities of how enzymes produced by both termites and the micro-organisms that inhabit their gut could help to produce biofuel from non-edible plant material such as straw and wood.

Michael Scharf, an assistant professor of entomology at the University of Florida, Gainesville, and his colleague Aurelien Tartar undertook the research.

“Through millions and millions of years of evolution, termites and their symbionts have acquired highly specialised enzymes that work together to efficiently convert wood and other plant materials into simple sugars,” said Scharf.

“These enzymes are of the most value to bioethanol production,” he added.