In a new study, scientists have shown how the tropics have widened due to human environmental effects.

Previous studies have shown that the width of the tropical belt has been increasing since at least the late 1970s, based on a variety of indicators.

Jian Lu, and his team at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, US, use one such indicator to show that the observed widening of the tropics can be accurately replicated by an atmospheric general circulation model forced by the observed evolution since 1958 of global sea surface temperatures and sea ice distributions along with the direct radiative effects from natural and human-generated sources.

Mystery man Bailout Bill, who recently started doling out cash to New Yorkers for telling tales of their financial woes on camera, is seeing more and more people coming to him for help.

He is handing out stacks of cash to people as part of a publicity stunt for a new video classifieds site called BailoutBooth. com.

Sitting in a booth, he listened to stories of economic hardship, one after another, recording each one with a video camera.

There were grandmothers without health insurance, unemployed truckers, scores of homeless folks and destitute mothers with their children.

Researchers at Northwestern University have developed two compounds that may be effective in protecting against cerebral palsy, a condition caused by neurodegeneration that affects body movement and muscle coordination.

"The results were just stunning, absolutely amazing. There was a remarkable difference between animals treated with a small dose of one of our compounds and those that were not," said Richard B. Silverman, John Evans Professor of Chemistry in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern, who led the drug development effort.

American pop singer Paula Abdul has insisted that adding a fourth judge on U. S. reality TV show American Idol has slowed down the show.

Abdul hit out at producers of the show after Kara DioGuardi joined her, Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson on the judging panel last month for the eighth season of the hit series.

It was recently suggested that there was a feud going on after DioGuardi joined, but Abdul has denied it and revealed that they are actually old pals.

Jennifer Siebel Newsom, wife of Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco, has created headlines with her raunchy threesome sex scene.

The First Lady had made the indie flick 'The Trouble With Love' before she met her husband, and now it has landed in the hands of Warner Bros. for an "on demand" and limited theatre release on February 27.

"It is going to cause quite a stir as people aren't used to seeing a political figure like this," Fox News quoted director Gene Rhee as saying.

Washington, Feb. 26 : A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that three out of every five Americans' continue to suffer from financial insecurity and believe that the economic crisis is going to take a turn for the worse.

Two-thirds of those polled said they've cut back on their spending, including nearly a third who have pulled back "sharply."

Americans across income groups said they are opening their wallets less often these days, with those with lower family incomes more likely to say they've sharply slashed their spending.