Hanoi  - Vietnamese officials Wednesday harshly criticized the US Supreme Court's decision not to hear an appeal of a lawsuit against the American manufacturers of the toxic defoliant Agent Orange that was thrown out by lower courts.

Tran Xuan Thu, head of Vietnam's Association of Victims of Agent Orange, called the decision "nonsensical and incorrect."

Thu's words echoed Tuesday's statement by the official spokesman of Vietnam's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Le Dung, that "the Vietnamese people are completely disgusted" with the US court's decision.

Washington, Mar 4 : Eating a low energy density diet can offset the influence of a gene strongly associated with obesity in children, according to new research from University College London (UCL)

Washington, Mar 4 : Teenagers are likely to respond positively to their parents' advice when it comes to not smoking, says a new study.

The study led by Maria Nilsson of Umea University, Sweden, suggests that parents play a key role in shaping their teenage kids attitudes towards smoking.

Teenagers are more positive today towards their parents'' attempts to discourage them from smoking, regardless of whether or not they smoked, than in the past.

The researchers analysed the data of 1500 adolescents, aged 13, 15 and 17 years old to determine their attitudes towards parental intervention on tobacco use in Sweden and to see if these have changed over time.

Washington, Mar 4 : The next time you raise your glass for a toast, remember this line: two or more alcoholic drinks a day could raise risk of developing pancreatic cancer.

According to a new study, published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, drinking is linked to the risk of pancreatic cancer.

The research pools data collected prospectively from 14 research studies, which included 862,664 individuals (319,716 men and 542,948 women). Data collected prospectively means information about dietary and environmental exposures were collected prior to diagnosis with pancreatic cancer.

Researchers identified 2,187 individuals diagnosed with pancreatic cancer during the study.

Washington, Mar 4: Schizophrenia could be caused by faulty signaling in the brain, claim scientists, who found that 49 genes work differently in the brains of patients with the condition.

Many of these genes are involved in controlling cell-to-cell signalling in the brain, the Molecular Psychiatry study said.

The study, which was carried out by researchers at Imperial College London and GlaxoSmithKline, supports the theory that abnormalities in the way in which cells ''talk'' to each other are involved in the disease.

They can detect the virus only if it has been in the blood for 2 weeks

Beware! The blood you just bought from the bank could be infected with the dreaded Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV).

Blood banks in Rajasthan do not have the facilities to detect the presence of HIV that has just entered the donor’s blood. The banks can detect the virus only after it has been in the blood for more than two weeks.