Health and Beauty

Visitors to Munich's world-famous Oktoberfest beer festival will soon be in for a nasty surprise if they decide to spark up a smoke to go with that ale starting next year, they could face a hefty fine.
The city's fun-loving residents have voted in favor of a draconian new smoking ban that applies throughout the south German state of Bavaria. And the move has prompted calls for a new blanket ban on smoking across the whole of the country.

ScienceDaily (July 7, 2010) The concept of pregnancy makes no sense -- at least not from an immunological point of view. After all, a fetus, carrying half of its father's genome, is biologically distinct from its mother.
The fetus is thus made of cells and tissues that are very much not "self" -- and not-self is precisely what the immune system is meant to search out and destroy.

President Bill Clinton's stamina kept him so keyed up as he travelled around the world recently that it seemed hard to keep up with him, or figure out where we would see him next.

Clinton seemed to blame his recent heart troubles -- he was fitted with stents to reopen a clogged artery on a lack of sleep.

Co-hosted by Professor Robert Winston and Dr Tanya Byron, this interactive special invites you to take part in a range of experiments to test your memory and receive practical help on how to improve it.

Longleat House in Wiltshire is transformed into 'Memory Manor', a laboratory to explore how our brains work, what memory skills we're born with and which parts of our memory we can improve on.

Stretch your memory with fun challenges designed by experts. Your answers will help University of Edinburgh experimental psychologists with their research.

Most people will not be able to get everything right. People with normal memories can have low scores.

Duration: about 20 minutes

You have an allergy when your body overreacts to things that don't cause problems for most people.
These things are called allergens. Your body's overreaction to the allergens is what causes symptoms (see the box below for a list of symptoms). For example, sometimes the term "hay fever" is used to describe your body's allergic reaction to seasonal allergens in the air, such as grass or pollen.
Keeping a record of your allergy symptoms over a period of time can help you and your doctor identify which allergens cause you to overreact.

Women who drink during pregnancy may be damaging the future fertility of their sons, research suggests.

In a study of almost 350 young men, sperm levels were a third lower in those whose mothers had drunk more than four drinks a week during pregnancy compared with teetotallers.

A blood test during pregnancy could one day replace more invasive tests for Down's syndrome, say researchers.

High-risk women are currently offered an amniocentesis test, which carries a risk of miscarriage.

But Dutch researchers told a fertility conference they are on the verge of developing an accurate way of testing the mother's blood for chromosome disorders in the foetus.

Belly fat, the bulge that peeks over the top of the pants, manifests itself into heavy midsection rolls or becomes lovingly referred to as a beer belly, becomes more difficult to battle as you age. It is estimated that 50 percent of adult Americans carry unhealthy supplies of fat around their middle.
Some are more predisposed to weight gain in the abdomen, which makes it twice as difficult to keep it at bay. But that extra weight attaché front and center can have dire consequences.