That's news to me

A University of Geneva team looked at studies of 4,800 adults and found 30% of those who had used NRT were smoking again a year or more after quitting. [...] Previous research has suggested smokers are twice as likely to quit smoking by using NRT rather than willpower alone, and four times as likely if they combine it with support from the NHS Stop Smoking Services.

The Science Select Committee said the present system was based on historical assumptions, not scientific assessment. [...] "What we've had is a huge societal change over that period and what we've seen is that putting a drug into Class A does not stop people using it at all."

A US team has discovered a new class of receptors used by mice to detect pheromones, the sex hormones released by a potential mate. The gene for the receptors is also found in humans, suggesting that they too may be influenced by chemicals used in the dating game.

Someone in the company's marketing department probably got a big raise for coming up with the excuse to tell the world they are charging to offset download costs. [...] Leave it to Microsoft to try this while other companies like Google offer 2.7 GB of space free of charge to its Gmail subscribers.

"We have enabled the immune system to recognize a molecule that it ordinarily won't recognize," explained study author Kim D. Janda, a professor of chemistry at Scripps. The immune system thus produced antibodies that bound to and deactivated ghrelin, just as vaccines against diseases caused by bacteria or viruses bind to and inactivate them.

It's "unit bias," the tendency to think that a single unit of food _ a bottle, a can, a plateful, or some more subtle measure _ is the right amount to eat or drink, researchers propose. "Whatever size a banana is, that's what you eat, a small banana or a big banana," says Andrew Geier of the University of Pennsylvania. And "whatever's served on your plate, it just seems locked in our heads: that's a meal."

Some combinations of genes resulted in viruses that were able to reproduce well but still could not be easily transmitted between animals. In other cases the mixed viruses had little ability to reproduce or transmit. [...] “Let’s not use the word reassuring,” Dr. Julie Gerberding said at a briefing on the study. “This virus is still out there, it’s still evolving.”

Several tries at making the computer understand the simple salutation “Dear Mom” was read by Microsoft software as “Dear Aunt, let’s set so double the killer delete select all.” Attempts to correct or undo or delete the error only deepened the mess.

South Africa is already a global leader in the field of astronomy. It is home to the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT), which can probe deep into space. But its space agency will not be the first on the continent. It was beaten in this "space race" by Nigeria, which launched its own space agency five years ago in a bid to develop satellite technology and identify areas for mining.

The FSF and the Software Freedom Law Center released the second discussion draft of the GNU GPL version 3 last week. [...] Torvalds said the license is evolving in a way that pushes a moral agenda instead of encouraging cooperation to create the best products in a way that most participants will perceive as fair.

Icing down your watermelon at the picnic or storing it in the freezer appears to reduce the nutritional benefits of the fruit. Watermelons stored and served at room temperature optimize the amount of lycopene and other antioxidants.