Is Sildenafil citrate, or Viagra as it is popularly known, the new aphrodisiac? Well, if the researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are to be believed, then, it is definitely so!

According to this study Viagra not only increases the blood flow to the sexual organs, it also helps the pituitary gland to produce more oxytocin. This “love hormone” or “cuddle hormone” as oxytocin is also known as, plays a very significant role in social relationships and reproduction. Do you know the hormone oxytocin is also released during orgasm?

Another study conducted by the researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) confirms that oxytocin is responsible for the maintaining healthy psychological boundaries and interpersonal relationships.

Rebecca Turner, PhD, UCSF said,

our results provide the groundwork for further studies looking at the way hormones may be affecting human attachment. We know that oxytocin is one of the hormones that can facilitate bonding in other animals, but this is the first step in exploring whether it plays a role in the emotional behavior of humans.

Isn’t this great news? Not only do these little magical blue pills (Viagra) help to treat impotence in males, it also acts as an agent to increase the sexual desire!

So, ladies now you know what to do if you want to spice up your love life! Instead of dishing up an oyster delicacy for your man, now, all you would need to do is to go buy some Viagra pills and gift it to him!

LG’s Smartphone arena seems to be augmenting day by day for good. Another 3G smartphone by LG, ‘KS20’, is on the verge of its debut at IFA 2007. This magnificent mobile gizmo is just 12.8mm thick and sports a 2.8-inch all-touch-screen display.

With its special dedicated software for browsing, one can leaf through the web with an ease. It comes with best features in the industry running ‘Windows Mobile 6.0’ and offering the highly efficient HSDPA network, 3.6Mbps of download speed, push email service, 2Megapixel camera, mp3 playback, Bluetooth 2.0, cursive script recognition and video calling functionality. LG would launch it in the last quarter of 2007 in Europe.

We all have heard about Spiderman since we were kids. Read about him in comic stories, watched movies and still wondered if it beith some fantasy or reality. For sure many of us when asked in our kinder days, what would you like to become when you grow up? Instantly, the answer would be Spiderman as he could do all kinda crazy stuff from climbing a vertical wall to spinning webs. My fantasy is about to turn into a reality soon and it won’t be far off when kids will have my name whenever in trouble. Wow, I’ll be a hero, and so can be you!

Thought’s breeding ground

Italian scientists have come up with an idea to design a suit based on the Spiderman concept wherein people could climb vertical walls just like spiders, insects, lizards and geckos. Previous research concluded that van der Waals forces – the weak attraction that molecules have for each other when they are brought very close together - are responsible for spiders’ amazing sticking power. It is the tiny hairs on spiders’ feet that attract to the molecules of surfaces, even smooth glass, and keep them steady.

Professor Nicola Pugno’s view

An engineer and physicist at Polytechnic of Turin, Italy, has formulated how adhesive forces can be strong enough to suspend a person’s full body weight against a wall or on a ceiling, while also being easy to detach!

Disadvantages

• Man’s muscles are different to those of a gecko. We would suffer great muscle fatigue if we try to stick to a wall for many hours.
• Size-effects on the adhesion strength, so adhesion strength would vary from person to person.
• Risk factor plays a vital role(boom to the insurance industry)
• Thieves turning into billionaires and law and order hitch.

Every innovation has its pros and cons and unlike others this to me seems no different. When one hears about such an innovation it always looks appealing but to accept and make it a part of our day-to-day activity is really worth giving a thought!

Mempile has joined the warriors indulged in the war of formats, which appeared to have reached the heights with Blu-ray and Mempile HD DVD’s 50 GB capacity and hopes get a leading position in next three years.

What’s so special? I won’t say much, but just think about a 1TB disc which will store for you about 212 DVD quality movies, 250,000 MP3 files, and 1,000,000 large Word documents for 50 years of life span.

Wow! Not a difficult task at all as prototypes with 800 GB storage capacity has already paved the way for this technology, which uses 200 layers of 5GB to create disc completely transparent to red-lasers. However, warriors are not going to relax and will fight to achieve the target of 5TB once 1TB hits the market.

Finally, South Korea based Hynix Semiconductor Inc. has launched the industry’s smallest 1 gigabyte mobile DRAM to use in mobile phones. The first commercially available 1 gigabyte DRAM memory is based on company’s 66 nm process technology.

Hynix’s Mobile DRAMs are designed to fulfill the memory requirements of feature rich portable applications, which demands high memory density, high throughput and very low power dissipation features in a small form factor package. The 1GB Mobile DRAM operates at a maximum clock speed of 200 MHz, which offers data troughput of up to 1.6 GBps with a 32-bit I/O.

Hynix’s Mobile DRAMs works under in worst conditions and consumes very low power. It also extends battery life in wide range of portable electronic devices. The 1 Gb Mobile DRAM is ‘One Chip Solution’ from Hynix, which combines SDRAM/DDR DRAM interfaces, and x16/x32 organizations on a single chip to provide the flexibility to meet with the specific needs of the customer.

The company is planning to start the mass production in the first quarter of 2008. The product would be available as ‘NAND flash Multi-Chip Package (NAND MCP)’, which combines DRAM and NAND flash in a single package. Now days Mobile DRAM is widely used in wireless and handheld devices like mobile phones, digital still and video cameras, PDAs, PMPs and GPS navigation systems.

Here is some good news for the iPhone users. They can now enjoy Skype service from their handsets. Germany-based software giant, Shape Services has just launched a new web application called ‘IM+ Skype’ that enables iPhone users to make Skype calls and send Skype messaging using Apple Safari browser.

The IM+ Skype application works in any network without WiFi. The iPhone users can access the IM+ Skype iPhone version by registering at skypeforiphone.com.

They can make free Skype to Skype calls and low cost PSTN calls to mobiles and landlines using SkypeOut credits.

The Shape Service IM+ application is also available for other smartphones including Windows Mobile, Blackberry devices, Palm, J2ME devices and Symbian phones.

The Shape Service IM+ enabled mobile devices can connect to MSN Live Messenger, AIM, Yahoo Messenger, Jabber, ICQ, Google Talk and Oracle IM.

Does Enceladus, the icy moon of the planet Saturn harbor life? Researchers at the University of Illinois are trying to zero-in to the possibilities by developing a new model cuing from the Cassini spacecraft orbiting the planet.

The spacecraft has spotted Enceladus’ South Polar Region with not just fractures and ridges, but also elaborate arrangements of intense heat radiation and geyser-like plumes, erupting from vents located in large fractures – ‘tiger stripes’ – and cutting across the pole. The plumes are found to consist of ice crystals and gases – like methane, nitrogen and carbon dioxide.

One of what rejects all possibilities of life in the icy-moon are the plumes’ having a discharge rate similar to the ‘Old Faithful geyser’ in the Yellowstone National Park. Thus, it has been dubbed as ‘Cold Faithful’ — an alternate model designed last year was named ‘Frigid Faithful.’

Holding a Charles R. Walgreen Jr. Chair at Illinois Kieffer, said

Perhaps more important, the plumes of Frigid Faithful could remain active far below the freezing point of water, under the frigid conditions that might be surmised inside a tiny, icy moon.

With the Enceladus unlikely to possess liquid water, it goes without much effort to conclude, that life in the moon is also unlikely.

After the Cassini has measured the surface temperature’s possibility of being as many as 150 degrees below the freezing point of water.

Teen choice award is always a big event and no doubt; we wait for it to look for some celebrity style statements. But when good exists, the bad exists too and so when we have some cool celebrity styles, at the same time we see terrible fashion statements too. Moreover, we can’t ignore criticizing celebrities for their fashion sense; I must admit that it is the coolest job in the world. Thus, here I have a list of celebrities that were dressed to their best but the worst as per me.

Personally, I like Kelly Clarkson but she made it here in this list because we don’t like celebs copying styles and Kelly did just that. The dress by BDBG Max Azria Fall 2007 was worn just a few days before by Ashley Tisdale for the ‘High School Musical 2′ Premiere. Also, no wonders the dress doesn’t suit Kelly’s personality at all.

I hated this dress. It is so very kiddish and what the hell is Miley Cyrus doing in it? Look at the print and the sequined glamour it overcasts. One of the worst dresses I have ever seen on the red carpet. Moreover, the way Cyrus is posing it looks she is really uncomfortable in it.

I know red is a color that is hot in itself but going this plain for a red carpet looks weird. I don’t understand why Aimee Teegarden, instead of being so pretty sticks to such clothes only. Her wardrobe indeed needs a change and also a changed stylist would do better justice to her pretty face.

I hate myself to feature Avril here but I guess she needs this. I am literally a fan of her cool style but don’t you think that she has done enough with those tartan prints! No wonder the outfit looks cool but I am bored of the same old prints, Avril.

Jordin Sparks might have thought to be in the trend with the color purple, but sorry, as it doesn’t suit her at all. Other than that, the silver pumps don’t work at all, with the colors of the dress.

Fergie, O! Fergie…she has the coolest abs, the finest of figures and an awesome dressing sense. However, it seems like she was in no mood to dress up for the function and such ideas can’t be ignored. I know polka dots are in but the attire doesn’t work for her at all.

The pic above made me laugh and laugh. Well, it can amuse anyone. America Ferrera is one celeb that from head to toe deserves to be here. I am running out of words to describe her dressing (non)sense.

Sculpture can be visually appealing in a number of ways, particularly when created from the hands of Lawrence Northey. He has created the most entertaining collection of robotic sculptures.

Northey has rightly been awarded the esteemed Spectrum & chelsey Awards in the field of best Three-Dimensional Art. Some of the pieces are evidently out for sale.

One piece worth mentioning is the robotic lamp designed by him, which is a limited edition item, made only on order. Each piece carries a price tag of $3000.

The lamp is shaped in polyester resin, which is a form of thermosetting plastic, with painted legs and arms made of aluminium. The space helmet is made of glass, whereas the inner helmet and raygun are lit with enduring LEDs. Its base is lit with two, 5W fluorescent lamps.

Wrong end of the snake or wrong end of the stick? The US (in particular) and the West (in general) has been waging out two most vital wars of the age, the ‘war on terror’ and the ‘war on drugs,’ but at different fronts and levels for almost a decade now. Unfortunately, both the wars don’t seem to dissolve and perhaps will continue to push the world further into the dark future, posing serious threats to the development and existence of life worldwide.

The disappointment at both the wars is more or less connected to each other. Failure of ‘war on drugs’ is largely responsible for the disappointment in the ‘war on terror,’ as the illegal drugs trade persist with its support to the Islamic insurgents, endangering the lives of millions of innocent civilians, together with military troops, in volatile Afghanistan.

In spite of billions of dollars of aid to cut the opium trade and the presence of international troops, opium production in Afghanistan has doubled in past two years, reaching a new high this year. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has come up with some staggering facts in its latest annual opium report that tells the tail of the failure of the ‘war on drugs.’

• The area planted with opium poppies in Afghanistan has risen to 193,000 hectares from 165,000 last year, a 17 per cent rise.
• With the number of heroin labs increasing, opium production jumped 34 per cent this year compared with last year in the nation.
• The report estimates the total opium harvest for the year at 8,200 tones, up from 6,100 tones last year.
• Afghanistan accounts for 93 per cent of the global opiates market.
• The southern province of Helmand (in Afghanistan) has become the world’s biggest source of illegitimate drugs, exceeding the output of entire nations.

What is driving farmers to flout the government’s ban and cultivate poppy?

One of the major reasons for soaring production of the illegal crop is indifferent attitude of the NATO umbrella that has by now shown little interest to hold back the illegal growers as well as traders of poppy in the region.

Moreover, the government has largely failed to provide employment or economic protraction to the poor workers and farmers who ultimately are left with no other option than to indulge in opium cultivation and trade, the major source of the livelihood for the larger sect of farmers and laborers across the nation.

High price or good returns for opium is another factor that easily outstrips any other agricultural product and attracts more farmers and workers into the black trade. In addition, corrupt officials in President Hamid Karzai’s government also play their part in flourishing the illegal but productive business.

The opium traders finance the Taliban and al-Qaeda insurgency, getting bigger day by day, for protecting their convoys smuggling opium into neighboring countries. The mutual growth of drugs and terrorism (narco-terrorism) has already killed thousands of innocent people and dispersed millions out of their homeland.

However, all isn’t hunky-dory with the opium trade in Afghanistan, as the UN report did note some positive development as well. While the opium boom has taken place in the troubled Helmand province in the Southern Afghanistan, which also is a stronghold of Taliban and al-Qaeda, on the other hand, the drugs trade in Northern provinces has marked a significant decline.

Problems cannot be resolved unless they are first understood. And it just looks that the Bush-Blair band has by and large failed to reach the root cause of the problem and tried to battle it senselessly at the shallow surface. They completely botched to address the relation between the two ‘wars’ and find an extensive strategy to resolve the problem.

Nevertheless, this is an alarming situation not just for the regional governments but the world community, as the production of poppy in Afghanistan directly or indirectly supports the terrorism and drugs trade (major threats for stability and peace) worldwide. Since it is almost impossible to battle the two vices at different scattered, such evils should be nipped in the bud. Furthermore, there should be some other work opportunities or economic backing for the people, largely earning their lives from poppy trade, because more employments and work options will automatically inundate the illegal trade in the volatile nation.

Science Daily — Researchers in the United Kingdom have found that increased exposure to cat allergen is associated with greater bronchial responsiveness (BR) in people with certain common allergies, even if they are not specifically allergic to cats. This suggests that reduced exposure to cats may be beneficial for allergic individuals, regardless of their specific allergies.

"This was an unexpected finding," said Susan Chinn, D.Sc., lead author of the study. "We presupposed that we would find increased responsiveness only in those individuals who were exposed to cat allergen and whose blood tests showed that they were allergic to cats. But our study suggests that all allergic individuals have signs of asthmatic responses if exposed to cat allergen, even if blood tests show that they are not allergic to cats."

Dr. Chinn, of the Imperial College in London, and 12 other researchers reported their findings in the first issue for July 2007 of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, published by the American Thoracic Society.

The study examined cross-sectional data from 1,884 participants in 20 centers in the European Community Respiratory Health Survey (ECRHS) follow-up, which included measurements of house dust mite and cat allergen in mattress dust samples, and data on IgE sensitization to four major allergens--cat, house dust mite, Cladosporidium (a common mold) and timothy grass. The researchers used the "objective measure of choice in epidemiological studies on asthma"--BR in response to a methacholine challenge-- to analyze the interaction between exposure to house dust mite and cat allergen and prior allergic sensitization. Because the study included complete data on nearly 2,000 individuals across 20 centers in Europe, researchers were able to exclude potentially confounding effects.

"Our primary results showed no correlation between levels of house mite dust and BR among individuals with sensitization to any of the four tested allergens," said Dr. Chinn. "But even moderate exposure to cat allergen resulted in significantly greater responsiveness."

Among people with any sensitization, the difference in BR between those who had low versus high exposure to cat allergen was almost as great a difference as that between non-asthmatic and asthmatic individuals in the United Kingdom centers of the ECRHS.

This study supports and clarifies previous research that has found that asthma is strongly related to indoor allergens and that patients with specific sensitizations exhibit greater BR in response to exposure to the allergens to which they are sensitized. However, the interaction between sensitization of any kind and current exposure was unexpected.

More than one in four of the individuals included in the ECRHS were sensitized to at least one of the allergens tested, indicating that avoidance of cat exposure would be beneficial to a much wider population than previously expected. Furthermore, cat allergen levels were ubiquitous in cat-owning communities, and their results showed effects of cat allergen exposure at lower levels than generally regarded necessary to produce a measurable result.

"Based on the current research, it appears that many individuals could benefit from reduced cat ownership and exposure," says Dr. Chinn. "However, because the findings were unexpected, it is important that results are replicated in other studies before firm recommendations are made."

The researchers could not rule out the possibility that cat allergen exposure or cat ownership could be a proxy for exposure to endotoxin, known to be an immune stimulant marginally associated with asthmatic symptoms, which is found in higher concentrations in cat owners' homes.

Science Daily — The pharmaceutical industry is going to the dogs -- and the cats -- as people in the United States and other countries devote more income to keeping beloved pets healthy and comfortable, according to a recent article. U. S. pet owners alone spent $18.5 billion last year on veterinary care, medications, and other non-food supplies, a figure expected to grow by more than 6 percent annually.

Written by C&EN associate editor Rachel A. Petkewich, the article describes how global pharmaceutical companies, best known for making medicines for humans, have animal health divisions that are devoting more effort to discovering and developing new kinds of medications for companion animals.

That research already has yielded a bounty of new medicines and vaccines to keep Fido and Fluffy healthy and comfortable. Petkewich cites, for instance, the first diet drugs for dogs; the first approved drug for vomiting in dogs, including vomiting due to motion sickness or cancer chemotherapy; and a new medication for the barking and other undesirable behavior of separation anxiety, which can occur when dogs are left home alone.

Just as drug companies are shifting some human health focus to geriatric medications, their animal health divisions are working on products to treat cancer, heart disease and other age-related conditions in companion animals. People also may benefit from the increase in research on animal health, with products originally developed for animals being repurposed for diseases in humans, Petkewich notes.

The article, "Big Pharma Chases Dogs and Cats: Products developed for companion animals boost bottom line and also may benefit human health too," is scheduled for the June 25 issue of Chemical & Engineering News.

Science Daily — The ancient gray wolves of Alaska became extinct some 12,000 years ago, and the wolves in Alaska today are not their descendents but a different subspecies, an international team of scientists reports in the July 3 print edition of the journal Current Biology.

A wolf in Yellowstone. (Credit: Barry O'Neill)