According to a 14-year study, men who consumed six or more cups daily were 10 per cent less likely to die compared with those who did not drink coffee. For women, there were 15 per cent fewer deaths for those drinking six cups or more.

The findings showed that there was a marginal difference for men drinking one cup per day, but those drinking two to three cups a day were 10 per cent less likely to die. Those drinking four or five cups per day were 12 per cent less likely to die than non-coffee drinkers, the New England Journal of Medicine reported.

For women there was no effect seen for one cup or less per day. Those drinking two or three cups were five per cent less likely to die compared to those who drank none at all and those drinking four or five cups were 16 per cent less likely to die, according to the Telegraph.

Researchers said the effect was seen across almost all causes of death including heart disease, respiratory disease, stroke, injuries and accidents, diabetes, and infections.

However, critics said it was ‘biologically implausible’ that coffee drinkers would be less likely to die in accidents.

The researchers said that it cannot be proven that drinking coffee was the cause of the lower death rate and it may be that other factors about coffee drinkers that influenced the findings.

Neal Freedman, from the National Cancer Institute, Maryland, US, wrote: “Given the observational nature of our study, it is not possible to conclude that the inverse relationship between coffee consumption and mortality reflects cause and effect.”

“However, we can speculate about plausible mechanisms by which coffee consumption might have health benefits. Coffee contains more than 1,000 compounds that might affect the risk of death,” Freedman said.

“The most well-studied compound is caffeine, although similar associations for caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee in the current study and a previous study suggest that, if the relationship between coffee consumption and mortality were causal, other compounds in coffee (e.g antioxidants, including polyphenols) might be important,” Freedman concluded.

The incident took place Wednesday night after the IPL match between his team and Mumbai Indians. Kolkata Knight Riders won the match.

Khan allegedly misbehaved with a security guard and pushed him. When Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) officials tried to intervene, he is said to have abused them.

A complaint has been registered in Mumbai’s Marine Drive police station by MCA officials, who will decide on the ban Thursday.

“He pushed the security guard and misbehaved with him. He also used bad language with security officials at the stadium.

When we tried to intervene, he yelled out expletives at us,” MCA Treasurer Ravi Sawant told reporters Thursday morning.

Sawant said Shah Rukh, flanked by the bodyguards, went to the players’ dressing rooms to congratulate them. He then came down and started going towards the ground.

“When the security personnel told him that he cannot do so, he abused the guard and his men manhandled the security personnel,” he alleged.

Assistant Commissioner of Police Iqbal Shaikh also confirmed the incident and said police were looking into the matter.

But their dream to watch an IPL match live may remain unfulfilled.

32 youth, in the age group of 18-26, are from Australia, Fiji, South Africa, Suriname, Malaysia, Myanmar, Peru, Portugal, Sri Lanka, Israel, Canada and Zimbabwe. They have been in Delhi since April 24.

They are here under the Know India Programme (KIP) of the ministry of overseas Indian affairs.

“The IPL is a phenomenon and we are amazed by its success. We want to watch a match between any two teams and get to feel the mood in a stadium. But I don’t think we would get to do so due to security reasons,” Vishayne Vikar Harichand, a 20-year-old youth from South Africa, said.

Harichand is one of the 14 male and 18 female visitors who are here for the programme held three times annually.

His views were echoed by other youngsters from South Africa, Canada and Zimbabwe, all cricket-playing nations.

Harichand and his friends got an opportunity to meet Minister of Overseas Indian Affairs Vyalar Ravi here, when they expressed their desire.

IPL is in its fifth edition this year and is considered to be one of the most successful cricketing event in sporting, entertainment and commercial terms.

“The KIP programme is for youth of Indian origin from around the world to see India, know India and mingle with families in India and reinvent the idea of India and Indian culture,” Ravi told the group at a reception hosted for them.

Among the visitors is Gayatri Vikramasinghe from Colombo in Sri Lanka. What she liked best during this visit to Delhi was the performances by Indian musicians and artistes.

“This is my first visit to Delhi. I have been to Chennai earlier on a personal visit. This experience of meeting people of Indian origin from other parts of the world in India’s capital has enabled expanding my idea of India and the Indian identity,” Kumaresan Arumugam, who works in the social sector in Malaysia, said.

The programme for the overseas youth will take them to Goa later this week when they will get to live in homes to experience a day in the life of an Indian family.

During the stay in Delhi, the group was also exposed to India’s progress in economic, industrial, education, science and technology, communication and information technology fields, apart from culture, through interactions with personalities in these sectors.

They were also given presentations on the country’s political structure, the constitution and parliamentary democracy.

The group showed interest in visiting a call centre to understand the expansion of the business process outsourcing sector.

A new University of California – Los Angeles (UCLA) rat study is the first to show how a diet steadily high in fructose (fruit sugar) slows the brain, hampering memory and learning – and how omega-3 fatty acids can counteract the disruption.

“Our findings illustrate that what you eat affects how you think,” said Fernando Gomez-Pinilla, professor of neurosurgery at the UClA’s David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, the Journal of Physiology reports.

“Eating a high-fructose diet over the long term alters your brain’s ability to learn and remember information. But ¬adding omega-3 fatty acids to your meals can help minimize the damage,” adds Gomez-Pinilla, according to an UCLA statement.

While earlier research has revealed how fructose harms the body through its role in diabetes, obesity and fatty liver, this study is the first to uncover how the sweetener influences the brain.

The UCLA team zeroed in on high-fructose corn syrup, an inexpensive liquid six times sweeter than cane sugar, that is commonly added to processed foods, including soft drinks, condiments, apple sauce and baby food.

Gomez-Pinilla and study co-author Rahul Agrawal, studied two groups of rats that each consumed a fructose solution as drinking water for six weeks.

The second group also received omega-3 fatty acids in the form of flaxseed oil and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), which protects against damage to the synapses – the junctions between brain cells that enable memory and learning.

“DHA is essential for synaptic function – brain cells’ ability to transmit signals to one another,” Gomez-Pinilla said. “This is the mechanism that makes learning and memory possible. Our bodies can’t produce enough DHA, so it must be supplemented through our diet.”

Six weeks later, researchers tested the rats’ ability to recall the route and escape the maze. What they saw surprised them. “The second group of rats navigated the maze much faster than the rats that did not receive omega-3 fatty acids,” Gomez-Pinilla said.

“The DHA-deprived animals were slower, and their brains showed a decline in synaptic activity. Their brain cells had trouble signalling each other, disrupting the rats’ ability to think clearly and recall the route they’d learned six weeks earlier,” he concludes.

Researchers from Britain’s University of Warwick Business School and the University College London along with colleagues at the Dartmouth College, US, carried out a series of experiments to see if people made decisions to trust others based on their faces.

They found people are more likely to invest money in someone whose face is generally perceived as trustworthy, even when they are given negative information about that person’s reputation, the journal Public library of Science ONE reports.

The team used a computer algorithm to create a set of 20 pairs of faces at opposing ends of the trustworthiness scale. This computer software modifies the apparent trustworthiness of faces by altering their features, according to a Warwick statement.

Researchers were able to experimentally manipulate the unfakeable features (those related to shape of the face) that make a person look trustworthy or untrustworthy. These 40 faces were then used in a series of trust games with participants.

Each volunteer was given a sum of money and told they could invest any part of the amount in a trustee whose face appeared on the screen. Any amount they invested would be tripled and volunteers were told it was then up to the trustee to decide how much to send back to them.

Thus participants had an incentive to invest only in trustees who could be expected to return more than the invested amount. Researchers found that 13 out of 15 participants invested more, on average, in the trustworthy identities.

In a second experiment, researchers gave the volunteers information about whether the trustees had good or bad histories. Even with this inside information, the average amount invested in those who looked ‘trustworthy’ was six per cent higher.

Chris Olivola from the University of Warwick’s Business School said: “Trustees with good and bad histories benefited equally from trustworthy-looking facial features. The temptation to judge strangers by their faces is hard to resist.”

Mukherjee said he would take austerity measures to bring more fiscal discipline and send a right signal to the market.

“I am going to put in some austerity measures. It is important to send a right signal,” Mukherjee told lawmakers in the Rajya Sabha.

The Indian rupee took a severe beating and dipped to a record low of 54.50 against a US dollar. Rupee has weakened almost 10 per cent since March.

This is the weakest level of rupee recorded so far. The earlier record low of 54.30 to a dollar was hit in mid-December last year.

The partially convertible rupee also hit a record closing low of 54.49 to a dollar. The rupee had closed at 53.78 against a dollar Tuesday.

Blaming the eurozone crisis for the economic slowdown, the sharp drop in the stock markets and rupee, Mukherjee asserted that India’s growth story was intact and the government was taking measures to revive growth and attract overseas investments.

“Yes, we are concerned that our GDP growth has come down. It will be 6.9 per cent in 2011-12, some are saying that it might be even low,” Mukherjee said.

Replying to a debate on the Union Budget 2012-13 in the Rajya Sabha, Mukherjee said slowdown in economic growth was a matter of concern but there was no need to press the panic button.

“India’s growth story is intact,” he said.

After the debate, the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of Indian Parliament, Wednesday returned the Appropriation Bill and Finance Bill, 2012, to the Lok Sabha.

Mukherjee said crisis in the eurozone, especially in Greece, was causing uncertainty in India and other developing countries as well.

“India cannot ignore the global economic situation,” Mukherjee said while referring to the plunge in stock markets.

The Finance Minister emphasised that he was not trying to pass on the blame to someone else.

“Don’t think that I am trying to pass on the buck elsewhere. The buck stops at me, I agree. I am owning the responsibility… but we shall have to keep in mind that this is a difficult world,” he said.

Continued sell-off by the Foreign Institutional Investors led to almost two per cent slump in the country’s benchmark indices.

The benchmark Sensex of the Bombay Stock Exchange slumped below 16,000-point mark Wednesday. The Sensex closed 1.83 per cent down at 16,030.09 points.

The wide-based Nifty of the National Stock Exchange also closed 1.71 per cent down at 4,858.25 points.

Referring to Vodafone tax row, the Finance Minister said he welcomed foreign investments but would not allow the country to be a tax haven.

“Yes, I want FDI, I have taken a series of measures for FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) and FII (Foreign Institutional Investment),” he said.

Later, talking to reporters, Mukherjee said he has directed officials in his ministry to look at what could be done to bring more fiscal discipline.

Many men admitted they were too scared to offer their true opinion on their partner’s wardrobe tastes while 70 per cent said they didn’t want to hurt their other half’s feelings when they were posed with the question: Does my bum look big in this?, the Daily Mail reported.

As a study has found, women waste 2 billion pounds (over $3 billion) a year on buying clothes that don’t fit or suit them.

In a survey commissioned by online clothing retailer very.co.uk, many men admitted it was easier to lie than tell their partners: “Yes, your bum does look too big in that.”

“The ‘does my bum look big in this’ question can be a tricky one for British men, particularly when it’s put to them just outside a busy changing room in a department store,” said Julie Donnelly, a spokesperson for Very.co.uk .

One in 10 said they felt an honest answer would upset their partner and ruin their weekend. While a quarter of them admitted that they lied to their partners so that they wouldn’t have to carry on shopping.

One in five men also feared a negative comment would not be forgotten and “used against them at a later date”.

The label of the beer made by Burnside Brewing Company in Portland, Oregon, featured the four-armed goddess Kali standing among three severed heads.

“In response to pleas from the Hindu community we have decided to postpone the limited release of ‘Kali-ma’ our imperial wheat ale flavoured with Indian spices and Scotch-Bonnet peppers,” the company said in a statement on its Facebook page.

“It is NEVER our intention at Burnside to offend or alienate any race, creed, religion or sexual orientation,” the company said.

Burnside Brewing owners said they got the idea from the movie “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom”, where Jones is forced to drink a potion called “the black sleep of Kali Ma” that puts him into a trance.

“The inspiration for the beer label simply came from a favourite childhood movie in the ‘Indiana Jones’ series and we were unaware that it could be offensive to anyone.”

The brewer said it was “currently scrambling to re-name the beer and intend to release it soon afterwards”.

“To those who have been patiently waiting, we humbly ask that you wait just a little longer and to anyone we have offended we sincerely apologise,” it said.

The issue was raised in India’s upper house Tuesday with the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) demanding that the government immediately summon the US ambassador as the religious feelings of Hindus were being hurt.

BJP MP Ravi Shankar Prasad said: “The UPA (United Progressive Alliance) government claims good relations with the US… Is there no manufacturing code there.”

“Can they show the God of any other faith like this.”

The BJP member asked the government to “summon the American ambassador” immediately.

Responding to the demand, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Rajiv Shukla said he would “inform the external affairs minister (S.M. Krishna) immediately”.

Her son is about to turn two.

“I guess my world is about making time for being a mum and not missing out on special time with Ethan. Every week there are new things. He is changing every day,” thesun.co.uk quoted Minogue as saying.

“The music takes you on a different trip. You can’t do everything. You choose a couple of important things and the rest is mum time,” she said.
The 40-year-old spends her days doing normal things and does not need to have a nanny.

“I work one day a week on ‘Australia’s Got Talent’. I’ve got a couple of extra things with this and some interviews and that’s it. The rest is looking after Ethan.”

“I’m loving it. I don’t want to miss out on these years. That’s important to me,” she said.

The walls reveal the oldest known astronomical tables from the Maya. Scientists already knew they must have been keeping such records at that time, but until now the oldest known examples dated from about 600 years later.

Astronomical records were key to the Mayan calendar, which has got traction because of doomsday warnings predicting the end of life in December 2012.

Experts say it makes no such prediction. The new finding provides a bit of backup: The calculations include a time span longer than 6,000 years, meaning it could extend well beyond 2012, the journal Science reports.

“Why would they go into those numbers if the world is going to come to an end this year,” asks Anthony Aveni of the Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, an expert on Mayan astronomy.

“You could say a number that big at least suggests that time marches on,” said Aveni, who co-authored the study with William Saturno of the Boston University, and others, according to the Telegraph.

The room is part of a large complex of Mayan ruins in the rain forest at Xultun in northeastern Guatemala. The walls also contain portraits of a seated king and some other figures, but it’s clear those have no connection to the astronomical writings, researchers said.

One wall contains a calendar based on phases of the moon, covering about 13 years. The researchers said they thought it might have been used to keep track of which deity was overseeing the moon at particular times.