Officials confirmed the presence of deadly H5N1 virus in Sikkim's South district. High Security Diseases Laboratory in Bhopal confirmed the presence of the deadly virus in samples of 30 birds that were sent to it for testing.

Animal husbandry and veterinary services department joint director K C Bhutia said: "We are awaiting the arrival of a Central team following which the culling operations would start in the affected region in which between 5,000 and 8,000 birds will be culled."

Earlier researches have shown that lifestyle and environment determines a person's risk of developing many types of cancer. Recent study showed that presence of a particular kind of genes increase the risk of developing five different types of cancer - skin, lung, bladder, prostate and cervical cancer.

Previous studies have shown that smoking and drinking increase risk of various cancer like lung cancer and liver cancer.

Two multinational companies are developing memory-enhancing pill. AstraZeneca in collaboration with Targacept, an American company, is trying to develop milder form of a medicine which is originally used to treat Alzheimer's disease. Epix Pharmaceuticals, also from the US is also working on a memory enhancing pill.

Smoking is on high on President-elect Barack Obama's list, or to be more specific quitting smoking is. Despite smoking becoming the un-hip thing to do, and no more advertisements or billboards seen on the subject, there are still 45 million smokers in the United States.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency issued warnings against two types of pre-packaged sandwiches as they may be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes. This would be the second time in less than four months that the Edmonton based sandwich producer has been forced to recall its products.

The Chinese Health Ministry has confirmed the death of a 27 year old woman from Jinan city of northern China's Shandong province from the H5N1 strain of bird flu. The national Center for Disease Control and Prevention said the woman surnamed Zhang who died on Saturday was the second victim of the bird flu this year.