Washington - World Bank President Robert Zoellick on Monday called on the world's largest nations to band together to prevent the kind of massive economic downturn now striking the globe from ever happening again.

Zoellick said the Group of Seven (G7) industrial nations should be expanded to include the top 14 global economies to tackle development issues as well as the financial turmoil plaguing richer nations.

"The G7 is not working," Zoellick said in Washington. "We need a better group for a different time."

Washington, Oct 4: A new survey has shown that one in four Americans believe that autism is caused by childhood vaccines, even though scientists have denied any link.

The survey conducted by Florida Institute of Technology showed that nearly one in four people believe that because vaccines may cause autism it was safer not to have children vaccinated at all, while another 19 percent were not sure.

The scientists said that there is no evidence linking vaccines and autism, but the lingering fear is leading to fewer parents having their children vaccinated and a growing number of measles infections.

Washington, Oct 4: A new study has revealed that high magnetic activity makes the Sun occasionally appear to have a fatter “waist”.

According to a report in National Geographic News, although the sun looks almost perfectly rounded to the naked eye, astronomers have known for decades that it is actually oblate, or slightly flattened at its poles and fatter in its middle.

Washington, Oct 4: Singing for female birds triggers 'happy' feelings in males' brain - an effect which is quite similar to the euphoric state that a person experiences under the influence of addictive drugs - says a new study.

Researchers at the RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Japan have demonstrated that when male birds sang to attract females, specific "reward" areas of their brain were strongly activated, and addictive drugs also found to cause similar strong brain activation.

Washington, Oct 5: A two-year search to find the Kuiper Belt’s smallest objects, located in the outer solar system, has returned empty handed, bolstering theories that ‘all hell broke loose’ in the solar system just a few hundred million years after it formed.

According to a report in New Scientist, the search in question, the Taiwanese-American Occultation Survey (TAOS), spent two years periodically photographing portions of the sky to look for small chunks of rock and ice orbiting beyond Neptune, in a region of the solar system called the Kuiper Belt.

The survey targeted Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) with sizes between 2 miles (3 km) and 17 miles (28 km).

Washington, Oct 4: Bristol Palin, the 17-year-old daughter of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, and her boyfriend are considering a summer wedding.

Bristol’s 18-year-old fiance Levi Johnston’s mother, Sherry, has told Associated Press that the couple is considering next summer for marriage.

"But that could change," Us magazine quoted her, as saying during a short interview outside her home in Wasilla, Alaska.

The baby is due in late December.

It was on September 1 that Palin announced her unwed daughter was pregnant.