Researchers at the University of Chicago have disclosed that loneliness can be as injurious to one’s health as smoking and obesity.

The study scientists found that loneliness not only makes people sad but have a negative effect on their mind as well as heath. In fact, it may lead to high blood pressure and stress levels, general wear and tear, and the chances of having Alzheimer's disease.

Humans can have bad or good memories. Good memories give us happiness whereas bad memories can torture sometime. Recent study has shown that a drug, used for treating for high blood pressure can be used to remove bad memories.

In the last five days in Modassa taluka of Sabarkantha region, the lethal hepatitis D virus has taken lives of 12 people and left 26 hospitalized.

According to officials, out of 26 admitted to various hospitals in the region, five been rushed to the civil hospital in Ahmedabad.

Dr. H F Patel, chief district health officer, on Friday, said, “A central team from the National Institute of Communicable Diseases and Director General of Health Services (NICD & DGHS) will arrive soon to take stock of the situation.”

British and U.S. researchers said on Friday that passive smoking can significantly raise a person’s risk of dementia and other cognitive problems to the extent that people who live with a smoker stand a higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s.

Vienna  - The West Nile virus, which can cause meningitis in humans, has reached Austria, an virologist said Friday in Vienna.

Birds carrying the virus were detected in Austria for the first time last year, Norbert Nowotny, a professor at the Vienna University of Veterinary Medicine, told Austrian press agency APA.

The disease was imported from Hungary last summer, but only birds in eastern Austria fell ill. No humans were infected by the disease which is spread by mosquitos.

The Apollo Hospitals Group in India has introduced a robot radiotherapy machine, Cyberknife in the Asia Pacific.

The new treatment, which uses real time image guidance technology and computer-controlled robotics to deliver a very little dosage of radiation to kill cancer cells by reducing the course of treatment to less than a week with sub millimeter accuracy.

This saves the surrounding healthy tissue while adjusting for patient and tumour movements during treatment.