Washington, Apr 22 : Walnuts contain compounds that reduce the risk of breast cancer, claims a new study.

Elaine Hardman, Ph. D., associate professor of medicine at Marshall University School of Medicine, said that while her study was done with laboratory animals rather than humans, people should heed the recommendation to eat more walnuts.

"Walnuts are better than cookies, french fries or potato chips when you need a snack," said Hardman.

"We know that a healthy diet overall prevents all manner of chronic diseases,” the expert added.

Washington, Apr 22 : Eating burnt meat from the barbecue or the grill may increase the risk of pancreatic cancer, says a new study.

According to Kristin Anderson, Ph. D., associate professor at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, the finding is linked to consumption of well and very well done meats cooked by frying, grilling or barbecuing.

Cooking in this way can form carcinogens, which do not form when meat is baked or stewed.

Anderson and colleagues conducted a prospective analysis that included 62,581 participants.

Washington, Apr 22 : Female field crickets tend to remember attractive males on the basis of their songs, and then choose their mates accordingly, a new study has found.

In the research, UC Riverside biologists have found for the first time that female crickets compare the information about the attractiveness of available males around them with other incoming signals when selecting attractive males for mating.

Washington, Apr 22 : Drinking wine may reduce the risk of death and relapse among non-Hodgkin''s lymphoma patients before diagnosis, according to a new epidemiology study.

According to Xuesong Han, the first author of the abstract and a doctoral candidate at the Yale School of Public Health, claimed that the findings need to be replicated before any public health recommendations are made.

However, he said that the evidence is becoming clearer that moderate consumption of wine has a large number of advantages.

Washington, April 22 : Miss USA runner-up Carrie Prejean, who answered she was against the legalisation of gay marriage in California, may have grounds to file a lawsuit against the pageant for discrimination, says a legal analyst.

Miss California, during the recent Miss USA telecast, had picked gay judge Perez Hilton''s question whether every state should make same-sex marriages legal.

Prejean, who lost out to Miss North Carolina Kristen Dalton, spoke against the possibility and it was suggested that it was her negative answer that may have stabbed her chances of winning.

Washington, Apr 22 : In a breakthrough study, researchers from University of East Anglia (UEA) have developed a novel computer, which can distinguish between different languages.

The researchers hope that the discovery could have practical uses for deaf people, for law enforcement agencies, and in noisy environments.

Lead researchers Stephen Cox and Jake Newman of UEA''s School of Computing Sciences developed the novel system by statistical modelling of the lip motions made by a group of 23 bilingual and trilingual speakers.