Washington, Mar 19: A new study has revealed that smokers who refuse to quit the habit despite being diagnosed with lung cancer experience higher levels of pain from the disease than non-smokers and former smokers.

Researchers at Duke University surveyed some 900 lung cancer patients and classified 17 percent of them as persistent smokers.

The aim of the study was to assess the relationship of smoking status after a diagnosis of lung cancer with ratings of usual pain.

Washington, Mar 19 : Former US President George W. Bush has written about 30,000 words of his memoir tentatively titled "Decision Points" that will cover everything from how he found faith, to how he quit drinking and chose Karl Rove and Dick Cheney for their respective jobs.

A contract with Crown, an imprint of Random House, is to be announced on Thursday. The same publisher issued both of President Obama's books, Politico reports.

Washington, March 19 : A national survey by researchers at Yale and George Mason Universities has revealed that even in the midst of a growing economic crisis last fall, over 90 percent of Americans want the United States to act to reduce global warming.

The results included 34 percent who said the US should make a large-scale effort, even if it has large economic costs.

Washington,

Seoul  - North Korean authorities detained two US journalists at the border with China, news reports said Thursday.

The two women who work for US-based online media were detained this week by North Korean border guards when they filmed footage at the Stalinist state's border with China, the South Korean Yonhap news agency said, quoting diplomat sources.

"Two reporters working for US internet news media, including a Korean American, were detained by North Korean authorities earlier this week, and they remain in custody there," the source said.

Washington, March 19 : New evidence has emerged which determines that even a slight rise in atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, one of the gases that drives global warming, affects the stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS).

The massive WAIS covers the continent on the Pacific side of the Transantarctic Mountains. Any substantial melting of the ice sheet would cause a rise in global sea levels.

The evidence was collected by a 56-member team of scientists, which conducted a research on a 1,280-meter (4,100-foot)-long sedimentary rock core taken from beneath the sea floor under Antarctica's Ross Ice Shelf during the first project of the ANDRILL (ANtarctic geological DRILLing) research program.