Washington, Mar 20 : A new study involving Michigan State University researchers has found that prenatal exposure to an insecticide commonly used up until the 1970s may play a role in the obesity epidemic in women.

For the study, more than 250 mothers who live along and eat fish from Lake Michigan were examined for their exposure to DDE - a breakdown of DDT.

They analyzed DDE levels of the women's offspring.

Washington, March 20 : NASA will post online nine names that are finalists for the agency's Mars Science Laboratory mission and invite the public to vote for its favorite from March 23rd.

The non-binding poll to help NASA select a name opens online Monday, March 23, and will accept votes through March 29.

More than 9,000 students in kindergarten through 12th grades submitted essays proposing names for the rover in a nationwide contest that ended January 25.

Washington, Mar 20 : Researchers at Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University and the University of East Anglia have suggested that the Internet could be used as an early warning system for potential ecological disasters.

Ecosystem services such as water purification and food production are of fundamental importance for all planetary life.

However, these are threatened by sudden changes in ecosystems caused by various pressures like climate change and global markets.

New York, Mar 20 : Actor Mel Gibson once ordered an X-rated sushi at eatery Nobu, as he wanted to send it to actress Rene Russo.

The revelation was made by Dalia Jurgensen, the executive pastry chef of Brooklyn''s Dressler, in her upcoming memoir, `Spiced'.

She has revealed that when she cooked at Nobu, Gibson, 53, wanted to send Russo an "obscene" dessert as a joke.

Washington, Mar 20 : Men born in India, but living in England and Wales, are twice as likely to die alcohol-related deaths as the rest of the population, according to a new study led by an Indian-origin scientist.

Conducted by the University of Edinburgh and the Office for National Statistics, the research also found that an equal number of alcohol-related deaths in England and Wales were reported among people born in Scotland or Ireland.

Washington, Mar 20 : The media may unknowingly induce some people to justify cases of violence against women which appear in the press, according to a research work carried out in the department of Social Psychology of the University of Granada.

The researchers claimed that the media often looked for the assumed "reasons or causes" that provoked the crime, "which leads people to look for a reason for a fact that should be unjustifiable in any case".