New Delhi - At least five newborns were killed Saturday after a fire broke out in the maternity ward of a government-run hospital in India's northern state of Punjab, officials said.

The tragedy occurred at Rajendra Hospital in Patiala city, 60 kilometres south of the state capital, Chandigarh, city police chief Gurmit Chauhan told reporters.

A total of 10 children receiving treatment for jaundice were kept in phototherapy units when the machines caught fire, apparently due to a short-circuit, he said.

New York  - Researchers in Canada have developed a blood test that could make it possible to detect mad cow disease in animals months before they exhibit symptoms of the illness.

"That would be a great breakthrough because then we would not have to examine the brain of the dead animal, instead we'd have a simple, quick test, similar to a paternity test," German molecular biologist Christoph Sensen of the University of Calgary told Deutsche Presse- Agentur dpa in an interview on Friday.

Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia has imposed an indefinite ban on chicken imports from China following the deaths of five people from the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus this year, news reports said Wednesday.

The ban, which has been in place since January 16, would only be lifted once China has been cleared of avian influenza by the World Health Organization, said Malaysian Veterinary Services Department director-general Abdul Aziz Jamaluddin.

London, Jan 27 : Think twice before choosing a window seat on the plane, for a new study has found that the view chair increases the chance of deep vein thrombosis.

According to researchers, those sitting by the window face double the risk of a potentially deadly blood clot.

The dangers are even greater for obese passengers, who are six times more likely to develop a blockage than if they sit next to the aisle, reports the Telegraph.

Stockholm - Drinking moderate amounts of coffee may protect people from dementia in later life, according to a study by Finnish and Swedish researchers.

Coffee drinkers ran a lower risk of dementia in middle age and Alzheimer's disease later in life compared to those who drank little or no coffee.

The researchers at the University of Kuopio, Finland, and Karolinska Institutet of Stockholm, Sweden, studied 1,409 individuals aged 65 to 79 who were members of a group surveyed in 1972, 1977, 1982 or 1987 and who completed a re-examination in 1998.

Hamburg - Sensitivity to light, a steady decline in eyesight or blurred vision can all indicate the formation of a cataract.

Cataracts, a thickening of the eye's lens, impairs vision and can occur at any stage of a person's life, though they are more common among the elderly.