Carried in the journal paper, 'Practical gigahertz quantum key distribution based on avalanche photodiodes', the research details how quantum communication can be made possible without having to use cryogenic cooling and/or complicated optical setups, making it much more likely to become commercially viable soon.

One of the first practical applications to emerge from advances in the often baffling study of quantum mechanics, quantum cryptography has become the soon-to-be-reached gold standard in secure communications.

Quantum mechanics describes the fundamental nature of matter at the atomic level and offers very intriguing, often counter-intuitive, explanations to help us understand the building blocks that construct the world around us.

Quantum cryptography uses the quantum mechanical behaviour of photons, the fundamental particles of light, to enable highly secure transmission of data beyond that achievable by classical encryption.

The photons themselves are used to distribute keys that enable access to encrypted information, such as a confidential video file that, say, a bank wishes to keep completely confidential, which can be sent along practical communication lines, made of fibre optics.

Quantum indeterminacy, the quantum mechanics dictum which states that measuring an unknown quantum state will change it, means that the key information cannot be accessed by a third party without corrupting it beyond recovery and therefore making the act of hacking futile.

While other detectors can offer a key rate close to that reported in this journal paper, the present advance only relies on practical components for high speed photon detection, which has previously required either cryogenic cooling or highly technical optical setups, to make quantum key distribution much more user-friendly.

Using an attenuated (weakened) laser as a light source and a compact detector (semiconductor avalanche photodiodes), the researchers have introduced a decoy protocol for guarding against intruder attacks that would confuse with erroneous information all but the sophisticated, compact detector developed by the researchers.

According to the researchers, "With the present advances, we believe quantum key distribution is now practical for realizing high band-width information-theoretically secure communication."

A lean bare man on the banks of a river near Champaran, his eyes moist with sadness, letting go of his shawl for a poor woman downstream to cover herself and her child. This poignant moment from Richard Attenborough's biopic on Gandhi is perhaps the most eloquent image of selfless politics.

The gentle giant loved as Bapu and revered as the Mahatma epitomised the philosophy of public service as one who gave up everything to be one among the huddled millions. Nearly a century later there is little evidence in reel or real life of the high moral ground once straddled by that generation.

The brazen parade of the Prada Prado set zipping across cities in cavalcades, appropriating security funded by public money is evidence that politics has since morphed into a largely self-serving enterprise. The pretense of khadi and Gandhian values went out of vogue with the Gandhi cap long before the Gucci generation stormed the political arena in the 1980s.

The transition is best described by Rajiv Gandhi who said at the Congress Centenary in Mumbai in 1985 that politics has been reduced to brokers of power and influence, who dispense patronage to convert mass movement into feudal oligarchy . Yes there are those who enter politics to serve the public cause but they are exceptions rather than the rule. Entering public life is now an investment of time and effort for dividends to be earned from political entrepreneurship. A joint study by INDIA TODAY and EmpoweringIndia.org (an initiative of the Liberty Institute) of the reported assets of our elected representatives reveals a startling contrast between the rulers and the ruled.

In a country where over 77 per cent of the populace, or an estimated 836 million people, earn an income of Rs 20 per day and over 300 million are living below the poverty line, nearly half the Rajya Sabha members and nearly a third of those from the Lok Sabha are worth a crore and more. Just the top ten Rajya Sabha members and the top ten Lok Sabha members have reported a cumulative net asset worth Rs 1,500 crore. The 10 top losers in the last Lok Sabha polls including Nyimthungo of Nagaland who reported total assets of Rs 9,005 crore is Rs 9,329 crore. Members of legislative assemblies seem wealthier than many MPs. The top five MLAs across the 30 states are worth Rs 2,042 crore. Of these 150 crorepati MLAs, 59 don't even have a PAN card.

1. T. Subbarami Reddy

Indian National Congress

Rajya Sabha, Andhra Pradesh

Total Assets: Rs 239.6 cr

2. Jaya Bachchan

Samajwadi Party

Rajya Sabha, Uttar Pradesh

Total Assets: Rs 214.3 cr

3. Rahul Bajaj

Independent

Rajya Sabha, Maharashtra

Total Assets: Rs 190. 6 cr

4. Anil H. Lad

Indian National Congress

Rajya Sabha, Karnataka

Total Assets: Rs 175 cr

5. M. Krishnappa

Indian National Congress

MLA, Vijay Nagar, Karnataka

Total Assets: Rs 136 cr

6. MAM Ramaswamy

Janata Dal (Secular)

Rajya Sabha, Karnataka

Total Assets Rs 107.7 cr

7. Anand Singh

BJP

MLA, Vijayanagara, Karnataka

Total Assets: Rs 239 cr

8. Anil V. Salgaocar

Independent

MLA, Sanvordem, Goa

Total Assets: Rs 91.4 cr

9. N.A. Haris

Indian National Congress

MLA, Shanti Nagar, Karnataka

Total Assets: Rs 85.3 cr

10. Mahendra Mohan

Samajwadi Party

Rajya Sabha, Uttar Pradesh

Total Assets: Rs 85 cr

Researchers from University of Arkansas conducted a series of field experiments designed to test prospective person memory. When people look at a photo of a wanted person or a missing child in order to spot that individual in the future, they are engaged in prospective person memory.

During the study, the researchers recruited undergraduate students in introductory psychology classes to identify a wanted person.

In each scenario, students were shown photos, told the individuals depicted would appear at some point in their daily lives and offered a share in a 100-dollar reward for spotting the "fugitive."

The researchers found that for all scenarios, the identification rate was low.

In another experimental, students studied the photo of a wanted person during one class session.

The next time the class met, 48 hours later, the individual they had seen in the photo stepped into the classroom carrying a stack of papers and drew attention to himself both before and after handing the stack to the instructor.

The team found that the identification rate varied between zero and 7 percent.

"The studies described above suggest that the ability of the general public to correctly identify wanted fugitives in realistic real world conditions is quite limited," said the researchers.

"In no study that we have conducted has the identification rate exceeded 7 percent," they added.

In their ongoing research, Lampinen and colleagues are exploring how to get people to take the time needed to form implementation intentions when presented with a photo of a missing or wanted person.

For example, an implementation intention could involve resolving to contact authorities upon seeing a certain face.

"The potential combination of implementation intentions with imaging and pictorial encoding of faces holds great promise for the study of person prospective memory," the researchers wrote

Virtual worlds for children and teenagers—We b sites like Neopets, Club Penguin and Habbo—are a big business. On these sites, children create an avatar and, with it, explore an imaginary universe. They can play games, chat and decorate virtual rooms.

By the end of this year, there will be 70 million unique accounts—twi ce as many as last year—in virtual worlds aimed at children under 16, according to K Zero, a consulting firm. Virtual Worlds Management, a media and trade events company, estimates that there are more than 200 youth-oriented virtual worlds "live, planned or in active development."

As the number of these virtual worlds grows, so, too, does the demand for sophisticated monitoring software and people, called moderators, who can act as virtual playground monitors. Tamara Littleton, chief executive of eModeration, a London-based company providing moderation services, says the most common dangers that children and teenagers face online are bullying and young people's own efforts to share personal information that could enable strangers to identify and contact them in the real world. Sexual predators are always a concern, she says, though she described the likelihood of a child being targeted by an adult with malicious intent as "statistically low."

Meanwhile, there is a continuing game of cat-and-mouse between the young people and the technology designed to protect them.

NetModerator, a software tool built by Crisp Thinking, a private company based in Leeds, England, can monitor online chat "for intent as well as content," says Andrew Lintell, the company's chief executive. To build the tool, he says, Crisp Thinking analysed roughly 700 million lines of chat traffic, some from conversations between children and some, like conversations between children and sexual predators, provided by law enforcement groups.

The software is integrated into a virtual world's site. If the technology uncovers syntax, slangs or other patterns in a conversation that match signs of bullying or sexual predation, it sends an alert to a moderator, who can then "drill down" to look not only at the entirety of the specific conversation, but also at every posting from either participant.

"We can capture a full picture of a user's history on the game," Lintell says. NetModerator also includes a filter that is updated regularly to include new words, abbreviations or character combinations that can be read as words, like "sk8".

Lintell says the company works with several virtual worlds for children. One is the FusionFall site from the Cartoon Network. FusionFall is an online game geared to children ages eight to 14, in which children's avatars fight to save the world with the help of Cartoon Network characters. It uses NetModerator to monitor open chat and player-to-player e-mail, according to Turner Broadcasting, which owns the Cartoon Network.

Keibi Technologies of San Francisco has created technology to determine whether user-generated content—vide os, images and text—contain s objectionable material. Jeff Smith, vice-president for sales and marketing, says the technology is used by several sites aimed at children.

The new technologies made it possible for one site to reduce its moderator staff from more than 20 people to just three or four, Smith says.

For moderators, technical advan-ces have changed the nature of the job, says Bea Marshall, project team leader with eModeration. Marshall, who works from her home in Sacramento, says that when she began moderating children's and teenagers' chat sites nine years ago, she had to identify and respond to "every infraction that came across the screen."

With software technology flagging basic infractions and sending automated warnings, she says she can focus her attention on more subtle or hard-to-interpret messages. This doesn't make the job easy. "Imagine a thousand children, 95% of whom have excellent typing skills, all typing at the same time," she says. "Now try to monitor those conversations."

Don Arnold- a molecular and computational biologist at USC College-and colleagues have now solved the mystery for key proteins in the brain.

"There's no little man sitting there, putting the protein in the right place. Proteins have to have in them encoded information that tells them where to go in the cell," Nature quoted Arnold as saying.

Neurons have separate structures for receiving signals (dendrites) and for sending them (axons).

The electrical properties of both types of neurons depend on different proteins.

But the proteins travel in bubbles, or vesicles, powered by motors known as kinesins that travel along tiny molecular paths.

Even though the paths point to both axons and dendrites, dendritic proteins end up in dendrites, and axonal proteins go to the axons.

The researchers discovered a crude but effective sorting mechanism, in which firstly kinesins blindly carry both types of proteins towards the axon.

But, dendritic proteins enable the vesicles transporting them to bind to a second motor, known as myosin, that walks them back into the dendrite.

The filter ensures that only axonal proteins make it into the axon, while the others are caught by the second motor and diverted to the dendrite.

"This mechanism fishes these things out of the axon," said Arnold.

Once in the dendrite, the proteins either land in a place where they can do their electrical work or they move back towards the axon, only to be fished out again.

Arnold said that the process looks inefficient, "but it is very effective."

The discovery could allow finer control over neurons for basic research or for treatment of neurological disorders.

Also, scientists could target only dendrites or axons in a neuron for studying its outgoing or incoming impulses.

Apart from these applications, the study contributes a lot to the understanding of the brain and of protein transport in general.

"It's a very basic question, something people have been wondering about for a long time," said Arnold.

ether or not fish get seasick?

Well, according to Dr Reinhold Hilbig, a zoologist from Stutgart, the answer is yes.

The boffin studied the effects of weightlessness in water as part of research into how humans are affected in space.

To reach the conclusion, forty-nine fish in a mini aquarium were sent up in a plane that went into a steep dive, simulating the loss of gravity astronauts encounter in space flight.

He said eight of the fish began turning around and around in circles.

"They completely lost their sense of balance, behaving like humans who get seasick," The Telegraph quoted Hilbig, as saying.

"The fish lost their orientation, they became completely confused and looked as if they were about to vomit. In the wild such a "seasick" fish would become prey for others because they are incapable of fleeing from danger," the expert added.

Later, the eight seasick fish were culled and their brains were analysed to try to determine the exact cause of their sickness.

"It would seem the loss of eye contact with water movement and vibrations plays a large part in their disorientation," Hilbig said

According to a report in The Times, a team led by Jay Farihi, of the University of Leicester, UK, did the research.

The astronomers discovered that at least one in 100 white dwarfs the burnt-out remnants of Sun-like stars - once had solar systems, with planets that were destroyed or deep-frozen by the death throes of their stars.

The research suggests millions of other solar systems have endured the destiny predicted for the Earth when the Sun dies.

When stars like the Sun die, they swell into red giants.

When the process begins for the Sun in approximately 4 billion years, it will fill much of the inner solar system; most calculations suggest the Earth will be engulfed.

Once red giants burn themselves out, they collapse into much smaller bodies, known as white dwarfs.

These dying stars no longer sustain themselves with nuclear fusion, and glow only because of their residual heat as they cool over billions of years.

Using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, the team analyzed the gassy atmospheres around existing white dwarfs, some of which contain particles of dust.

They found that the dust is made from the same basic materials as asteroids and rocky planets.

It suggests that the debris could be the remains of Earth-like planets, which were engulfed by a swelling red giant before it turned into a white dwarf.

"What we have seen is a possible fate for our own solar system," said Dr Farihi. "Many of the systems we are studying will have been similar to our own. It's a possibility that some of them ould once have held life," he added

The finding could provide clues for the development of therapies to block the protein's disruptive actions.

"The fact that it works mostly extracellularly provides more opportunities to develop different kinds of therapies," said Dr. Jay Horton, professor of internal medicine and molecular genetics and co-author of the study.

PCSK9 disrupts the activity of a key molecule called the low-density lipoprotein receptor, or LDLR, which is made and secreted in the liver.

Horton said that the new findings show that PCSK9 principally acts as a secreted protein to cause the degradation of LDL receptors by latching on to it.

"Therefore, approaches to block the protein's activity in the blood should be successful in reducing plasma cholesterol levels," he said.

In order to know if PCSK9 works inside or outside the cell, the researchers designed peptides to jam the interaction between PCSK9 and the LDL receptor.

They then added the peptides to a cultured cell medium to see if they could block the activities of PCSK9.

It was found that the peptides prevented the secreted PCSK9 from binding to the surface of the LDL receptors.

Thus Horton said that PCSK9 is likely to perform its destructive duties outside cells, in order to provide more opportunities for drug development.

"It's much easier to design inhibitors of PCSK9 function to work outside a cell than to develop a small molecule that works inside a cell," he said

Scientists from the University of Melbourne, University of Brussels, and Museum Victoria say that all octopuses and cuttlefish, and some squid are venomous.

The researchers say that their study suggests that they all share a common, ancient venomous ancestor and highlights new avenues for drug discovery.

Dr Bryan Fry from the Department of Biochemistry at the Bio21 Institute, University of Melbourne, revealed that while the blue-ringed octopus species remain the only group that aredangerous to humans, the other species have been quietly using their venom for predation, such as paralysing a clam into opening its shell.

"Venoms are toxic proteins with specialised functions such as paralysing the nervous system" he said.

"We hope that by understanding the structure and mode of action of venom proteins we can benefit drug design for a range of conditions such as pain management, allergies and cancer," he added.

Scientists have examined many creatures for years as a basis for drug development. However, octopuses, cuttlefish and squid remain an untapped resource.

Fry now says that their venom may represent a unique class of compounds.

For the study, his team obtained tissue samples from cephalopods ranging from Hong Kong, the Coral Sea, the Great Barrier Reef and Antarctica.

Analysing the genes for venom production from the different species, the researchers found that a venomous ancestor produced one set of venom proteins, but over time additional proteins were added to the chemical arsenal.

They say that the origin of such genes also sheds light on the fundamentals of evolution, presenting a prime example of convergent evolution where species independently develop similar traits.

Fry has revealed that the research team will next try to determine why very different types of venomous animals seem to consistently settle on the similar venom protein composition, and which physical or chemical properties make them predisposed to be useful as toxin.

"Not only will this allow us to understand how these animals have assembled their arsenals, but it will also allow us to better exploit them in the development of new drugs from venoms," said Fry.

"It does not seem a coincidence that some of the same protein types have been recruited for use as toxins across the animal kingdom," the researcher added.

The paper noted that despite the high price tag, the 26-room mansion on the Upper East Side still shook from the nearby subway trains.

However, Madonna evidently overlooked this inconvenience in favour of having such rare New York amenities as a two-car garage, a 3,000-square-metre garden, nine fireplaces, an elevator, a wine cellar with a grotto, 13 bedrooms and 14 bathrooms.

Madonna, 50, will not be moving in any time soon. The report says she plans extensive renovations for her family which includes Lourdes, 12, Rocco, 8, and David Banda, 3. She is also trying to adopt a second baby from Malawi, but a court there ruled earlier this

month against her adoption bid.

Previous studies have linked violence in video games to aggression. However, the new study has suggested that video games don't have to be violent to trigger an emotional response.

It found that driving games could activate more brain regions involved in emotional processing than shoot 'em ups.

For the study, Simon Goodson and Sarah Pearson of the University of Huddersfield in the UK recruited 30 adults aged between 18 and 45 to play either a competitive driving game, a shoot 'em up or virtual table tennis against computer-generated competitors.

Brain activity, heart rate and breathing were all monitored during the game, and a questionnaire afterwards assessed their levels of anger, hostility and aggression.

The volunteers scored normally for aggression after playing the driving and shoot 'em up games, while those playing the table tennis game scored as slightly less aggressive than the average for the volunteers.

However, when it came to brain activity, the driving game caused a significant increase in the temporal lobe, an area of the brain linked to emotional processing.

"It cannot be assumed that aggression is solely related to violent content," New Scientist quoted Goodson, as saying

According to a report by ABC News, the finding suggests the current melting of ice sheets may happen faster than expected.

Their publication adds weight to the release of an international report showing up to one-third of all Antarctic sea ice is likely to melt by the end of the century.

The stalagmites from Argentarola Cave, Italy, provide an ancient archive of sea water levels because they were formed through two different sources, according to lead author Dr Andrea Dutton, of the Australian National University.

When the water level in the cave was high, the submerged stalagmites were colonised by aquatic worms that encased it in a tube made from biogenic calcite.

When the level dropped, the stalagmites formed from water drops from the cave ceiling (spelean calcite).

Dutton said that the difference between the two types of calcite is stark with the water from the ceiling leaving a darker deposit.

The researchers removed two stalagmites from the cave, one from 18 meters and another from 21 meters below current sea level.

Uranium isotope dating techniques showed the stalagmites recorded water levels in the cave as far back as between 190,000 and 245,000 years ago.

Bracketing of the marine calcite by the spelean calcite also allowed the researchers to accurately gauge the duration of the sea water-level rise.

According to Dutton, although it was previously known there were three peaks in sea water levels during this time, they "hadn't been well dated".

"Most direct evidence of sea level changes only go back as far as 20,000 years," she said.

Dutton said that the strength of the stalagmite archive is that it is not as susceptible to alteration by the environment when compared with coral reef clusters that are also commonly used to date sea water rises.

She said that the findings are critical in determining how the natural processes during climate change work.

They provide a benchmark and help determine which reconstruction models used to determine sea water levels are accurate.

"If we are relying on models it is important for us to know which models to rely on," said Dutton. ""And this study gives us a benchmark on which to judge them," she added.

In a study on fruit flies, American and Australian researchers have discovered that some males and females are more compatible than others at the genetic level.

In their opinion, this compatibility plays an important role in mate selection, mating outcomes, and future reproductive behaviours.

The researchers say that the experiments conducted by them have shown that before mating, females experience something called "genetic priming", which makes them more likely to mate with certain males over others.

"Our research helps to shed light on the complex biochemistry involved in mate selection and reproduction," said Mariana Wolfner, Professor of Developmental Biology at Cornell University and the senior scientist involved in the study.

She added: "These findings may lead to ways to curb unwanted insect populations by activating or deactivating genes that play a role in female mating decisions."

For the study, scientists mated two different strains of fruit fly females to males either from their own strain or to males from the other strain.

They noted the males with which females of each strain tended to mate, and then examined whether the females showed differences in behaviour soon after mating and in reproduction-related activities, such as how many offspring were produced and how many sperm were stored.

They also analysed females' RNA to compare the genes expressed in females mated to males of different strains.

It was found that despite observed differences in mating behaviours and reproduction activities in females mated to different strains of males, there were only negligible mating-dependent differences in gene expression between the groups.

Based on their observations, the researchers came to the conclusion that genetic changes involved in mate choice and reproduction existed before mating began.

Researchers at the University of Bristol tracked the movements of 1,307 children using GPS technology.

They also asked the pupils, aged ten and 11 from 23 schools, to complete a questionnaire about how much freedom they were given to travel outside the home unsupervised by their parents.

Participants said they were never, sometimes, often or always allowed to go to local shops, a big shopping centre, park or playground, sports centre, swimming pool, library, school, cinema, friend's house, amusement arcade, bus stop or train station.

The researchers found that both boys and girls given greater freedoms were much more active on weekdays than those closely watched by adults.

"This is the first study to show that freedom to move around unsupervised in the local and wider neighbourhood is directly related to how physically active children are," the Scotsman quoted Dr Ashley Cooper, senior investigator on the study, as saying.

"These findings suggest that giving children more independence to move outside is related to greater levels of physical activity, which is important for health.

"But we also know that parents restrict how much independence they give their children for very good safety reasons.

"More work now needs to be done so we can discover how to get that balance right," Cooper added.

Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health and the University of Puerto Rico, evaluated the link between different measures of obesity and risk of periodontal disease.

They analyzed data from 36,903 men from the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study who were free of reported periodontal disease at the start of follow-up, and we followed them for up to 16 years (1986-2002).

Height was assessed at the start of follow-up, and weight and self-reported periodontal disease data were collected at baseline and on follow-up questionnaires mailed every two years.

Measures of central obesity were made by waist and hip circumference through self-assessed measurements and reported in 1987 with the aid of printed instructions and a tape measure.

Self-reported periodontal disease and adiposity measures had been previously validated.

They evaluated the effect of body mass index (BMI kg/m2), waist circumference (WC), and waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), on first report of periodontal disease diagnosis.

The researchers found significant associations between all measures of obesity and periodontal disease when accounting for age, smoking, race, dental profession, physical activity, fruit and vegetable intake, and diabetes status at baseline.

Obesity (BMI - 30 kg/m2) at the beginning of follow-up and over follow-up was significantly associated with a 25 percent and 29 percent increased risk compared with normal weight (BMI 18.5-24.9 kg/m2), respectively.

Men with WC - = 40 inches compared with - 40 inches was significantly associated with a 19 percent increased risk of periodontal disease, compared with men with a WC - 40 inches.

WHR - = 0.95 compared with - 0.95 exhibited a significant 16% increased risk of periodontal disease. When BMI was accounted for (i.e., overall obesity), the effects of WC and WHR (i.e., central obesity) were weakened. The associations of BMI and WC were significant even among non-diabetics and among those who had never smoked.

These results provide the first evidence following a large group of people over time with clear evidence of obesity occurring prior to periodontal disease, and support an association between obesity and risk of periodontal disease.

Given the high prevalence of obesity and periodontal disease, this association may be of substantial public health importance, according to researchers

Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health and the University of Puerto Rico, evaluated the link between different measures of obesity and risk of periodontal disease.

They analyzed data from 36,903 men from the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study who were free of reported periodontal disease at the start of follow-up, and we followed them for up to 16 years (1986-2002).

Height was assessed at the start of follow-up, and weight and self-reported periodontal disease data were collected at baseline and on follow-up questionnaires mailed every two years.

Measures of central obesity were made by waist and hip circumference through self-assessed measurements and reported in 1987 with the aid of printed instructions and a tape measure.

Self-reported periodontal disease and adiposity measures had been previously validated.

They evaluated the effect of body mass index (BMI kg/m2), waist circumference (WC), and waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), on first report of periodontal disease diagnosis.

The researchers found significant associations between all measures of obesity and periodontal disease when accounting for age, smoking, race, dental profession, physical activity, fruit and vegetable intake, and diabetes status at baseline.

Obesity (BMI - 30 kg/m2) at the beginning of follow-up and over follow-up was significantly associated with a 25 percent and 29 percent increased risk compared with normal weight (BMI 18.5-24.9 kg/m2), respectively.

Men with WC - = 40 inches compared with - 40 inches was significantly associated with a 19 percent increased risk of periodontal disease, compared with men with a WC - 40 inches.

WHR - = 0.95 compared with - 0.95 exhibited a significant 16% increased risk of periodontal disease. When BMI was accounted for (i.e., overall obesity), the effects of WC and WHR (i.e., central obesity) were weakened. The associations of BMI and WC were significant even among non-diabetics and among those who had never smoked.

These results provide the first evidence following a large group of people over time with clear evidence of obesity occurring prior to periodontal disease, and support an association between obesity and risk of periodontal disease.

Given the high prevalence of obesity and periodontal disease, this association may be of substantial public health importance, according to researchers

According to a report in the Telegraph, a third of those polled said they would consider hacking or spying on the Internet if they could earn money by doing so.

The survey, which polled 1,000 children and parents across the Britain, was undertaken by Internet security firm Trend Micro.

Researchers found that a large proportion of today's youngsters are devoid of "e-morals" and have no scruples about hacking into other peoples' emails, bank accounts or personal networking profiles.

More than 10 per cent of youths aged from 12 to 18 said they thought it was "cool" or even "funny" to pose as someone else online, while one in seven children aged 12 to 13 admitted they already had. third of those polled said they would consider hacking or spying on the Internet if they could earn money by doing so.

Forty per cent of youngsters admitted they had logged on to another person's social networking profile.

The same proportion of young people had accessed someone else's online banking or email accounts.

Boys were found to be twice as likely as girls to log into someone's social networking site.

Girls were up to three times more likely than boys to access someone's online shopping or bank accounts without the owner knowing.

However, researchers also discovered that parents are setting a poor example for their children, as one in three said they had hacked into someone else's online accounts.

According to company spokesman Rik Fergusonm, "These results come as a stark warning to parents become a lot more familiar with what their kids get up to when online."

"Parents need to ensure they lead by example at all times," he said.

The team comprised of decision scientist Sajjad Zahir at the University of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada, and colleagues Ruhul Sarker of the University of New South Wales, Canberra, Australia and Ziaul Al-Mahmud of Lethbridge Community Network.

The team's multi-objective optimization approach will help governments decide what fraction of a population would need to be relocated and how many people could stay behind for effective adaptation to climate change.

The "multi-objective&quo t; nature of the calculation takes into account people's preferences, various costs, and planning priorities with the ultimate aim of ensuring that the issue of relocation is addressed fairly and is economically viable.

Although mitigation measures are vitally important for controlling greenhouse gas emissions, there are limitations to such efforts novel approaches to allow us to adapt successfully to the effects of climate change are now needed, according to the researchers.

They point out that large-scale cross-border migrations may not be a feasible solution to land loss because of the societal costs and the effects on labor.

An influx of environmental refugees from the worst affected parts of the developing world is also likely to face opposition from the developed world, they added.

The team's decision analysis factors in the "value" of new opportunities, lost opportunities, transportation costs, adaptation costs and other variables.

This allows them to balance the books in terms of how migration would affect a population.

"To make adaptation a success, part of the population must be prepared to adapt to new or different work opportunities and living conditions and others may have to be relocated in a planned way to new locations that require accepting different working and environmental conditions," the researchers said.

"Our methodology lets us find the fraction of people who would be relocated and who would stay in an optimal manner," they added

"The emotional stress of loss and/or the intensity of a game played in a high profile rivalry such as the Super Bowl can trigger total and cardiovascular deaths," ABC Online quoted Dr Robert Kloner, a professor of medicine at the University of Southern California, as saying.

"In contrast, a win in a lower intensity game may actually have a favourable effect on mortality," he added.

According to Kloner, fans who get excited during sporting events and have risk factors for heart disease should consult their doctor before a big game.

Drugs such as beta-blockers, aspirin or anti-anxiety drugs could help them, as could relaxation exercises, such as deep breathing, he says.

"I'm not suggesting that people not watch the Super Bowl. People should be aware of this and I suspect it applies to other sports as well," he added.

To reach the conclusion, researchers analysed data on all-cause death rates from Los Angeles County for the day of the game and the following two weeks after the game, and compared deaths for similar periods in January and February for 1980 to 1983 and from 1984 to 1988.

Researchers found a 22 percent increase in circulatory deaths and a 17 percent increase in overall deaths in the Super Bowl-losing year compared to control years.

Kloner says the 1980 game was a particularly intense game with the lead changing seven times. The Rams also were in their first Super Bowl.

"These factors may have made the fans more emotionally involved," Kloner says.

In contrast, Los Angeles County saw a 6 percent decrease in deaths the year the Raiders won, the study found.