Health Ministry Orders India's First Major Study To Find Out In a recent pilot study done at Jawaharlal Nehru University, rats subjected to radiation from mobile phones were found to have damaged DNA and low sperm count, leading to infertility and reduction in testis size. The Union health ministry now wants to find out whether excessive cellphone use could be having the same adverse effects on your health.

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To Use Technological Expertise Of India London: British Telecom (BT), the company that advertises itself with the snappy tagline "It's good to talk', has put its money and mindspace where its mouth is with a bold new pledge to cut its carbon emissions by 80% around the world by 2020.

They call it black gold and its price is on the rise, true to its name. Relentless buying by energy starved countries, is pushing up the prices of coal in the global markets. More specifically, the price of Indonesian coal has shot up from around $53 a tonne in May 2007 to $121 now, thereby reflecting an increase of a whopping 128% in a year. According to Argus Coalindo Indonesian Coal Index report, the price of Indonesian 6500 KCAL is $121.41 a tonne, while 5800 KCAL is $93.26 and 5000 KCAL is $ 72.86.

Even as two multinationals and an Indian pharma company fight over a generic drug to treat stomach acid, a third giant has been pulled into legal battle. Pharma biggie Wyeth had filed a patent suit against Teva Pharmaceuticals and Mumbai-based Sun Pharma for its generic drug, Protonix. Wyeth is now also suing fellow biggie Novartis, whose generic unit Sandoz has applied to bring an injectable version of Protonix to market.

Companies May Lower Tags, Offer More Discounts To Offset Impact The hike in petrol, diesel prices will fuel a slowdown in the auto industry in the short-term, feel car majors like Maruti, Hyundai and Honda. And, it may spell good news for consumers in terms of lower prices and greater discounts from car makers, who will try to offset the negative impact on the industry, which is already hit by higher interest rates and tighter retail financing.

Rome: Faced with an immediate hunger crisis and the need to double food production in the next 30 years, world leaders meeting on Tuesday to discuss soaring food prices were mostly in agreement on how the problem could be resolved. The questions were how to get there and who was going to pay for it. The steps needed? Immediately deliver more food aid to the world's hungry. Provide small farmers with seeds and fertilizer. Scrap export bans and restrictions. And vastly increase agriculture research and outreach programs to improve crop production.

US warships laden with supplies for Myanmar's cyclone victims will sail away after the junta refused their help, even as aid workers on Wednesday pleaded for more help to reach about a million survivors. The US navy said they would withdraw the four ships

Nuevo Laredo: Elderly foreign tourists are tapping Mexican pet shops for a drug used by veterinarians to put cats and dogs to sleep that has become the sedative of choice for euthanasia campaigners. Tourists from as far as Australia have travelled to Mexico to buy liquid pentobarbital, which causes a painless death in humans in less than an hour, right-to-die advocates say.

London: For decades, astronomers have pictured our galaxy as sporting four major, spiral arms, however new images effectively sever two appendages, revealing the Milky Way has just two major arms. An astronomer is calling for demoting two entire arms of our galaxy, after they failed to turn up in a sensitive new map of the Milky Way's stars. According to a report in New Scientist, the astronomer in question is Robert Benjamin of the University of Wisconsin in Whitewater, US.