Marijuana to cancer: Scientists in Seattle have found that young men smoking marijuana were at a higher risk of developing an aggressive form of testicular cancer called nonseminoma than those who had never tried the drug. The disease is known to strike men in there 20s and 30s and is the most common type of cancer among men in the UK, the researchers said. The study, published in the journal Cancer, suggests that smoking the drug before the age of 18 raises the cancer risk by coaxing immature cells in the testes to become tumours later in life.
The vanishing act: Salamanders are dwindling in number in the tropical forests of Central America just like their frog cousins that have been mysteriously declining for years, a new study said. Two common species surveyed in the 1970s in southern Mexico and Guatemala are extinct and several others are plummeting. In the case of frogs, chytrid, a fast-killing fungus, and climate change were held responsible for wiping them out. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found species which could be seen 10-15 times an hour in the 1970s had now completely vanished.