They are caused by blood putting downwards pressure on weak vein walls. Experts now think genes play a large role in who gets them.

Most varicose veins do not cause medical problems, although they sometimes result in serious leg ulcers, but they are unsightly and many people want them removed for cosmetic reasons.

Traditionally surgeons get rid of them by cutting and pulling them out, a process known as ‘stripping the vein’. However, this can itself cause unsightly blemishes and recovery can take months.

Newer methods include laser and radio frequency therapy, which both heat up the veins to such an extent that they become gummed shut.

Varicose veins can be treated in just an hour with a novel procedure that involves gluing them shut, doctors have said.

Very small quantities of a special non-toxic glue are injected into the affected veins, using a tiny catheter guided by ultrasound.

Blood then finds its way through other more healthy veins and the diseased varicose veins wither and become less visible. Early trials have shown good results.

Professor Alun Davies, who has helped treat 12 patients at Charing Cross Hospital in London, said: “It does seem to work. So far it has been very straightforward and all the patients have been fine. One had a complication of inflammation on the skin but that soon settled down.

“However, these are very early results, and how it will compare with other procedures longer-term is difficult to tell.”

Dr. Rodney Raabe, from US firm Sapheon which came up with the method, believed VenaSeal was better because there was “no need for local anaesthetic to be administered the full-length of the vein to reduce any pain”.

Results of a small-scale trial on 38 people, presented last summer at a medical conference in Slovenia, were promising.

Peter Bryant, 73, a taxi driver, became the first patient in Britain to undergo the procedure in March.

He said, “The whole visit was over in an hour and I walked out feeling absolutely fine with just very slight bruising that soon disappeared.

“It was absolutely wonderful. I’ve had no cellulitis since and my varicose vein is gone.”

The study focused on modifiable social influences on motivation towards physical activity, rather than fixed factors used to predict health such as gender and ethnicity.

Social influence on motivation includes giving impetus, by nagging; supporting progress with emotional and moral support; logistical support, such as looking after the children for an hour; and making activity itself a social endeavor, such as going with friends.

The study from the University of Lincoln, is the first to address the range of social influences affecting levels of physical activity among people aged between 30 and 60.

It found through a series of interview with adults from across the UK that the least active people actually appreciated pestering by spouses and children.

The media and medical general practitioners appear to play a similar role, providing ‘alarm bells’ to shock those who were unfit or inactive about the potential consequences of a sedentary lifestyle.

‘The most common barriers to active lifestyles were work, long commutes and provision of facilities.

However, it became clear that if you know who to ask, it is also possible for your social network to help you be more active, for example, by going for a run with colleagues straight after work.

‘The good news is that the study suggests once you are active and healthy, you no longer need nagging.

Most importantly, however, the suggestion that ‘nagging is good’ should only be applied to getting healthy and active!’

Study author Dr. Richard Keegan, said: ‘The aim of this study was to help people examine their lifestyle as a whole and establish what the key factors are in influencing their activity levels.

Its statistics show a record number of male ‘tummy tuck’ operations or abdominoplasty as the rise in demand outstrips that for all other procedures, including women’s breast enlargement.

The number of men opting for abdominoplasty or ‘tummy tuck’ surgery to get a slimmer figure has risen from 108 to 124 operations a year or up by 15 percent.

Tummy tucks proved increasingly popular to women as well, with a rise of seven per cent from 3,039 to 3,251 surgical operations made.

Despite the financial downturn and recent health scares, more than 43,000 people went under the knife for cosmetic operations last year according to annual statistics from the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS).

For the first time, the annual audit included fat transfer procedures, where fat is taken from one part of the body and injected elsewhere, mainly into the face to restore volume.

Fat transfer procedures were up five per cent for both sexes, ranking the eighth most popular procedure among women and the sixth most popular for men.

Women underwent 38,771 procedures, up from 34,413, an increase of 5.8 per cent in line with demand for male surgery which increased by 5.6 per cent to 4,298 from 4,017. Male procedures account for 10 per cent of all cosmetic surgery.

Boob jobs in women maintained a slow but constant growth of 6.2 per cent from 9,418 to 10,003 in 2011 and continue to be the most popular procedure.

Breast augmentations are still by far the most popular cosmetic surgery procedure for women and have risen year after year.

Man-boob ops, or gynaecomastia soaring, kept its place as the second most common procedure for men, rising by seven per cent from 741 to 790.

Men are spending a fortune on surgery to reduce their breasts. Surgery involves making an incision near the nipple and removing excess fat.

Male liposuction also went up by eight per cent to 511 from 473 in 2010.

Fazel Fatah, consultant plastic surgeon and President of BAAPS, said: “It is understandable that procedures for the more noticeable areas of the face and body, such as breast augmentation, rhinoplasty (nose jobs) and eyelid surgery, continue to prove popular when patients are looking to get the most ‘impact’ from their surgery to enhance their mental well being and self-confidence.

Rajiv Grover, consultant plastic surgeon and BAAPS President Elect with responsibility for the UK national audit of cosmetic surgery, said: “The continued popularity of aesthetic plastic surgery even through financially difficult times demonstrates that the public sees real value in the psychological and physical improvement that can be achieved.

‘Our assumption about text messaging is that it encourages unconstrained language. But the study found this to be a myth,’ says Joan Lee of Calgary University.

Lee suggests that reading print media exposes people to variety and creativity in language that is not found in the slangy communication of text messaging, which tends to be confined to small groups of peers.

Previous studies had suggested that texting allowed people to be more creative with language.

But while text-messaging seems ‘creative’ in the way it shortens words, it’s actually subject to rigid rules.

The number of actual words used by texters is also more limited.

People who text heavily could be less able and willing to learn new words, one of the most crucial skills for reading.

‘The people who accepted more words did so because they were better able to interpret the meaning of the word, or tolerate the word, even if they didn’t recognize the word,’ says Lee.

While text messaging may seem ‘creative’ in the way it shortens words, users are actually restricted to a small, rigidly defined vocabulary.

‘Texting is associated with rigid linguistic constraints which caused students to reject many of the words in the study,’ says Lee.

Researchers from the Food Labeling to Advance Better Education for Life (FLABEL) investigated 37,000 products in five potentially unhealthy types of food, including biscuits, chilled ready meals and fizzy drinks.

They found Britain had the highest proportion of nutritional information on packaging, with more than 95 percent including it on the back of packs, and 82 percent on the front.

However, the research also found that most consumers understand perfectly well how healthy various foods are with only the bare minimum of nutritional information.

Authors of the study discovered that people who said they understood or liked the various labeling schemes were happy to ignore them and buy the food they liked best, regardless of how unhealthy it was.

FLABEL advisor Professor Klaus Grunert, from Aarhus University in Denmark called on food companies to put clear information on the front of packs for maximum impact.

However, Grunert conceded that even this wouldn’t make shoppers to dump the junk, saying: ‘Motivation was a major factor affecting the impact of nutrition labels on the choices made by consumers.

He added: ‘The FLABEL research shows the most promising option for increasing consumers’ attention to, and use of, nutrition information on food labels, is to provide information on key nutrients and energy on the front of the pack, in a consistent way.

‘Complementing this information with a health logo can also increase attention to, and use of, the information, especially when the consumer is under time pressure.

Twenty seconds of laser light can remove pigment in brown eyes so they gradually turn blue.

However, other eye experts urge caution because destroying eye pigment can cause sight problems if too much light is allowed to enter the pupil.

The process involves a computerized scanning system that takes a picture of the iris and works out which areas to treat.

Other eye experts have expressed reservations.

“The pigment is there for a reason. If the pigment is lost you can get problems such as glare or double vision,” said Larry Benjamin, a consultant eye surgeon at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, in the UK.

The pigment called melanin does not regenerate so the treatment is irreversible.
Dr. Homer said that he only removes the pigment from the eye’s surface.

“This is only around one third to one half as thick as the pigment at the back of the iris and has no medical significance,” he said.

Dr. Homer also claimed patients would be less sensitive to light than those born with blue eyes. He reasoned that brown-eyed people have more pigment in the other areas of their eyeballs, and most of it will be left untouched.

“We run tests for 15 different safety examination procedures. We run the tests before and after the treatment, and the following day, and the following weeks, and the following months and the following three months.

“Thus far we have no evidence of any injury.”

Seventeen people have been treated so far. All are very short-sighted. They have been offered lens transplants in return for taking part.

Dr. Homer said the work is checked by a board of ophthalmology experts to ensure it is up to standard.

A Florida-based company named Scottish Spirits Ltd. and apparently produced in Panama, has a water base to which a variety of chemicals, flavors and colorings are added.

It has zero per cent alcohol and it is designed to allow individuals with medical conditions or with religious beliefs that prohibit alcohol consumption, to drink.

Significantly, it has been declared as Halal certified, which opens up the possibility of huge sales around the globe in Muslim countries and the Middle East.

ArKay is being promoted to deliver an ‘exceptional taste of a whiskey without the alcohol content’ and ideal for teetotalers or those worried about drinking and driving.

Makers say the new drink tastes and looks exactly like traditional whiskey. It is suitable for drinking straight-up, on the rocks, or with your favorite mixers.

It is due to go on sale around the world on December 1. In Britain it will cost £10 (US$ 16) a bottle and £4 (US$ 6.4) for a can.

The exceptional taste of whisky without the alcohol content makes it a perfect beverage day or night, according to an Arkay spokesman.

However, a spokesman for the Scotch Whisky Association said: ‘It is not possible to make alcohol-free whisky.

This company is trying to exploit whiskey reputation with highly irresponsible marketing.’

Real Scotch whisky is a simple creation of water and barley, which grows well in the cool climate and summer rains that are common north of the border.

Each distillery’s unique taste is delivered by the way the barley is dried, often in peat kilns, together with the way the whisky is carefully aged over many years, often in oak casks.

In 1997, before Laurent Kabila took power in Congo, formerly called Zaire, aides close to former President Mobutu Sese Seko smuggled crates of diamonds and more than US$ 40 million dollars in cash out of the country on a jet chartered by the South African government, according to a South African newspaper.

In Haiti, President Jean Claude Duvalier and his wife, Michelle, withdrew at least US$ 33 million dollars from the country’s central bank, transferring it to foreign accounts, and may have stored some money and jewelry in a safe deposit box in Manhattan, according to court papers filed by the Haitian government after he was forced out in 1986.

The former Philippine first lady, Imelda R. Marcos, and her three children were charged with removing 22 crates of Philippine pesos from the country when they fled to Hawaii in 1986.

The Panamanian dictator, General Manuel Antonio Noriega, was reported to have stashed US$ 5.8 million dollars in denominations of 10s, 20s, 50s and 100s in a file cabinet at his home. United States authorities seized the money during the invasion of Panama in 1989.

Then, in 2003, in the hours before American bombs began falling on Baghdad, one of President Saddam Hussein’s sons, Qusay Saddam Hussein, was said by officials to have carried off nearly US$ 1 billion dollars in cash from the vaults of the country’s Central Bank.

The volume of cash was so great, some US$ 900 million dollars in American US$ 100 dollar bills and as much as US$ 100 million worth of euros, that a team of workers took two hours to load the money on three tractor trailers.

Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Qaddafi has hoarded tens of billions of US dollars in cash, Libyan dinars and possibly other currencies in banks and in Bab Al Azizia, his Tripoli compound, intelligence officials and as disclosed from the person with ties to the Libyan government.

A fund of such magnitude helps Qaddafi withstand economic sanctions and a freeze on Libyan government assets abroad. And if he flees, the hard cash is easier to carry than other assets like cars or houses.

It is part of the show’s not so covert political agenda , which is to encourage Afghans to question the way their government works.

Nepotism is also a major theme in a new television show ‘The Ministry,’ one that is well understood by every Afghan. Family, almost always excels virtue.

People complain about it, but they rarely feel they can question it publicly because hiring a family member is a form of loyalty, which is respected, and no one would want to be shunned by their own family.

Television has an especially important role to play in Afghanistan because so few people read and they need cinema and theater to teach them, according to Abdul Qadir Farouk, 65, a longtime actor.

“The actor is the camera of society, watching the society with different lens,” said Mr. Farouk, who plays the minister in the show. “It is to make people smile, but also to give people political knowledge.”

In the old buildings that house Afghanistan’s ministries, one office is always new, the minister’s. It is also often where corrupt deals are done, incompetence often reigns and favoritism is prevalent.

It is the setting that provides the show, ‘The Ministry.’ that mimic the nepotism, payoffs and incompetence that are rampant in the Afghan government.

The show which will be premiered in the nation’s largest TV network, Tolo, is a new kind of show for Afghanistan, a ‘mock-umentary.’ It aims to make Afghans smile, not just because it is funny but because it is familiar, holding up a mirror to their lives but with just enough artistic distance to make them laugh.

The idea for the show originated with Saad Mohseni, the chairman of Moby group, which owns Tolo, who worked briefly for a ministry before his television conglomerate got off the ground in the early days after the Taliban were driven from power.

The show’s story is about, the Ministry of Waste in the imaginary country of Heckland, which means ‘nothing land,’ is inhabited by a weak minister and his hapless entourage.

The characters are people most Afghans can easily recognize; the ‘react first, think later’ minister of waste collection and his subservient and not quite bright brother in law who works as the ministry’s administrative officer; his pretty young secretary; the butler who serves tea; the minister’s ambitious top adviser; and his self aggrandizing and not very efficient bodyguard.

For all the humor and slapstick, the show has a dark side, showing the odds that Afghan must confront day after day. For all that, it is not nearly as depressing as some of Afghanistan’s real government offices.

A 30 year old, energetic government deputy minister, who wanted to make things work, was upset, that despite the thousands government employees working, he found out that at 4 p.m. he was the only person left in the office.

He was dismayed to the improper behavior of government officials and workers who only work an hour a day instead of the minimum eight.

Icas are big, up to 2.5 centimeters in length and fat, they can bite viciously.
They are a delicacy in Silveiras, Brazil and are hunted by residents like Jorge da Silva. He captured the ants with his barehands. They frequently bit him, his hands are typically bloodied.

Mr. da Silva plucked a giant ant from the ground, pulled its wings, legs and mandible, and tossed it into his mouth. “Tastes like mint,” said Mr. da Silva, 58, with an audible crunch.

Mr. da Silva roamed the hills above this town of 6,000, on the hunt for a rare epicurean delicacy, icas or queen ants. The thunderous spring rains drive the ants out of the ground, and for a few weeks Silveiras becomes a frenzy of ant hunting.

But the ants are under threat, residents contend. Driven by Brazil’s growing economy. With urbanization and the poison that they are putting into the soil, they don’t have much time left, according to Vera Toledo, 67, a writer and an anthropologist.

The ants number are dwindling. The principal culprits are pesticides used on eucalyptus trees that are planted to produce cellulose for paper and other products, local officials said.

Residents have not tried to make the ants into a commercial enterprise. While they say they could use the extra money, many seem more concerned with preserving the tradition and the ant population for themselves.

Ocilio Ferraz, 72, Silveiras’s resident icas guru said, he grew up eating icas and taught the tradition to his children. He has dedicated himself to keeping the ant feast alive. He has resisted efforts to export them, preferring to receive visitors at his restaurant where he has a special kitchen devoted to frying the icas.

The ant catchers sell their haul to Mr. Ferraz for about US$ 15 dollars per liter. He charges about US$ 12 for a large plate of icas for two, with wheat fried in fat.

Edison Mendes Mota, the former mayor of Silveiras said he does not care for the icas, even though his wife has 8 kilograms of icas in their freezer. Mr. Mota supports the town’s growing eucalyptus industry, though the planting needs to be regulated.

Alair Duarte, the president of the town council, has proposed limiting eucalyptus plantings so the ants can reproduce. “If we don’t do it soon, we won’t have any icas left,” he said.