I can't foresee any possible difficulties with antidepressants. We'd like to include this in further trials.

 

It's not unusual for people to dream about things that have happened in the past. It's much better to dream about it than actually do it!

 

Probably not. The mechanism works by stopping the effects, and so might actually increase the cravings. The vaccine is probably best used in combination with something that helps with the withdrawal symptoms. However, by stopping the effects, it also helps to break the cycle of reinforcement. Eventually this may lead to people stopping people smoking because it does nothing to help the cravings.

 

Coca Cola, most other fizzy drinks and cold remedies contain huge amount of caffeine. This is a legal drug that gives you energy and perks you up. This is why taking certain 'flu remedies make you feel more awake and generally much better. These are similar effects to those found when drinking coffee. There are specific receptors in your brain for caffeine. These interact with a part of the brain that uses the reward-chemical dopamine, the same system activated by drugs such as cocaine. Although caffeine and cocaine don't give the same kind of rush effect, both have a common mechanism. It's also worth bearing in mind that tea also contains a lot of caffeine.

 

Nicotine gum is useful because it provides a bridge while you are trying to stop. It won't cure your addiction but helps ease the withdrawal symptoms. At the end of the day, the gum doesn't cause damage like smoking does, and so the gum is a much better option. Smoking causes a third of all cancers and the total number of deaths attributable to smoking is 120 000 per year. This is roughly the same as those washed away in the tsunami and is the same as a jumbo jet crashing in this country every day. Smoking does cause lung cancer, but most people don't live long enough to get it: they die of heart disease long before this.

 

Indeed, there's quite a lot of evidence that high fat foods have effects on some of the same brain systems as certain addictive drugs. It is also true that cigarettes are anorexic agents - not that long ago cigarettes were prescribed to reduce appetite and assist in weight loss.

 

 

 

 

It's False - China is actually the world's largest consumer of wool, buying up nearly 400,000 tonnes of the stuff every year. The world's leading wool producer is, of course, Australia which shears 5440,000 tonnes of wool of sheep every year.

It's False - Thailand is actually the world no. 1 rubber producer, exporting 2,737,000 tonnes of rubber a year - half a million tonnes more than the US.

It's False - That's a tall order. But Jeffrey Koh, 50, recently became the world's fastest eater of dry biscuits when he managed to cram down 3 cream crackers in 14.45 seconds, smashing the previous record of 49.15 seconds !

It's False - Cats are indeed the yanks best friend - there are 66 million of them in homes around America - but they are still outnumbered by people about 4 to 1.

It's False It's actually a formula dreamed up by researchers at London's Institute of Psychiatry for predicting how popular you are ! The letters, which are scored out of 5, refer to keeping Contact with friends, Facilitating entertainment, Humour, Personality and Attractiveness.

It's False - Taste buds on the tip of your tongue detect sweetness. Saltiness is picked up by the sides of the tongue and more bitter flavours towards the back.

It's True - At around age 20 the average person has about 10,000 taste buds but this number declines with age so elderly people may have as few as half this number.

It's True - Unlike most animals, it's actually the male seahorses that rear young in a brood pouch on their fronts. The female deposits eggs into the brood pouch and the male nurtures them. Females prefer males with a big paunch because this usually means more room for eggs. For humans you just substitute 'house', or 'car', for 'pouch'.

It's True - Christophe Cayrol has produced a pair of boots with built-in ultra-sensitive metal-detectors capable of picking up as little as a gram of metal in the soil. When the new shoes detect a mine below the surface they trigger an electrode on the lower leg which causes the muscles to pull the leg back out of harms way, preventing you from treading on (and detonating) the mine.