Children who have at least one parent who smokes have 5.5 times higher levels of cotinine, a byproduct of nicotine, in their urine, according to a University of Leicester led study published online.

Having a mother that smokes was found to have the biggest independent effect on cotinine in the urine – quadrupling it. Having a smoking father doubled the amount of cotinine, one of chemicals produced when the body breaks down nicotine from inhaled smoke to get rid of it.

Sleeping with parents and lower temperature rooms were also associated with increased amounts of cotinine.

What happens if you deprive a group of 7 and 8 year olds of computers, television and games consoles for two weeks?

Psychologist and head of the Department of Media and Communication at the University of Leicester, Professor Barrie Gunter, has been working with the BBC Panorama team to find out.

Twenty-three 7 and 8-year-old school children from a single year group in a primary school in the Manchester area took part. They included children with a wide cross section of interests, from those who spent their free time in front of a screen to others who led a more active life outside school. Their families were also recruited to take part.

While young people have been going to college in greater numbers over the past 20 years the Scottish higher education rate versus the English has been 'consistently and substantially' greater in Scotland, according to a unique study funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

The project, led by Dr Linda Croxford with Professor David Raffe of the University of Edinburgh, found that while the Scottish system encouraged young people to study beyond the age of 16, middle class students took most advantage.

Children and their teachers are already benefiting from online learning communities such as the Oracle Education Foundation's Think.com, but there is a real opportunity for richer learning with such systems that is yet to be tapped.

Elizabeth Hartnell-Young of the Learning Sciences Research Institute at the University of Nottingham and freelance statistician Karen Corneille of Victoria, Australia describe how they have taken Think.com as a case study and investigated how a free, password-protected online community can support children's learning.

"We found that many children engaged readily with the site," says Hartnell-Young. Even those children with less developed ICT skills benefited from interacting with others.

Solving one of the biggest problems in commercialization of fuel-cell-powered automobiles is the goal of a new $1.88 million research project on on-board hydrogen storage at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory.

To be practical, researchers say, the hydrogen storage system must be able to hold enough of the fuel for a driving range of 300 miles before refilling; no current technology meets this goal within the constraints of allowable weight and volume for passenger cars.

The Argonne research will investigate nanostructured polymeric materials as hydrogen storage adsorbents. Developed through an earlier collaboration between Argonne and the University of Chicago, the new polymer adsorbent material has shown great promise in preliminary tests.

More good news for coffee is making the "it" drink for 2007.

People who drink coffee are less likely to develop an involuntary eye spasm called primary late onset blepharospasm, which makes them blink uncontrollably and can leave them effectively ‘blind’, according to a study published in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery and Psychiatry.

The effect was proportional to the amount of coffee drank and one to two cups per day were needed for the protective effect to be seen. The age of onset of the spasm was also found to be later in patient who drank more coffee – 1.7 years for each additional cup per day.