Alcoholics are more likely to die of smoking-related diseases than from the consequences of drinking. Even 'casual' smokers are more likely to be alcoholics, but it's the smoking that more often does them in.

A new study published in the December issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research looks at casual smoking and drinking behavior and has found that non-daily smoking confers an increased risk of hazardous drinking and alcohol-use disorders (AUDs).

Non-daily or "casual" smokers tend to slip through the cracks of prevention efforts but casual smoking and heavy drinking are prevalent behaviors among young adults and, furthermore, casual smoking occurs primarily in the context of alcohol use.

The fatter the world gets, the more extreme thinness is popular on the internet, according to an analysis of nearly three million random URLs. The study revealed that websites promoting anorexia and bulimia have jumped in number since 2007.

The effect of global climate change on the planet's ecosystems is one of the key issues scientists are currently focusing on and, while there isn't a lot of good news, there is some; the main source of food for many fish, including cod, in the North Atlantic appears to adapt in order to survive climate change.

Billions of Calanus finmarchicus, a plankton species, which are just a few millimeters in size, live in the waters of the North Atlantic where the research was carried out. It showed they responded to global warming after the last Ice Age, around 18,000 years ago, by moving north and maintaining large population sizes and also suggests that these animals might be able to track the current change in habitat.

Calanus finmarchicus, a zooplankton species, is considered one of the most important components of the regional marine food web.

AUBURN HILLS, Michigan, September 23 /PRNewswire/ --

- Company Introduces Three Advanced Electric-Drive Vehicle Prototypes

Actions speak louder than words.

Using data from NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), scientists have identified an unexpected motion in distant galaxy clusters. The cause, they suggest, is the gravitational attraction of matter that lies beyond the observable universe.

"The clusters show a small but measurable velocity that is independent of the universe's expansion and does not change as distances increase," says lead researcher Alexander Kashlinsky at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "We never expected to find anything like this."

Kashlinsky calls this collective motion a "dark flow" in the vein of more familiar cosmological mysteries: dark energy and dark matter. "The distribution of matter in the observed universe cannot account for this motion," he says.

When you think of dinosaurs, you don't often think of critters the size of chickens that ran around the ancient forests of America gobbling up termites but that's just what the smallest dinosaur species found in North America was like, according to University of Calgary researcher Nick Longrich, who analyzed bones found during an excavation near Red Deer, Alberta.

Called Albertonykus borealis, the slender bird-like creature is a new member of the family Alvarezsauridae and is one of only a few such fossils found outside of South America and Asia. In a paper published in Cretaceous Research, Longrich and University of Alberta paleontologist Philip Currie describe the anteater-like specimen and explain how it likely specialized in consuming termites by using its small but powerful forelimbs to tear into logs.

LONDON, September 23 /PRNewswire/ -- Following Prime Minister Gordon Brown's speech today at the Labour party conference, the MS Society welcomes news of a commitment to end prescription charges for people with long-term conditions.

Speaking at the conference in Manchester, Mr Gordon Brown said: "....so our plan is next year to abolish all prescription charges for everyone with cancer. And this is not the limit of our commitment to a fair NHS. In the long term, the NHS generates cash savings in its budget we will plough savings back into abolishing charges for all patients with long-term conditions."

LONDON, September 23 /PRNewswire/ -- Commenting on the promise to abolish prescription charges for cancer patients, the Chair of the English Pharmacy Board of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, Beth Taylor said:

"This is good news for those affected by cancer. It is unfair for cancer patients to have to deal with the added financial burden of prescription charges and we see at first hand the anguish that this can cause.

BAGNOLS-SUR-CÈZE, France, September 23 /PRNewswire/ --

- Company's Expertise in Chromogranin A Tumor Detection Marker Technology Now Applied to Universal Technique

CISBIO Bioassays, a member of IBA group and a developer and marketer of diagnostic assays for the quantification of tumor markers, announced today the launch of its chromogranin A ELISA diagnostic tool, Chromoa. This ELISA kit complements CISBIO's existing chromogranin A RIACT kit and can be used by all laboratories for the detection and monitoring of neuroendocrine tumors.