The majority of Britons feel positive about their national identity ahead of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics, a survey suggests.

More than two thirds of people (68%) currently rank their feelings about being British as "seven out of 10 or higher", the study by social networking site Friends Reunited found.

Asked to rank "symbols" associated with being British, 82% named fish and chips, 79% mentioned the British pound and 74% said tea.

Others included Wimbledon (68%), rain (61%), and The Beatles and cricket, both named by 56% of respondents.

Football, a stiff upper lip, a love of the Monarchy and the Imperial weight system rounded out the top 10 symbols of Britishness.

Americans questioned for the same study listed tea, Wimbledon and cricket as their top associations with Britain, followed by The Beatles, fish and chips, the pound, a love of the Monarchy, football, bad teeth, a reserved nature and a stiff upper lip.

Sir David Attenborough is the celebrity most British adults believe embodies what it means to be British (25%) followed by Stephen Fry (22%) and Dame Judi Dench (15%).

Americans mentioned Dame Judi (13%) followed by Michael Cain (9%), Paul McCartney (7%), Colin Firth (6%) and Gordon Ramsay (4%).

Friends Reunited head Matt Bushby said: "2012 is set to be a great year to be British, with excitement building across the nation around the upcoming Diamond Jubilee and of course the Olympics. This summer will be all about getting together and celebrating the things that make our nation truly great, and that make us proud to call ourselves British.

"It's also really interesting to see that British people really value the pound right now, and this has probably been heightened more by the recent Euro turbulence."

Aspirin, ibuprofen and painkillers taken by millions of us each day for aches, pains and ailments could have a secondary benefit – prevention against skin cancer.

Scientists from Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark discovered that health benefits of commonly used non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) go beyond warding off heart attacks, strokes and even bowel cancer, after testing their ability to decrease the risk of three major types of skin cancer.

During the study, researchers analysed medical records of 2,000 patients diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma (non-melanoma skin cancer) and 4,000 people with basal cell carcinoma (a common form of skin cancer).

They compared the medical records (which included prescription details) to the records of 178,000 healthy patients without skin cancer.

Researchers discovered that people who had two or more prescriptions for NSAIDs were 15% less likely to develop non-malignant melanoma and had a 13% less chance of developing malignant melanoma than those who filed two or fewer NSAIDs prescriptions.

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The study highlighted that people benefited most when NSAIDs were taken for seven years or more. They also added that although NSAIDs decreased risk of basal cell carcinoma by 15-21% on less-exposed areas of the body, it made no difference to exposed parts of the body (the head and neck).

"We hope that the potential cancer-protective effect of NSAIDs will inspire more research on skin cancer prevention," said study author Sigrún Alba Jóhannesdóttir in a statement.

"Also, this potential cancer-protective effect should be taken into account when discussing benefits and harms of NSAID use."

This isn't the first time the power of aspirin and NSAIDs have been linked to cancer prevention, as common painkillers were recently linked to halting cancer tumour growth.

Forget swigging on a sports drink before a workout, eating a banana will give you the same energy boost - and is better for you - claim a team of researchers.

Scientists from North Carolina Research Campus (NCRC) wanted to see whether consuming a carbohydrate sports drink was more beneficial during intense exercise than a simple fruit snack.

However, study author Dr David Nieman told News Medical: “We found that not only was performance the same whether bananas or sports drinks were consumed, there were several advantages to consuming bananas.”

The study, published in the PLoS ONE journal, tested the theory on a group of trained cyclists. Each was asked to consume either a cup of carbohydrate drink or half a banana every 15 minutes during a 75km race lasting between 2.5 to 3 hours.

Researchers discovered that bananas provided athletes with compounds – such as antioxidants – that are not found in sports drinks, as well as nutrition from fibre, potassium and vitamin B6.

Why Coffee And Toast Could Improve Your Sports Performance

They concluded that bananas contain a healthier mix of sugars needed to boost energy levels and performance, than conventional sports drinks.

“I think there are a lot of athletes who don't like the thought of drinking carbohydrate sports drinks, which are essentially flavored sugar water," explains Dr Neiman.

"This type of research shows that you can have healthier carbohydrate sources before and after exercise that will support athletic performance just as well as a sports drink.”

Take a look at these 'healthy' snacks that might do more harm than good...

A mother-of-three who lost every one of her limbs to a flesh-eating infection is to be the first person in America to have a double arm and hand transplant.

Katy Hayes contracted group A streptococcal disease (a rare variant of strep throat) shortly after the birth of her third child two years ago. Doctors were forced to amputate her arms and legs and her uterus, bowels and ovaries were also removed.

Dr William Schaffner, the chairman of Preventive Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center told ABC news the strain of strep contracted by Katy is extremely rare but used to be very common among women who had just given birth hundreds of years ago.

He added: "One of the ways to try to stop it is to try to get ahead of it and cut off the piece of the body where the infection is so it doesn't keep advancing."

A team of 40 doctors and nurses will connect Katy’s new arms in a procedure expected to take at least 15 hours, the Houston Chronicle reported.

The bone stumps will be attached to metal plates and microscopes will be used to suture the arteries, veins, tendons and nerves.

Katy told KHOU-TV: “Before I was kind of dependent, laying there, not seeing really the kind of light at the end of the tunnel.

“And now I’ve got that light, and I’m just charging ahead. Because it’s within my reach. It’s going to happen.”

And she's kept her sense of humour, telling KENS5.com she is dreaming of simple pleasures such as: "Brushing my teeth; washing my face; wiping my own butt. You know — things that everyone takes for granted."

Katy’s life was changed forever after she was admitted to hospital with abdominal pains just four days after giving birth to daughter Arielle on February 10, 2010. Within hours she had suffered massive organ failure and fell into a coma.

Her husband Al was told his wife had a less than five per cent chance of surviving the infection and was asked for permission to amputate her extremities to try and contain the spread.

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Hand Transplant Surgery Donors Sought

Al told ABC News: “My responsibility is if she’s going to die on an operating table I’m going to try to save her, we’re not going to sit there and let her die, she’s going to fight it and that’s what she’d want.”

On February 27 2010, in his dedicated blog 'Katy Is Strong', he described the decision to authorise the paperwork as “the most difficult piece of paper I have ever had to sign”.

“I hope that everyone will understand why I did this. I hope that Katy will forgive me. I hope that I can forgive myself.”

Katy understands her husband’s decision, telling WFAA: “It’s a complete miracle that I’m alive, so I’m so grateful… I am so grateful.

“I wouldn’t be here for my kids if they wouldn’t have taken my arms and legs.”

According to Al’s blog, Katy will be listed on the organ donor’s waiting list this summer and is set to have the surgery at Brigham Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Click here to donate to the fund for Katy's care.

Workers may need to adopt Mediterranean-style working habits, such as the 'siesta', suggests the author of the Shaping Cities For Health report published in the Lancet today.

Professor Yvonne Rydin, who led the research, told The Telegraph that in order to cope with growing urban populations and rising temperatures, taking time out in the afternoon could be one solution.

She suggests that more flexible working arrangements are needed to combat the ‘urban heat island effect’, which can push temperatures up in a city by 10C.

These include encouraging people to come in early when it is cooler and having a few hours off during the heat of the day.

"Climate change will mean that London will have temperatures more like Hong Kong in the future," she told The Telegraph.

"As this happens we need to adjust our behaviour patterns accordingly. Offices could look at flexible working arrangements, not being so tight about office clothing and having lots of water available."

The UCL report also highlighted the importance of ‘interventions’ to protect city dwellers from the dangers of high temperatures.

Almost half the heat-related deaths in London, during a hot period in 2006, could be attributed to the effect of the ‘urban heat island’, states the paper.

The 2003 August heatwave saw an 2,000 extra deaths in the UK - and 22,000 in Europe, reports The Telegraph.

Ideas include increasing greenery and water features around the city, plus painting rooftops white to reflect light and improving natural air flow.

Professor Rydin pointed out that simply air conditioning buildings is a waste of energy and pumps even more hot air into the city.

Overweight women are tainted with the stigma of obesity even after they’ve lost a significant amount of weight, a revealing study has discovered.

The large study, conducted by researchers from the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, University of Manchester and Monash University, discovered that large women continue to receive anti-fat prejudice even after they lost weight and are now slim.

During the study, researchers asked a group of participants to read descriptions of women who had either lost up to 70 pounds (32kg), had remained the same weight for a long period of time and those who were currently obese or thin.

Volunteers were quizzed on their opinions about the women’s attributes – such as how attractive they found them and their view on obese people.

Researchers were surprised to discover that participants expressed a greater bias against overweight people after reading about women who had lost weight than after reading about women who had remained a stable weight - regardless of whether they were fat or thin.

It was clear from the findings that people who were obese in the past, were perceived to be less attractive than those who have always been thin, despite having identical weight.

The study author were further shocked when the negative attitudes towards obese people increased after being (falsely) informed that weight is ‘easily controlled’.

Talking about the results, co-author Dr Kerry O’Brien said in a statement: "The message we often hear from society is that weight is highly controllable, but the best science in the obesity field at the moment suggests that one's physiology and genetics, as well as the food environment, are the really big players in one's weight status and weight-loss.

"Weight status actually appears rather uncontrollable, regardless of one's willpower, knowledge, and dedication. Yet many people who are perceived as 'fat' are struggling in vain to lose weight in order to escape this painful social stigma. We need to rethink our approaches to, and views of, weight and obesity."

Researchers believe these findings reflect on how powerful obesity stigma is to people who’ve been overweight and that it appears to overshadow the obesity itself.

"The findings demonstrate that residual obesity stigma persists against individuals who have ever been obese, even when they have lost substantial amounts of weight,” says fellow co-author Dr Janet Latner.

“Given the great number of people who may be negatively affected by this prejudice, obesity discrimination clearly needs to be reduced on a societal level."

A separate poll of 2,000 people by Reuters discovered the fat prejudice is a big problem, with 61% of people admitting that obesity is down to ‘personal choices about eating and exercise’ and that fat people only have themselves to blame.

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• Telling People They Are Obese Is 'Derogatory'
• Are You A Pleasure Eater?
• Are Your Sleeping Patterns Making You Fat?

Fat prejudice has also made its way into our workforce too, as a recent report published in the International Journal of Obesity revealed that employers discriminate against overweight women when applying for jobs and receive lower starting salaries than their non-overweight colleagues.

Another study by John Hopkins University in Baltimore also found that obese people even receive fat prejudice from doctors.

Researchers discovered that doctors are more likely to assume that a fat person has not been taking their medication as prescribed.

Doctors and nurses also spend less time counselling obese patients about healthy lifestyle and diet, believing it could fall on deaf ears.

This stigma could cause people to avoid being treated for serious diet-related conditions like diabetes because of the negative treatment they receive from health professionals.

Check out our round-up of celebrities who have slimmed down...

Too many people are putting themselves at risk by having unsafe sex, health experts have warned, as figures were released showing a "disappointing" rise in the number of new cases of sexually-transmitted infections (STIs).

The Health Protection Agency (HPA) said diagnoses of STIs in England rose by 2% from 419,773 new cases in 2010 to 426,867 last year.

The steepest rise was in gonorrhoea which leapt 25% from 16,835 cases to 20,965, followed by diagnoses of syphilis, which rose by 10% from 2,650 to 2,915 cases. New cases of genital herpes rose by 5% from 29,794 to 31,154 in the same period.

The agency said there was a "significant rise" in the number of new diagnoses of STIs among gay men. There was also a high rate of STIs amongst young heterosexual adults aged between 15 and 24 years old.

It warned that the rise in gonorrhoea cases was of concern as there was emerging resistance to gonorrhoea treatment presenting the "very real danger" of untreatable cases in the future.

Dr Gwenda Hughes, head of the HPA sexually transmitted infections surveillance section, said there had been a steady increase over the past decade of the number of new diagnoses of STIs, apart from last year when there was a small decline.

"The reasons for this are numerous. There has been a lot more testing of STIs, there have been a lot more people going to clinics and getting an STI test, we have also been using much more sensitive testing - we are picking up more infections," she said.

"But we do think that there is quite a lot of evidence of on-going unsafe sexual behaviour as well. We think that it is a combination of all these things that is responsible for the increase."

She added: "We know that one of the reasons for the big increase in gonorrhoea is partly to do with much better testing for this infection and particularly amongst men who have sex with men.

"However we are still concerned about this because gonorrhoea is an infection that has become increasingly difficult to treat.

"We have seen emerging resistance to the current frontline antibiotics that are used.

"At the moment if you want to be treated for gonorrhoea you will get an injection, it won't be a tablet.

"We are worried that in the next five years, or some point in the future, that this is going to be a very difficult infection to treat."

Dr Paul Cosford, HPA director of health protection services, said: "We are not saying that gonorrhoea is untreatable at the moment in this country.

"We are saying that treatments that have been used are becoming less effective.

"We are on to injectable treatments as first line treatment now and it is unclear where the next treatment options will come from.

"Globally, we are seeing some cases of resistance to what we in this country use as first line treatment."

Lisa Power, of the Terrence Higgins Trust, the HIV and sexual health charity, said they were campaigning to raise awareness of STIs, but there had been a "real reduction" in health promotion work at local level with gay men.

"Increasing numbers of men who have sex with men are meeting their partners on line and through the use of apps on their phones and things like that," she said.

"So we are starting to work in those areas."

She added: "It is about getting messages through to people in the ways that they will hear. You can't just lecture someone from afar in medical language and expect them to actually get what it means for their real lives.

"We are getting these materials out, we are running campaigns but there is a real reduction in local activity across the country in health promotion for men who have sex with men and gay men and we need to be dealing with that."

A 4% fall in the number of cases of chlamydia in young adults, which often has no symptoms and can result in infertility was due to a "worrying trend" where fewer younger adults were being screened, the agency added.

The HPA said it was essential that a condom is always used when having sex with casual and new partners.

The agency added that sexually active under 25-year-olds should be screened for chlamydia every year and on change of a sexual partner.

Gay men who have unprotected sex with casual or new partners should be tested for HIV and STIs at least once a year and every three months if changing partners regularly.

A Department of Health spokesman said: "The fact that more people are coming forward to be tested and the improvements there have been in the way tests are done is to be welcomed.

"But it's also clear that not enough people are taking care of their sexual health.

"Sexually transmitted infections can lead to infertility and other serious health problems. The message is clear whatever your age, you should always use a condom."

Students from the Welsh university of Bangor "have the most sex" according to a league table published by a student website.

The frisky freshers admitted to having an average number of 8.31 partners since starting university - 2.51 more than their closest competitors Heriot-Watt students, who ranked in second place.

The virile victory was revealed in a survey of more than 4,600 students by website StudentBeans.com. The "University Sex League" saw Bangor's salacious students knocking the University of Glamorgan off the top spot.

The top five were:

Cambridge University came in at number 17 with 4.62 while Oxford ranked 51 with 3.44. Interestingly, five Welsh universities made the top 20.

A similar survey by the student website revealed those studying economics had the most sex, followed closely by those on social work and counselling degrees. And yet another poll showed 46% of students had tried "spanking" in the bedroom while 26% have had sex in a housemate's bed and 12% have had a threesome.

Rudy Eugene’s cannibalistic attack on a homeless man in Miami is being blamed on a synthetic drug known as ‘bath salts’.

Eugene was shot dead by Miami police last Saturday after he was seen, stark naked, chewing at the face of another naked man.

According to The Huffington Post, Armando Aguilar, president of the Miami Fraternal Order of Police said Eugene may have been under the influence of a drug that causes users “to go completely insane and become very violent."

Ronald Poppo (right) and Rudy Eugene (left)

Aguilar originally attributed the attack to "cocaine psychosis," writes Gawker.com, but has since changed the substance of influence to the stimulant Mephedrone — AKA "bath salts" — citing similar attacks in the area that were carried out by users of the drug.

Eyewitness Larry Vega told WSVN, he saw Eugene tearing a man to pieces with his mouth and ignored shouts from police officers to stop.

According to Forbes, 'bath salts' are highly addictive and elicit cravings similar to methampetamines.

They act on the brain like other stimulants, and are sometimes referred to as a “cocaine substitutes.”

The drug can cause severe agitation, rapid heart rate, high blood pressure, paranoia and symptoms of psychosis, including hallucinations and delusions.

It can also lead to overheating of the body, which is why so many users remove their clothing, reports The Huffington Post.

Last year, America's Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) banned three chemicals commonly used to make bath salts: mephedrone, MDPV, and methylone, reports Reuters.

However, according to the National Institue On Drug Abuse, the synthetic powder is sold legally online and in drug paraphernalia stores under a variety of names, such as Ivory Wave, Purple Wave, Red Dove, Blue Silk, Zoom, Bloom, Cloud Nine, Ocean Snow, Lunar Wave, Vanilla Sky, White Lightning, Scarface, and Hurricane Charlie.

They've been together for 64 years - an achievement Mel and Joey Schwanke of Fremont, Nebraska say is the result of wearing matching outfits every day.

Talking to KETV, 86-year-old Mel Schwanke says he can't remember how the tradition started, but for decades his 81-year-old wife Joey has been laying out complementary outfits for the pair to wear each morning.

The couple own 146 custom-made, matching outfits and Mel says his tie matches his wife's dress "every day".

The world is a strange place. And we have the proof right here…

From 30 second cheeseburger chomping, genitalia and brain eating and a self-stirring pot created by a dentist – take a look at our pick of best (and most bizarre) food news from around the globe.

But if this isn’t enough weirdness for you, take a look at these:

• Weird And Wonderful Global Food Customs
• Bizarre Food Delicacies From Around The World
• Strange Breakfast Traditions

The number of patients facing crippling waiting times in England's accident and emergency units has reached an eight-year peak, according to a new a study.

NHS performance data revealed that the proportion of people facing waits of more than four hours for treatment has increased by more than a quarter, reaching its highest level since 2004.

The King's Fund report showed that 4.2% of A&E patients waited longer than four hours from January to March, compared with 3.4% in the same period last year.

Its authors said the increase was a cause for concern and reflected growing pressures on the hospital sector.

On a national level the government's target that no more than 5% of patients face more than a four-hour wait in A&E was met last year, the think-tank's quarterly monitoring report found.

But 48 NHS providers breached the threshold in the final quarter of last year compared with 18 in the second quarter.

The King's Fund said the rise coincides with emerging evidence of increases in "trolley waits" as some hospitals struggle to find beds for patients.

Data obtained from 60 NHS finance directors as part of the study also revealed that 40% of trusts did not meet their productivity targets in 2011/12.

The report said: "This will be a significant concern as last year was the first in a four-year spending squeeze, during which the NHS needs to find £20 billion in productivity improvements."

Just four of the finance chiefs questioned said their organisation was forecasting a deficit this year, backing up national figures that estimate a surplus of £1.5 billion across the NHS.

The study found the NHS was performing well against a number of other key indicators including hospital treatment waiting times and superbug infections.

The proportion of inpatients waiting more than 18 weeks for treatment fell, while outpatient waits remained static, the report said. C difficile and MRSA infections dropped by 33% and 14% respectively.

John Appleby, chief economist at the King's Fund, said: "Overall, the NHS continues to perform well, despite the spending squeeze. However, this masks growing pressures in hospitals and significant performance issues in some NHS organisations.

"Given the strength of the political commitment to keep waiting times low, the steep rise in A&E waits will be a concern for the government.

"The productivity challenge will only get harder, so evidence that large numbers of NHS organisations failed to meet their productivity targets last year does not bode well."

However Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has lambasted the results, questioning the way the report measured time spent in A&E:

"This measure records the total time people spend in the department, including the time they are being treated; it does not just measure waiting" he said.

"The King's Fund report is wrong to suggest the proportion of people 'waiting' more than four hours to be seen in A&E is growing.

"People are waiting on average only 49 minutes for their treatment to start. In addition, the NHS has continued to meet or exceed the target of 95% of patients spending a total time of four hours or less in A&E."

Rooftop swimming pools are de rigeur for the modern luxury hotel: they provide a glittering haven from the hustle and bustle below - and often, some of the best views for miles, as this little selection of favourite places for sky-high dips shows...

Forget trying to disguise the signs of ageing with Botox, anti-ageing creams or surgery - because humans are able to sniff out a person's age through their body odour.

According to a team of scientists, humans can identify other people’s ages based on the scent of their body odour – and contrary to belief, the ‘old person smell’ is less intense and unpleasant than the scent of a younger person.

Researchers from the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, collected a selection of body odours by asking participants (ranging from young, middle-aged and elderly) to insert underarm pads into their t-shirts and wear them for five days.

The sweat patches were then cut up and placed into jars ready for researchers to sniff.

The scents were assessed by a group of 41 'evaluators' aged 20 to 30 years old, who rated the intensity and pleasantness of each smell. They were also asked to guess the ages of the person who produced the smell and identify which odours came from older participants.

The study found that the evaluators were able to distinguish between the three age categories but interestingly - the body odours taken from elderly people were described as less intense and unpleasant than the smells taken from young and middle-aged donors.

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The unique and so-called "old person smell" is recognised across human cultures. In Japanese it even has a special name, 'kareishu'.

Researchers claim the change in our smell is driven by the chemicals we release through our glands and the bacteria on our skin, which varies as we get older.

"Elderly people have a discernible underarm odor that younger people consider to be fairly neutral and not very unpleasant," explained study author Johan Lundström, said in a statement.

"This was surprising given the popular conception of old age odor as disagreeable. However, it is possible that other sources of body odors, such as skin or breath, may have different qualities."

Take a look at how certain smells can benefit our health...

Find out how to get smell good naturally...

A former government chief drugs adviser has suggested that there should be alcohol sensors in every car.

But the call by Professor David Nutt was described today as "impractical" by the AA.

Under his proposal, all drivers would have to breathe into a device and be within the legal drink-drive limit before their car would start.

Professor Nutt is president of the British Neuroscience Association and a professor at Imperial College, London.

He was sacked from his post as government chief drugs adviser three years ago after clashing with Labour ministers over drugs policy.

The alcohol sensors plan is one of seven ways he suggests to reduce the harm caused by alcohol in his new book, Drugs - Without The Hot Air.

Other suggestions include shorter licensing hours, compelling pubs and supermarkets to sell non-alcoholic lagers and beers alongside alcoholic drinks, and devising less dangerous alternatives such as drinks which give people a moderate "buzz".

Prof Nutt told the BBC that some countries use the in-car breath-testers, known as alcohol ignition interlock devices, to ensure that people convicted of drink-driving do not take to the wheel, but he had an even more "radical" idea.

He said: "You could potentially have it so that was true of all cars - everybody would have to breathe in (to the device) before they were able to drive away.

"You hear about terrible accidents when four or five young people die simultaneously in the one car because the driver's been drunk. It could save a lot of lives."

Commenting on the proposal today, AA president Edmund King said: "There is a voluntary scheme of 'alcolocks' at the moment but I don't think Prof Nutt's plan is practical.

"Our message is that no one who drives should drink. If that message gets across and the police target drink-drivers and breathalyse more people, then you don't need new devices.

"In France, drivers have to carry a breathalyser in the car. The problem here is that you could be under the legal drink-drive limit when you set off and then over the limit half an hour later, as it takes time for alcohol to get into the bloodstream."

Professor Nutt also claimed that the UK's misuse of drugs act needs to be changed so that the law better reflects their potential harm and called for a new approach that would allow some drugs such as cannabis and MDMA to be made available for medical and research purposes.

Talking to The Guardian, he said regulations were making it impossible to research such drugs, commenting: "The effect these laws have had on research is greater than the effects that [George] Bush stopping stem cell research has had because it's been going on since the 1960s."

Professor Nutt's concern is that there may have been many missed opportunities in the field of research because when a drug is declared illegal, it is "virtually impossible to work with.

"I wonder how many other opportunities have been lost in the last 40 years with important drugs like MDMA, with its empathetic qualities, drugs like LSD in terms of treating addictions, cannabis for all the possible uses and insights which it might have for things like schizophrenia."

He insisted he was not espousing legalisation but regulation where the provision of drugs could be tightly controlled.

A commonly prescribed diabetes drug increases the risk of bladder cancer, research has found.

Patients who use pioglitazone, a drug for type 2 diabetes, every day for more than two years double their chances of developing the disease.

The medication for controlling blood sugar levels is known to increase the risk of heart failure, but the European Medicines Agency decided to keep it on the market.

Researchers based in Canada analysed the medical records of more than 115,000 people across the UK who were given the drug over an 11-year period and found there were up to 137 extra cases of bladder cancer per 100,000 person years.

The results, published in the online medical journal bmj.com, show that 470 patients were diagnosed with bladder cancer during the average 4.6 years of follow-up, a rate of 89 per 100,000 person years. The rate in the general UK population aged at least 65 is 73 per 100,000 person years.

The analysis involved 376 cases, matched to 6,699 controls.

SEE ALSO:

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If patients had ever taken pioglitazone they were at an 83% increased risk of bladder cancer, which corresponds to 74 per 100,000 person years.

This increased to 88 per 100,000 person years for patients who had taken the drug for two years or more and 137 per 100,000 years for patients who had taken 28,000mg or more.

Pioglitazone is similar to another drug, rosiglitazone, which also increases the risk of heart failure but does not increase the chance of bladder cancer.

Dominique Hillaire-Buys and Jean-Luc Faillie, from the Department of Medical Pharmacology and Toxicology in Montpellier, France, said on bmj.com: "It can confidently be assumed that pioglitazone increases the risk of bladder cancer. It also seems that this association could have been predicted earlier.

"Prescribers who are ultimately responsible for therapeutic choices can legitimately question whether the benefit-risk ratio of pioglitazone is still acceptable for their patients with diabetes."

The data used was from the General Practice Research Database (GPRD), which contains anonymous patient records from more than 600 UK general practices.

Researchers studied 115,727 patients newly treated with diabetes drugs from 1988 to 2009. Cases of bladder cancer were identified and matched to up to 20 healthy control patients.

Ignore those twinges of cynicism and embrace your inner patriot this weekend, as studies regularly show that nationalism makes people happy.

However, how happy you feel also depends on what you’re taking pride in, noted researchers earlier this year.

In a report for Psychological Science, Matthew Wright, a political scientist at American University, and Tim Reeskens, a sociologist from Catholic University in Belgium found that more national pride correlated with greater personal wellbeing.

But they also noticed that those individuals who connected nationalism with respect for a country’s institutions and values, rather than race or religion, were the most content.

Reeskens and Wright divided people who felt national pride into two categories: ethnic nationalists and civic nationalists.

Ethnic nationalists saw ancestry—typically expressed in racial or religious terms—as key to defining their sense of identity. Whereas civic nationalists required only respect for a country’s institutions and laws to gain a sense of belonging.

According to a statement, the researchers found that ‘civic nationalists’ were on the whole happier than any other kind of patriot.

Wright explained: “It’s fine to say pride in your country makes you happy - but what kind of pride are we talking about? That turns out to make a lot of difference.”

The authors analyzed the responses of 40,677 individuals from 31 countries, drawn from the 2008 wave of the cross-national European Values Study.

They found that the wellbeing of the proudest ethnic nationalists’ barely surpassed that of people with the lowest level of civic pride.

“There’s been a renaissance of arguments from political theorists and philosophers that a strong sense of national identity has payoffs in terms of social cohesion, which bolsters support for welfare and other redistributive policies,” says Wright.

“We’ve finally gotten around to testing these theories.”

The conclusion: “You have to look at how people define their pride.”

An antioxidant supplement called N-Acetylcysteine (NAC) may help to reduce the impact of autism symptoms, suggests a new study.

Researchers from Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital gave the NAC supplement to 31 autistic children aged from 3 to 12 years old for 12 weeks.

During the study period, researchers focused on whether classic behavioural problems that affect children with autism - such as irritability, which can lead to involuntary bouts of kicking, hitting and biting - became more manageable.

Researchers used the Aberrant Behaviour Checklist to measure their progress.

"Today, in 2012, we have no effective medication to treat repetitive behavior such as hand flapping or any other core features of autism," said study author Antonio Harden, according to Science Daily.

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Researchers discovered a significant decrease in irritability after the 12-week period.

Scores dropped from 13.1 to 7.2 and positive changes were noted regarding repetitive behaviour, levels of shyness and ability to communicate.

It has been suggested in previous studies that people with autism are deficient in antioxidants.

In the future, scientists hope to expand on their preliminary research, which has been published in Biological Psychiatry.

According to The Moscow Times, a field of marijuana plants has sprouted up around a metro station, after local workers planted the wrong type of seed.

However, residents hoping for a free high won’t be in luck, as the weeds are being uprooted and an investigation is underway to determine how the mistake happened.

The Brateyevo metro station is under construction in the city's south end, reports The Moscow Times.

Workers had filled the area with the soil as part of the development project and the soil is now being replaced.

A new photography exhibition about to open in Los Angeles features subjects who have had extreme plastic surgery arranged in Renaissance style portraits.

Phillip Toledano, the man behind A New Kind Of Beauty, is inviting us to decide whether as a species we’re using science and technology to redefine our own idea of aesthetic beauty.

The initial reaction, from this writer at least, is a resounding no. The models, who have had a combination of collagen injections, nose jobs, eyelid lifts and breasts and pec implants look uncomfortable and unhappy, or as HuffPost US puts it, ‘almost inhuman’.

But could it be, as Toledano contends, that we’re simply at the beginning of an “amalgam of surgery, art, and popular culture” that will eventually change what we perceive as beautiful forever?

The contrast with Renaissance paintings is clever precisely because it demonstrates that this has already happened.

It’s often observed that in previous centuries, men and women with fuller bodies were considered desirable, whereas today’s culture fetishizes slimness.

What A New Kind Of Beauty seems to be asking is whether cosmetic surgery is, to use an oxymoron, a natural part of this evolution, or an aberration?

What will our concept of physical beauty be in another 100 years time? Could the answer be in the photos below? Let us know what you think.

A New Kind Of Beauty will show at Kopeikin Gallery in Los Angeles between 2 June and 2 July.