"This is a good decision for lesbians everywhere," said Vassilis Chirdaris, lawyer for OLKE, the Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece.

"A court in Athens could not stop people around the world from using it."

"It was ridiculous."

Although the lawsuit was widely interpreted as homophobic, the plaintiffs denied that this was the case.

"My sister can't say she is a lesbian," said Dimitris Lambrou, one of the litigants.

"Our geographical designation has been usurped by certain ladies who have no connection whatsoever with Lesbos."

"This is not an aggressive act against gay women."

"Let them visit Lesbos and get married and whatever they like."

"We just want [the group] to remove the word lesbian from their title."

"The word lesbian has been associated with gay women for the past few decades but we have been lesbians for thousands of years."

Lesbos was home to the poetess Sappho in the 6th century BC, who was renowned for her poetry in praise of same-sex love.

But the islanders were in denial about Sappho's proclivities -- an idea that modern scholars find laughable.

"The term lesbian to define women who love women exists in every dictionary of just about all UN member nations," said Andrea Gilbert, spokesperson for Athens Pride 2008 and a member of OLKE.

"The term is recognised universally."

Some think that the case was symptomatic of a culture that is still in the grip of Orthodox Christianity.

"The church is literally out of control in its approach towards us, the media full of hate speech and the conservative government both hypocritical and indifferent," said Grigoris Valianatos, a well known gay rights activist.

"This trial is a reflection of the homophobia that prevails in Greece."

The plaintiffs were ordered to pay costs in the amount of 230 euros (£182).

But he couldn't have anticipated the furore that a simple request for an iced espresso would cause when he walked into the door of Murky Coffee, which has a stringent list of rules about what customers can and cannot ask for.

Viewers of Seinfeld will probably be having visions of the 'Soup Nazi' when they read the following:

"We have some policies at Murky Coffee," said Nicholas Cho, owner of the coffeeshop.

"No modifications to the Classic Cappuccino."

"No questions will be answered about the $5 Hot Chocolate (during the months we offer it)."

"No espresso in a to-go cup."

"No espresso over ice."

"These are our policies."

"We have our reasons, and we’re happy to share them."

Out-of-towner Simmermon thus had no idea of what was waiting for him when he walked into Murky Coffee and asked for his usual summertime tipple of iced espresso.

"I’m sorry, we can’t serve iced espresso here," said the barista.

"It’s against our policy."

"Okay,” replied Simmermon, "I’ll have a triple espresso and a cup of ice, please."

That didn't violate their rules, so he was served the drink and as he prepared to mix it with ice, the barista took the opportunity to admonish him.

"Hey man, what you’re about to do...that’s really, really not okay," said David Flynn, the barista working on the counter.

"This is our store policy, to preserve the integrity of the coffee."

"It’s about the quality of the drink, and diluting the espresso is really not cool with us."

"So I mean, you’re going to do what you’re going to do, and I can’t stop you, but-"

"You’re goddamned right you can’t stop me,” Simmermon interrupted.

"I happen to have a personal policy that prohibits me from indulging stupid bullshit like this -- and another personal policy of doing what I want with the products I pay for."

He then proceeded to mix the two and set off something of a storm in a coffee cup.

His parting shot was to leave a $1 bill as a tip, inscribed with the legend: 'Fuck you and your precious coffee policy.'

Simmermon went on to blog about the incident at his site andiamnotlying.com -- which eventually got a reaction from Murky Coffee's owner.

But far from vindicating him, Cho's pretentious language only seems to confirm Simmermon's opinion that Murky Coffee are too 'precious' about coffee.

"The fact is, there's a lot more to coffee than people think, and there was a time that a career position like a 'sommelier' was completely absurd (before wine became 'fancy') too," Cho said.

"There's a craft to coffee, that most people haven't been exposed to."

"When we first opened our shop, nobody had ever seen 'latte art' before, or was thinking about coffee bean varietals."

"Just as the average person understands at least that a 'merlot' is different from a 'chardonnay', maybe someday people will understand that a coffee brewed from bourbon varietal from a particular coffee farm in El Salvador is different from a particular lot of Yirgacheffe from Ethiopia."

"Right now, to most people, coffee is coffee, just like a Diet Coke is a Diet Coke."

Cho clearly believes that keeping the integrity of his coffee is better than keeping his customers.

"To others reading this I will say that if you don't like the policies, I respectfully recommend that you find some other place that will give you what you want, or select something that we can offer you," he said.

For his part, Simmeron is ambiguous about his reaction to the incident.

"I have mixed feelings about it, and I'm not really proud of the behaviour that triggered this," he said.

"These things take on a life of their own, and I don't want to be a part of it."

"He had a bad day, the owner had a bad day, and I had a bad day."

"That's all."

"It makes smoking easier."

Menthol appears as an additive in around 90% of cigarettes manufactured in the US -- but only a third of these brands are explicitly marketed as mentholated.

"For decades, the tobacco industry has carefully manipulated menthol content not only to lure youth but also to lock in lifelong adult customers," said co-author Professor Howard Koh, associate dean of Public Health Practice at HSPH.

Yet the tobacco industry denies that there is any strategy to deliberately hook young smokers.

"There is very little direct relevant data that shows menthol affects initiation," said David Sylvia, a spokesperson for Philip Morris, makers of Marlboro amongst others.

Sylvia was adamant that their products 'were not designed for nor marketed to underage smokers.'

The study also looked at the ethnicity of adult smokers -- they found that African Americans were more likely to smoke menthol cigarettes than any other group.

"This is another example of the cynical behaviour of the tobacco industry to hook teens and African Americans to a deadly addiction," said Professor Connolly.

"This is after the industry told the American public it had changed its marketing practices."

A bill currently before Congress would give the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) powers to regulate additives such as menthol -- at present, they have no authority to act.

"The FDA bill provides the vehicle to end the hypocrisy and save the lives of the young and a targeted minority group," Professor Connolly said.

The new process, developed by Kyohei Terao from Kyoto University, and his colleagues from the University of Tokyo, uses microscopic bobbins and hooks controlled by lasers to delicately hold and straighten a DNA strand.

The bobbins and hooks are made from a polymer called SU-8 photoresist that doesn't bind to DNA, thereby preventing damage.

The laser acts in effect as set of 'optical tweezers'.

"When a DNA molecule is manipulated and straightened by microhooks and bobbins, the gene location can be determined easily with high-spatial resolution," said Terao.

The technique isn't very different traditional sewing and knitting, apart from the scale.

"The microhooks and bobbins were inspired by manipulation of thread using our fingers," Terao said.

The breakthough was described as 'an excellent idea to fabricate unique microtools that enables us to manipulate a single giant DNA molecule' by Yoshinobu Baba, a researcher into biological microdevices at Nagoya University, Japan.

He believes that the process will eventually be useful for DNA sequencing and molecular electronics, amongst other applications.

Other scientists in the field also welcomed the development, but noted that real-world applications for the technique are a long way off.

"This is an impressive piece of microengineering," said Edwin Cuppen of the Netherlands Institute for Developmental Biology in Utrecht.

"However, relevant applications are still pretty far down the road -- there will be a major challenge for applying this to complex genomes such as those of vertebrates and man."

"We can literally replace every gallon of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel in the United States using just 12 per cent of the waste by-products in the country."

Rivera has spent 21 years and US$31 million (£15.6 million) developing the secret process.

A reactor is filled with farm waste such as hulls and cracked soy beans -- what results is a biogenic crude oil dubbed Vertroleum that Rivera claims is superior to crude from fossil sources.

Rivera contends that products made from Vertroleum burn at near 100 per cent efficiency -- minimising pollution and waste heat.

"Anyone you tell about this will call you a liar," said Rivera.

What is even more unbelievable is that the sole by-product from the process is an organic fertiliser.

"The fertiliser is worth about 15 cents (8p) per pound, but the fuel by-product is worth much more," said Gerald Brent, general manager of Sustainable Power Corporation.

Sustainable Power Corporation are now developing a new facility that will boast 400 reactors -– each producing 6,000 gallons of crude daily -– and a Vetroleum-powered 500 megawatt energy plant, capable of supplying 400,000 homes with power.

Brent hopes that the facility will be ready within the next 12 to 18 months.

"We have to build this from the ground up," he said.

"This is just our proof-of-concept."

"Unfortunately, a lot of the milk had gone off and some of the cartons had burst," said an unnamed Commission official.

"So it was all a bit smelly and messy."

Rather than throw away milk that is worth next to nothing, they came up with the novel idea of posting it to the EU Commission as a way of drawing attention to their plight.

"We have to, unfortunately, throw it away," said Michael Mann, spokesperson for Commissioner Boel.

"We are conscious of their concerns, but we don't think it's a good idea and they should send it to a good cause."

World prices for milk have risen -- but this has not translated into higher prices for German farmers, one reason why they went on strike in May.

During the dispute they fed milk to calves in public and poured it on fields as fertiliser.

As a result, the supermarket chain Lidl raised milk prices.

The latest protest has been prompted by the EU's decision in April to raise milk quotas by 2% to curb rising prices and meet growing demand.

Boel has pleaded with the farmers to find a better way to demonstrate their anger.

"If you would like to keep on sending milk, I can suggest that it would be better put to a good use in your local area," she said.

"This is the first research to definitively show that imagining something changes vision both while you are imagining it and later on."

"These findings are important because they suggest a potential mechanism by which top-down expectations or recollections of previous experiences might shape perception itself."

The findings of the study show that the process can happen instantaneously.

"You might think you need to imagine something 10 times or 100 times before it has an impact," said Frank Tong, co-author of the study and associate professor of psychology.

"Our results show that even a single instance of imagery can tilt how you see the world one way or another, dramatically, if the conditions are right."

Previous research into vision has been stymied by the subjective nature of how we perceive imagery.

"It has been very hard to pin down in the laboratory what exactly someone is experiencing when it comes to imagery, because it is so subjective," said Tong.

"We found that the imagery effect, while found in all of our subjects, could differ a lot in strength across subjects."

"So this might give us a metric to measure the strength of mental imagery in individuals and how that imagery may influence perception."

The study may help to settle a long-standing debate in the field -- is vision a literal representation of what is there or is it something more abstract?

"More recently, with advances in human brain imaging, we now know that when you imagine something parts of the visual brain do light up and you see activity there," said Pearson.

"So there's more and more evidence suggesting that there is a huge overlap between mental imagery and seeing the same thing."

"Our work shows that not only are imagery and vision related, but imagery directly influences what we see."

"I don't think under any First Amendment law you can single out a paparazzi photographer."

But concerns over public safety are making city leaders contemplate measures to restrict how paparazzi can operate -- Malibu is the latest area to propose legislation.

"My obligation is to protect everyone, not just the paparazzi," said Councilman Andy Stern, representing Malibu City .

"If they want us to ignore them, that's just not going to happen."

Earlier this year in nearby Los Angeles, a law proposed that paparazzi should stay several feet away from the stars that they photograph.

"It's becoming more combative where people are saying they've had enough with these people," said LA Councilman Dennis Zine.

"Right now, you have no laws that really apply."

"You have a chaotic situation that keeps on getting worse."

The number of paparazzi increase every year, driven by falling equipment costs and the growing desire of the public to see celebrities at their most vulnerable.

"They want to see them with their hair kind of messed up, they want to see them with maybe some spaghetti sauce on their shirt, they want to see them a little bit pudgy," said Brad Elterman, co-owner of Los Angeles-based agency Buzz Foto.

Elterman pointed out that one good shot could be sold to multiple outlets, making the business a lucrative way to make money without excessive effort.

"It's like the Mafia, once you're in you never want to leave," he said.

The property was bequeathed to the National Trust in the 1930's, but recent years have seen it neglected.

After the previous tenants moved out in 2006, the house remained empty until April 2007 when the squatters took up residence.

"We took direct action in protest at the National Trust's neglect," said Hannah Beasley, squatter and qualfied care worker.

"We wanted to highlight the fact that old historic buildings are being left to rot while a lot of young people are struggling to afford a place to live in."

The National Trust states that they are seeking to 'secure a long-term future' for the house and are drawing up conservation plans -- but the squatters claim action is needed now.

"There are numerous options, but they are choosing to just board it up and let it fall into greater disrepair," said Beasley.

"It leaves you wondering whether they are waiting for this wonderful building to be condemned."

After a series of court hearings, the National Trust have been granted a possession order -- meaning that the squatters could be evicted within days.

But the National Trust have gained little sympathy amongst some locals for their treatment of the house.

"It's disgusting the way they have left such a beautiful house go to ruin," said Richard Hazell, whose farm is near the property.

The National Trust were anxious to point out that they have no plans to allow the house to collapse or sell it off.

"We would never contemplate anything but a restoration of this farmhouse which is on land which the National Trust can never sell," said a spokesperson.

"The squatters have delayed our efforts to examine all of the options to secure the future of this listed building."

"The genome is the road map."

"It's our responsibility to the farmers to do this work."

Results of the five year project will be freely available in the public domain through the Public Intellectual Property Resource for Agriculture.

As well as investing $10 million in a joint project with IBM to use supercomputers in the effort, Mars will also work closely with scientists from the US Agriculture Department (USAD).

"Once we have the whole genome, they'll be able to go in and look at all the genes they're interested in," said Ray Schnell, a geneticist at USAD's subtropical horticulture research station in Florida.

"They'll all be interested in flavour genes."

Participants in the project were keen to talk up the potential benefits of the project to Africa -- the continent produces around 70 percent of the world's cocoa.

"This collaboration is an opportunity for us to apply our computational biology and supercomputing expertise to help improve an economically important agricultural crop," said Dr Mark Dean, vice president of Technical Strategy and Global Operations at IBM Research.

"We look forward to helping the agricultural community in Africa, and in other emerging markets."

"It shows that even the Microsoft co-founder -- who champions the 'magic of software' -- isn't immune to the frustrations of everyday computer users," said Bishop.

The e-mail details Gates' difficulties in downloading a copy of Windows Movie Maker, a simple video editing program aimed at consumers.

Things started to go wrong when Gates had difficulty connecting to the download site.

"This site is so slow it is unusable," he wrote in the e-mail.

His problems multiplied when the complex nature of the Windows operating system turned what should be a simple operation into something more arcane.

"In fact it is more like a puzzle that you get to solve," Gates wrote.

"It told me to go to Windows Update and do a bunch of incantations."

"This struck me as completely odd."

Gates attempted to continue installation of the software, but the process ended up damaging the 'Add/Remove Programs' control panel that should make installing software easy.

"Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable?" he wrote.

"What an absolute mess."

It is clear from the e-mail that Gates was intensely displeased by his failure to complete what should be a simple task.

"So after more than an hour of craziness and making my programs list garbage and being scared and seeing that Microsoft.com is a terrible website I haven't run Moviemaker and I haven't got the plus package," wrote Gates.

"The lack of attention to usability represented by these experiences blows my mind."

When asked about the e-mail by Bishop, Gates was blase about the e-mail and the tone of its content.

"There's not a day that I don't send a piece of e-mail...like that piece of e-mail," he said with a smile.

"That's my job."

Now scientists have determined that oxytocin is effective in curing anxiety, social phobias, and could even be used to alleviate the effects of autism.

"Tests have shown that oxytocin reduces anxiety levels in users," said Professor Paul Zak, a neuroscientist based at California's Claremont Graduate University.

"It is a hormone that facilitates social contact between people."

"What's more, it is a very safe product that does not have any side effects and is not addictive."

Zak tested the hormone on hundreds of patients and found that it curbed the instincts of wariness and suspicion that lead to anxiety.

“We’ve seen that it makes you care about the other person," said Zak.

"It also increases your generosity towards that person."

"That’s why [the hormone] facilitates social interaction.”

Oxytocin could provide a lifeline to those caring for people with autism, a notoriously difficult condition to treat.

Researchers in New York found that oxytocin reduces the adverse effects of autism such as anxiety.

“Oxytocin does not cure autism, but it does reduce the symptoms,” Professor Zak said.

“So there is a reduction of anxiety in autistic patients, and the oxytocin can induce them to do things like make eye contact with other people and look at their faces -- something autistic people find hard to do.”

"An employee can be cloned by bumping into that person with a portable card reader," said Dr Jacobs.

"The person whose identity is being stolen may then be completely unaware that anything has happened."

"At the technical level there are currently no known countermeasures."

The Dutch government was so alarmed to hear of the breach that they posted armed guards at all buildings using the smartcards -- the guards will remain until the Mifare smartcards are replaced.

"We take this extremely seriously," said a spokesperson for the Dutch Interior Ministry.

"It's a national security issue."

"We're in the process of replacing the cards of all 120,000 civil servants at central government level at a cost of about €5 (£4) for each card."

Jacobs also travelled to London, where he used the same technique to ride around the city's public transport system for free -- the Oyster smartcard used in London also features Mifare chips.

He again used a laptop to reverse-engineer the algorithm used in the Mifare chip.

Transport for London (TfL) played down the significance of the discovery.

"This was not a hack of the Oyster system," said a spokesman for TfL.

"It was a single instance of a card being manipulated."

The manufacturers of the Mifare chip, NXP Semiconductors (a spin-off from Royal Dutch Philips), confirmed that they are fully aware of the issues around the compromised platform.

"We are aware that the Dutch researchers have reverse engineered the algorithm and we are taking this issue very seriously," said a spokesperson for the company.

"We've informed all of our system integrators and advised them to closely assess their systems."

"We're talking to the guys at Radboud University and have identified various counter measures."

Experts are unambiguous about the steps that now need to be taken.

"You only have to walk down the street to see contactless access control systems everywhere," said Adam Laurie, a computer security researcher.

"It used to be a magnetic strip, now it's a card held up to a reader on the wall."

"A large percentage of these will have Mifare technology and are very vulnerable to attack."

"They should all be replaced."

Officials will no doubt have been keen to see 'Government abused chicken' rebranded as 'Kung pao chicken.'

Beijing's local government have produced a book of these translations and are calling on restauranteurs to pick up their copy and begin translating menus in readiness for the Olympics.

"It's not compulsory," said Su Shan of the Beijing Tourism Administration.

"They can choose to use the translations or not for bilingual menus."

"About one third of the hotels in Beijing, including the 119 designated Olympic hotels, have received the pamphlet."

But this kowtowing to foreigners has not gone down well with the Chinese.

"I don't like this new naming method, it's abandoning Chinese tradition," said one Internet commenter.

"There are many stories in the names of these dishes."

Commentators have also been critical of the translations.

"The process of standardising a menu translation is a double-edged sword," said Raymond Zhou of China Daily.

"It removes the ambiguity and unintended humor, for sure."

"But then it takes away the fun and the rich connotation too."

"It turns a menu into the equivalent of plain rice, which has the necessary nutrients but is devoid of flavour."

Zhou also pointed out inconsistencies in the way that dishes have been translated.

"What is puzzling is the use of transliteration when the meaning can be tersely put across in English," he said.

"Why is 'fish-flavoured' passed up and 'yu-shiang' chosen?"

"The latter does not mean anything for those who are not into the Chinese language."

But restauranteurs appear to be grateful for the translations, which they see as being of great help.

"Thanks to the pamphlet, we do not have to struggle to come up with the English translations of dishes any more, which is usually time consuming," said Mr Wang, a senior manager at Beijing's Guangzhou fine dining restaurant.

The study looked at the risk of mortality for women who consumed four to five cups a day against those who didn't drink coffee.

Risk of death due to all causes was 26 per cent lower for the five-a-day coffee drinkers.

Women who drank two to three cups of coffee a day had a 17 per cent lower risk.

Whilst men also showed similar benefits, the difference was not deemed to be statistically significant.

For both genders, there was no greater or lower risk of death from cancer among coffee drinkers.

"Coffee consumption has been linked to various beneficial and detrimental health effects, but data on its relation with death were lacking," said Dr Lopez-Garcia.

"Regular coffee consumption was not associated with an increased mortality rate in either men or women."

The study is the latest in a long line that have rehabilitated foods that were dismissed as unhealthy.

"It's also happened with other foods and nutrients, for example with fats," Dr Lopez-Garcia said.

"They used to be bad -- now it has been discovered they are not so bad, even can be good for our health."

The report states that coffee needs further investigation for its potential benefits to health.

"The possibility of a modest benefit of coffee consumption on all cause and cardiovascular disease mortality needs to be further investigated," it says.

But Dr Lopez-Garcia is warning people with certain medical conditions to be careful about taking up coffee as a result of the study.

"We need more research," she said.

"We are very cautious when we say coffee is not bad because for people with cardiovascular disease, hypertension and insomnia, clearly it's not a good idea to start drinking coffee."