09.15.03:::
In Charleston, S.C., in August, graduate student Mohammed Talha Shekhani, 23, was charged with assault and lewd conduct for what he told police was a sincere, though inept, strategy for meeting women. After a friend told him to just walk up to a woman and start touching her, Shekhani said he initiated four public hugging incidents (with two adults and, almost directly in front of their mothers, two teenage girls). His lawyer said Shekhani's poor judgment was caused by the stress of an academic program that will earn him both a Ph.D. and an M.D. at Medical University of South Carolina.

09.12.03:::
Man Must Share Pension with Ex-Wife's Husband

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German court has told a man that the pension he used to share with his ex-wife must now be shared with her widowed husband, authorities said on Thursday.

Bernhard Wanwitz, a judge at the administrative court in the western city of Mainz, said the man withdrew an appeal to keep his entire pension when the court said the widower was entitled to a share of his late wife's divorce settlement.

Under German law, when a couple divorces, the ex-spouse with the smaller pension has a right to top-up payments from the other's pension.

After the woman died, her new husband inherited her pension and then exercised his right to collect the money.

The retired civil servant will now have to pay around 700 euros ($785) of his pension each month to the widower. "This is the first time I can recall a case like this," said Wanwitz.

07.29.03:::
Tight Neckties Linked to Glaucoma Risk

LONDON (Reuters) - Men should think twice about how tight they wear a necktie because it could increase their chances of developing glaucoma, a group of serious eye diseases.

Research reported in the British Journal of Ophthalmology on Tuesday showed that a tight necktie raises blood pressure in the eye, which is a leading risk factor in the illness that can lead to damage to the optic nerve and loss of vision.

"A tight necktie increases IOP (intraocular pressure) in both normal subjects and glaucoma patients and could affect the diagnosis and management of glaucoma," said Dr Robert Ritch of the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary in the United States.

Ritch and his colleagues tested IOP of 20 healthy men and 20 who suffered from glaucoma while they were wearing an open-neck shirt, before putting on a tight necktie and three minutes after loosening it.

Their results showed that 60 percent of the men with glaucoma and 70 percent of the healthy volunteers had an increased eye pressure after wearing a tight necktie.

In addition to raising the risk of glaucoma, donning a tight necktie during an eye examination could lead to a false diagnosis of the illness.

The researchers suspect that a tight necktie constricts the jugular vein, which increases blood pressure and IOP.

The risk of glaucoma, which affects about three million people in the United States alone, increases with age.

07.10.03:::
Black-Widow Spiders May Improve Sex Life

Chilean researchers said on Wednesday they aimed to develop a new pill to combat impotence that would have the added bonus of being a male contraceptive, based on experiments with the venom of black-widow spiders.

The spider, famed for the female's tendency to eat her mate after sex, makes a poison that can produce muscular seizure, acceleration of the heart and even death.

The scientists, working at University La Frontera in the southern Chilean city of Temuco, have been studying the effects of the venom's various properties for the past seven years. By isolating these elements, they could reproduce them synthetically in drugs to strengthen weak hearts and help men with erectile dysfunction.

Last November, they discovered by accident that one ingredient in spider venom could not only facilitate male erection in a way similar to the popular Viagra pill, but also render sperm infertile.

"This new drug could help the functioning of the male erection without having to worry about the partner getting pregnant," Fernando Romero, director of the research project, told Reuters outside his lab filled with the dangerous spiders caught in southern Chile.

The feared black widow has earned its place in Chilean folklore. A womanizer is said to have been "bitten by a spider."

Romero said the contraceptive effects of the drug could last up to 20 minutes, depending on the dosage.

Romero and his team have won funding of $970,000 from the government and the university for three years of research, which they hope will end with a drug patent. Brazilian (news - web sites) experts and Chilean pharmaceutical company Laboratorio Silesia are also involved in the project.

Romero said they were aiming to eventually produce a drug that would have a similar effect as Viagra but without any potentially harmful side-effects such as an accelerated heart rate. He said they would isolate and eliminate the agents in the venom affecting the heart.

Viagra works by blocking an enzyme called PDE-5 that affects blood flow to the penis.

Several Chilean doctors contacted by Reuters were slightly skeptical of the project before seeing scientific results but in general welcomed the research.

"This is a good project with a solid scientific base. I think it is government money well spent," said Raul Vinet, a pharmacolgist from the University of Valparaiso.