News Service from House Harris

FED: Weird and wonderful science of 2008

SYDNEY, AAP - Offbeat research and bizarre findings from the medical world in 2008:

- A brave US university student had her appendix removed through her vagina in March in the first operation using the "natural orifice" technique. The no-cut, no-scar approach has become increasingly popular worldwide.

- Gay men are more likely to be left-handed, to be the younger siblings of older brothers, and to have hair that whorls in a counter-clockwise direction, US research has found. They are also more likely to have a symmetrical-shaped brain than heterosexual men, head scans on 90 Swedes showed.

- A Perth woman who spent four decades puzzled by a pungent body odour resembling rotting fish has finally been diagnosed with a embarrassing and rare genetic disorder affecting the smell of sweat, breath and urine.

- Teaching CPR to the tune of the Bee Gees' smash hit Stayin' Alive helps students get the right rhythm and speed for life-saving compressions, University of Illinois researchers found.

- Teenage pregnancy rates are twice as high among young people who watch x-rated TV shows. US researchers say characters in sexy shows are more likely to obsess about sex and disregard contraception.

- Queensland researchers are looking for people who hear colours, smell sounds, or feel tastes to better understand the rare phenomenon known as synaesthesia. "It's not a disorder," they said. "If anything, it's a gift."

- People with religious beliefs feel less pain than non-believers, say Oxford University researchers, who tested the hypothesis by giving subjects electric shocks while looking at a painting of the Virgin Mary.

- Living up to their sexual stereotype, males in the science faculty have been revealed as the least likely university students to be sexually active. Female arts students have the most sex, the University of Sydney study showed.

- People who stalk royalty are more likely to have a psychotic disorder than people who stalk non-royal people, New Scientist magazine says. Court records show 80 per cent of those found guilty of stalking royalty display psychotic symptoms.

- A British health service has banned staff from wearing certain types of bevelled wedding rings in the belief that bacteria could breed in the engravings, but the move has angered married doctors.

- A blocked nose could be better treated with sex than pharmacy-bought decongestants, according to Iranian neurosurgeons who claim an orgasm can clear the nasal passage. "It can be done from time to time to alleviate the congestion," the lead researcher says.

- Australians who enjoy bondage and discipline are not damaged or dangerous, and might even be happier than those who practise "normal" sex, according to a survey of covert sexual behaviour.

- A US study has found that one in 20 patients have had the urge to kill their doctor, most due to general distrust of the medical profession.

- Tests on German men have shown the heated seats fitted in many luxury cars raise scrotum temperature above optimal sperm production conditions, weakening a man's chances of fathering a child.

- A woman's voice is most attractive to a man when she is ovulating, according to a New York study which found men pick up a coded message indicating the best time to make good use of their sperm.

- Tests on rats have shown that pregnancy sparks changes in the brain that make women quicker and smarter for decades after giving birth, a women's psychiatry conference in Melbourne was told.

- Shorter men are more likely to suffer bouts of jealousy, according to work by Dutch and Spanish researchers. "From an Australian perspective, this is quite right because studies have shown that taller men do best with the ladies," said Sydney psychotherapist Steven Carroll.

- Kiwi health managers got into hot water for bribing doctors back to regional areas with the promise of free beer. Critics said it was wrong to align medics with alcohol, given binge drinking trends.

- A French mafia man, Domenico Magnoli, got more than he bargained for after undergoing liposuction at an Italian clinic. He awoke from the operation to discover policewomen disguised as nurses holding guns and handcuffs. "We performed a little operation of our own," a police spokesman said.

- Men find women in red more sexually attractive, say US psychologists, confirming it really is the colour of romance.

- A genetic scientist who contributed to work that this won this year's Nobel prize for chemistry is now earning $US10 ($A14.90) an hour as a courtesy car driver. Dr Douglas Prasher was the first to clone the green fluorescent protein but he gave his discovery away freely when his funding ran out. He says he has no hard feelings that he missed out on the top prize.

- A bald head is no advantage when it comes to absorbing Vitamin D from the sun, say New Zealand researchers who were seeking to answer why men lose their hair.

- Knocking back four beers a day could damage a man's sight, according to an Australian study that links high alcohol consumption to the most debilitating form of age-related macular degeneration.

- Babies transported in forward-facing strollers could end up "emotionally impoverished" due to lack of face-to-face contact with the parent pushing them, a British study has suggested.

- Dogs can feel a simple form of envy, according to tests on canines showing they resented other dogs who got a better reward for performing an identical task.

- The quality of New Zealand men's sperm has halved in two decades - the most dramatic drop of any western country, tests on the semen of sperm donors has found.

- People with a rare condition that leaves them craving amputations should be allow to have the offending limb chopped off to be relieved of their misery, a Sydney psychiatrist said. "I realise that the idea strikes almost everyone as lunatic when they first hear it," Dr Christopher Ryan said.

- Happiness is contagious, according to Californian research showing it can spread from person to person and even sweep through small communities.