Surgeon general’s report was milestone

This weekend marks a momentous anniversary in the war on tobacco. Fifty years ago the U.S. Surgeon General released the first report on tobacco. Dr. Steven Brown is a pulmonologist and volunteer with the American Lung Association in Wisconsin.

“I was the first formal recognition by a governmental agency that cigarettes are harmful,” he said. “This was a report that was not to the tobacco companies, and it wasn’t a report to the doctors. This was a report to the masses.

The report was released to a public in which nearly half of adults smoked. “In the 1960s, would wold walk into a bank, and the bank tellers would be smoking cigarettes while dispensing money. Teachers would be smoking in classrooms. People were smoking on airplanes. People would hand out cigarettes as party favors,” Brown recalled.

Youth-drug can 'reverse' ageing in animal studies

US scientists have performed a dramatic reversal of the ageing process in animal studies.

They used a chemical to rejuvenate muscle in mice and said it was the equivalent of transforming a 60-year-old's muscle to that of a 20-year-old - but muscle strength did not improve.

Their study, in the journal Cell, identified an entirely new mechanism of ageing and then reversed it.

Other researchers said it was an "exciting finding".

Avian influenza A(H7N9) virus

Courtesy of WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza, National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Japan

Influenza A(H7N9) is one of a subgroup of influenza viruses that normally circulate among birds. Until recently, this virus had not been seen in people. However, human infections have now been detected. 

Potato parties: the worst kids' food fad ever?

South Korean kids have taken to ordering huge amounts of fries in McDonald's, dumping them on to trays and photographing themselves stuffing their faces

A South Korean potato party.