As of October, the UK Department of Health is updating the health warnings and information taglines it includes on packets of cigarettes and other tobacco products because, despite a nationwide ban on smoking in the workplace (buildings and vehicles), smoking remains an incredibly popular pastime. As of October 1, 2008, they are also going to force tobacco manufacturers to include graphic images of cadavers and diseased body parts to be printed on packaging.

Anyway, in case you couldn’t think of a reason not to stop smoking, here are the fifteen top warnings:

1. Smokers die younger
2. Smoking clogs the arteries and causes heart attacks and strokes
3. Smoking causes fatal lung cancer
4. Smoking is highly addictive, don’t start
5. Stopping smoking reduces the risk of fatal heart and lung diseases
6. Smoking can cause a slow and painful death
7. Smoking causes aging of the skin
8. Smoking can damage sperm and decreases fertility
9. Smoking may reduce the blood flow and cause impotence
10. Smoking contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide
11. Smoking when pregnant harms your baby
12. Protect children, don’t make them breathe your smoke
13. Smoking costs a packet

Actually #13 is one I added to the list of warnings. #14 would have to be smoking causes global warming, but that is perhaps laboring the point a little too much. More information here.

(American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology) A new study has shown that an investigational drug, R207910, is quite effective at killing latent bacteria. This revelation suggests that R207910 may lead to improved and shortened treatments for this globally prevalent disease.

(American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology) Researchers have uncovered a gene in corals that responds to day/night cycles, which provides some tantalizing clues into how symbiotic corals work together with their plankton partners.

(Crop Science Society of America) Representatives Norman Dicks (D-WA) and Ralph Regula (R-OH) will be presented with the first USGS Coalition Leadership Award on Monday evening, Sept. 15, 2008. The USGS Coalition is an alliance of 70 organizations united by a commitment to the continued vitality of the unique combination of biological, geological, hydrological and mapping programs of the US Geological Survey.

(Universidad de Granada) They have used a simulated layer system with the Transmission Line Matrix Modelling method, which is able to hide, in certain frequencies, the objects placed in an electromagnetic simulator. This research work has been carried out by scientists of the University of Granada in collaboration with researchers of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and has been recently published in two papers in the prestigious journal Optics Express.

(Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB)) The new magnetic resonance tomograph which is delivered to its new location on Sept. 11, will be the only one of the modern 7 tesla generation in the world, in which a metrology institute is also involved. And for the first time in the world, cardiovascular research carried out on such a device is now also to play an important role.

(The Earth Institute at Columbia University) An ongoing rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide from burning of fossil fuels might be kept below harmful levels if emissions from coal are phased out within the next few decades, say researchers. They say that less plentiful oil and gas should be used sparingly as well, but that far greater supplies of coal mean that it must be the main target of reductions.

(DOE/Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility) New theory work at the US Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility has shown that more than half of the spin of the proton is the result of the movement of its building blocks: quarks. The result, published in the Sept. 5 issue of Physical Review Letters, agrees with recent experiments and supercomputer calculations.

(DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory) DOE has just released the 27th edition of the Transportation Energy Data Book. Specialized skills and instruments are helping a major manufacturer of microturbines make products expected to set new standards for performance and reliability.Fragments of tektites, natural glass objects, discovered by a team of geologists and geochemists help support a theory that a meteorite may be responsible for the sudden climate change that devastated large mammals in North America 11,000 years ago.

(Imperial College London) A new type of drug could alleviate pain in a similar way to cannabis without affecting the brain, according to a new study. The research demonstrates for the first time that cannabinoid receptors called CB2, which can be activated by cannabis use, are present in human sensory nerves in the peripheral nervous system, but are not present in a normal human brain.