A group of researchers at Cardiff University have suggested that newly qualified young drivers should be banned from night-time driving and carrying passengers that are of a similar age.

It is believed by the researchers that new drivers aged between 17 and 24 who are restricted from driving at certain times could save more than 200 lives and result in less than 1700 serious injuries each year. Schemes like this one have already been brought in in New Zealand, Australia and some areas of America.

It is unlikely the recommendations will come into effect however as motoring organisations say the limits would be difficult to enforce.

In recent news it was revealed that car parking charges for hospitals in England are to remain in place. The new coalition government has announced that this will remain in place even though the previous Labour government said they wanted to make parking free. Apparently though there are better uses of public money than scrapping car parking charges. It seems stupid that they wouldn’t consider this option though when parking is free at most hospitals in Northern Ireland, Wales AND Scotland. Yet another let down for the English part of the British Isles. The word “greed” seems to come into it, in my opinion.

People who were still developing in the womb during the World War II famine in the Netherlands performed worse than other people of similar age at mental tests almost 60 years later. Scientists who were writing in the PNAS journal said the 1944 Dutch famine could have accelerated brain ageing. The study was focused on 300 adults who were in the womb at the time of the famine. Experts in the UK have said that even severe morning sickness was unlikely to cause the malnutrition on a similar level.

The “Hongerwinter” was a 6 month period during which food deliveries to the northern Netherlands were restricted by German occupying soldiers. The outcome of this was a humanitarian nightmare. A group of almost 300 adults in their late 50s, all of whom had been exposed to the famine were given mental tests, and the results compared to those of similarly aged people. It was concluded that the people exposed to the famine performed better on the mental tests – an interesting result. There may be many reasons for this but it does provide an interesting theory.

In a recent discovery it has been found that exposure to chemicals that are found in non-stick frying pans could raise the cholesterol levels in children. Scientists do have a link but no proof, and further research will be needed to rule it out. From the study of over 12,000 children experts stressed that the children’s exposure was much higher than typical.

In day to day life most people are exposed to the man-made perfluoroalkyl acid chemicals because they are used commonly in manufacturing. The acids give non-stick pan a heat resistance and are also found in commercial food packaging and many other things. The experts leading the study are aware that the chemicals can get into the body and go through the liver (which is responsible for making cholesterol and handling fat.

A recent study has found that people who do puzzles and crosswords may hold off dementia for longer but experience a more rapid decline once the disease sets in. There has long been speculation that “exercising” your brain using brain training methods could protect against Alzheimer’s, but there has been hardly any evidence to back this up.

The research team were from the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago and they recruited 1,157 people aged over 65 in the early 1990s.

The study has come out with a conclusion that doing puzzles and crosswords does delay dementia, but can increase the disease once it has set in.