Lite Bytes; Science News in Brief From Around the World

THIRSTY astronauts may end up drinking their own urine from 2009, according to New Scientist.

The cost of shipping water to the International Space Station is a staggering $3,000 (Pounds 1,530) a glass. To save money and cargo space, Nasa is developing a gizmo that will recycle all urine and sweat – even rat pee from the station’s labs – to provide clean and palatable drinking water.

. ADDING soya-rich foods to your diet cuts calories but doesn’t help you lose weight faster, a new study shows. Researchers took 75 women and put some on a low-calorie diet which included an extra 18g of soya-rich food every day. After 12 weeks they didn’t lose any more weight than their peers who didn’t add the extra soya. And while the soya-rich diet did tend to lower levels of insulin and "bad" cholesterol, there was no significant difference between the two groups in the reduction in fat mass or waist circumference.

. SMOKING can reduce your attention span. A study published in the Neuropsychopharmacology journal claims that teen smokers who were exposed to nicotine before birth show a dramatic reduction in their attention spans relating to hearing and vision.

The study, at Yale University School of Medicine, showed that girls were most severely affected, while with boys the greatest impact was on their auditory attention. The researchers suggest that these gender specific effects could be due to differences in nicotine’s influence on hormones in the brain.

. MATHS boffins have figured out the best way to play darts that doesn’t involve drinking your weight in pints. Mathematicians at Aberdeen University studied probability curves charting where darts land depending on a player’s ability. And they found that for some players, aiming at the highest scores didn’t necessarily yield the best result.

So forget the treble-20 – a less skilled player is more likely to be on target with the treble-19.

(c) 2007 Evening Standard; London (UK). Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.