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Worried over the rising fuel cost? Well, here’s some good news — scientists have developed a device that they claim could dramatically improve mileage as much as 20 percent.

A team at Temple University has developed the small device which consists of an electrically charged tube that can be attached to the fuel line of a vehicle’s engine near the fuel injector.

And, with the use of a power supply from the vehicle’s battery, the device creates an electric field that thins fuel, or reduces its viscosity, so that small droplets are injected into the engine.

“This leads to more efficient and cleaner combustion than a standard fuel injector,” lead scientist Rongjia Tao, a Professor of Physics at Temple University, was quoted by the ScienceDaily as saying.

In fact, almost six months of road testing in a diesel-powered Mercedes-Benz automobile showed that the device increased highway fuel from 32 miles per gallon to 38 mpg, a 20 per cent boost, and a 12-15 percent gain in city driving.

“We expect the device will have wide applications on all types of internal combustion engines, present ones and future ones,” Tao said.

Further improvements in the device could lead to even better mileage, he suggested, and cited engines powered by gasoline, biodiesel, and kerosene as having potential use of the device.

The findings are published in the latest edition of the Energy & Fuels journal.

Parents who smoke might be putting their kids at the risk of nicotine dependence, according to a new study.The Canadian study suggests that parents who smoke cigarettes around their kids in cars and homes might trigger symptoms of nicotine dependence in children, as they are increasingly exposed to second hand smoke.

“Increased exposure to second-hand smoke, both in cars and homes, was associated with an increased likelihood of children reporting nicotine dependence symptoms, even though these children had never smoked,” said Dr. Jennifer O’Loughlin, senior author of the study, a professor at the Universite de Monteal’s Department of Social and Preventive Medicine and a researcher at the Centre Hospitalier de l’Universite de Montreal.

The researchers recruited students from 29 Quebec schools as part of AdoQuest, a cohort investigation that measures tobacco use and other health-compromising behaviours.

Some 1,800 children aged 10 to 12 years old, from all socioeconomic levels, were asked to complete questionnaires on their health and behaviours. Researchers also asked questions about symptoms of nicotine dependence and exposure to second-hand smoke.

“Our study found that 5 percent of children who had never smoked a cigarette, but who were exposed to secondhand smoke in cars or their homes, reported symptoms of nicotine dependence,” said Mathieu Belanger, the study’s lead author and the new research director of the Centre de Formation Medicale du Nouveau-Brunswick of the Universite de Moncton and Universite de Sherbrooke.

“These findings support the need for public health interventions that promote non-smoking in the presence of children, and uphold policies to restrict smoking in vehicles when children are present,” added O’Loughlin.

The research team included scientists from the Universite de Sherbrooke, the Universite de Moncton, the University of British Columbia, McGill University, Concordia University and the Institut national de sante publique du Quebec.

British chocolate maker Cadbury on Monday became the latest foreign company to be hit by China’s tainted milk scandal, ordering a recall of its Chinese-made products after saying tests “cast doubt” on their safety. Two U.S. food makers were meanwhile investigating Indonesian claims that high traces of the industrial chemical melamine had been found in Chinese-made Oreos, M&Ms and Snickers, but stressed the same goods had tested negative in other Asian countries. They said they were looking into all possibilities, including counterfeiting. The milk scandal erupted earlier this month when China’s public learned that melamine, which is used to make plastics and fertilizer, had been found in milk powder and was linked to kidney stones in children.

Contamination has since turned up in liquid milk, yogurt and other products made with milk. Four deaths have been blamed on the bad milk and some 54,000 children have developed kidney stones or other illnesses after drinking tainted baby formula.

Countries across Asia have removed items from shelves or banned them outright. Myanmar added its name to the list on Monday, saying dairy items from China would be barred from entering its military-ruled country.

The Philippines warned exporters they would be locked out of its market if they did not fully disclose the origins of their products. “Of course it’s always good to have evidence rather than just speculate, but we will have to shift the burden of proof to them because our duty is to protect public health,” Philippine Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said in laying out the new regulations.

Cadbury, the British candy maker, said in a statement issued by its Singapore office Monday that tests had “cast doubt on the integrity of a range of our products manufactured in China.” It was not immediately clear whether they revealed melamine, but Cadbury said it had recalled 11 chocolate products made at its factory in Beijing which are distributed in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Australia.

Hong Kong’s government ordered that the chocolates be immediately removed from shelves. U.S. companies Kraft Foods Inc.

and Mars Inc. said they would adhere to a recall order of Chinese-made Oreo wafers, M&Ms and Snickers in Indonesia, but said they wanted to conduct their own tests with outside experts.

So far only a local agency has checked the products for melamine, but the levels found were considered very high. “We have asked our trade partners and retailers to suspend the sales of our products in accordance to the agency’s order,” Mars Indonesia spokesman Bondan Ardi said.

Hong Kong supermarket chain PARKnSHOP also pulled its Chinese-made Oreo, M&M and Snickers products as a precaution, spokeswoman Pinky Chan said.

Scientists in Japan have identified a genetic mutation linked to narcolepsy, a disease that can cause someone to doze off in mid-sentence or behind the wheel of a car, a study released Sunday reports.

Other symptoms of the condition, which shows up in late adolescence or early adulthood, include excessive daytime drowsiness, vivid hallucinations on the threshold of sleep, and the sudden, temporary loss of muscle control, often triggered by emotional shock.

A team of researchers led by Katsushi Tokunaga at the University of Tokyo compared the genetic profiles of persons with and without the sleep-inducing disease.

Across four different ethnic groups, patients with narcolepsy were far more likely to carry a specific mutation of DNA located between two genes, one of which has been associated with sleep regulation and the other with the sleep-wake cycle.

The statistical link was strongest among Japanese, but remained significant among Europeans and persons of African descent as well.

The study also showed that the suspect genetic variant — known as rs57770917 — is common among Koreans.

The prevalence of the disease varies widely in different countries. In Europe and the United States, narcolepsy is roughly as common as Parkinson’s disease or multiple sclerosis, affecting on average one in every 2,500 people.

But in Japan the frequency is four times higher, while in Israel only one in half-a-million people have the condition.

There is no known cure for narcolepsy, which is often treated with stimulants to combat daytime fatigue.

Previous studies had already pointed to genetic factors as playing a role.

An immediate family member with narcolepsy increases one’s chances of having the disease by 10 to 40 times.

It was found that all Japanese suffering from the disease carried another genetic variant. But fully ten percent of the Japanese population shared that same mutation, so researchers suspected the existence of additional genetic drivers as well.

The authors of the new study said their findings could point the way to “new therapeutic approaches” designed to target the neurochemical reactions patterned by the wayward genetic material.

The research was published in journal Nature Genetics, part of the British-based Nature Publishing Group.

A research team led by Penn State Distinguished Professor of Biology Hong Ma has found a new gene in rice, called GIF1, which may prove beneficial for breeding high-yield rice.The researchers believed that the identification of GIF1 gene, responsible for the size and weight of rice grains, may benefit the vast number of people who rely on this staple food for survival.

“Our work shows that it is possible to increase rice’s yield by enhancing the expression of a particular gene,” Nature magazine quoted Ma as saying.

The scientists have revealed that they first discovered mutant strains of rice that exhibited underweight grains.

“We found a particular mutant that is defective in its ability to produce normal-sized grains,” said Zuhua He, a biology professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the leader of the team.

The team then examined the mutant, and found that it carried a mutation within the GIF1 gene.

“The GIF1 gene is responsible for controlling the activity of the enzyme invertase, which is located in the cell wall and converts sucrose to substances that then are used to create starch. Invertase is important in the formation of starch within developing grains of rice. If invertase is not active, the rice plant cannot produce edible grains,” said He.

In order to test the ability of the GIF1 gene to control the production of invertase, the team measured the activity of invertase within a normal strain of rice, in which the GIF1 gene lacked any mutations.

The researchers did the same within a mutant strain of rice, in which the GIF1 gene contained a mutation that caused a defect in the invertase activity.

Invertase activity in the mutant strain was found to be only 17 per cent of the activity that was observed in the normal strain, which indicated that the GIF1 gene does, indeed, control invertase activity.

After that, the researchers created transgenic lines of rice, in which the GIF1 gene was over expressed. It was found that the transgenic rice had larger and heavier grains, as compared to normal strains.

The researchers were surprised to find that the GIF1 gene was so specialized in controlling invertase activity in a particular part of the grain — the vascular tissue, which transports nutrients, including sugars generated by invertase, to the developing grain.

“The expression pattern was not expected, in part, because invertase is a general enzyme that is used by many cell types. In fact, the corresponding gene in wild rice is not expressed specifically,” said Ma.

The researchers also discovered that the GIF1 gene was one of the genes selected during the domestication of rice.

“By selectively growing only those strains of rice with heavier grains, humans for thousands of years unknowingly have been increasing the frequency of rice populations that had modifications in the GIF1 gene,” said Ma. “This process has caused GIF1 to be expressed specifically in the vascular tissue and, thus, to produce larger rice grains,” said Ma.

The researchers believe that their findings may help others in creating hybrid varieties of rice that produce even larger grains.

They are planning to conduct further research that will help them understand how other genes might be involved in the process of improving rice yield.

“The goal is to understand what controls grain weight and other factors, and to look for ways to increase yield,” said Ma.