WEIRD STUFF: Woman marries herself

Woman marries herself

A woman has married herself in India's first-ever solo wedding.

Kshama Bindu held the ceremony at her home in the presence of family and friends earlier this month.

She had been planning to marry herself in a temple in the city of Vadodara, but political leader Sunita Shukla opposed the ceremony as 'sologamy' isn't endorsed throughout the Hindu religion.

Despite the setback, Bindu decided to continue with her wedding plans and says her parents fully support her choice.

She said: "I never wanted to get married, but I did want to become a bride - so I decided to marry myself.

"I can't describe it in words, but (everyone) has been so kind to me with all the trolls happening to take my side.

"I have tears of joy reading messages and stories and I (was) so excited for my wedding day."

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A beer a day is good - study

A study has found that a glass of lager beer each day boosts healthy bacteria to fend off diseases and infections with the benefits coming from polyphenols - plant compounds that are found in hops, barley and yeast.

The Portuguese team studied 19 healthy men, aged between 23 and 58, who were asked to drink 330ml bottles of Super Bock lager with their dinner every night. By the end of the experiment, there was no visible difference in the men's weight, fat mass or cholesterol and an analysis of faecal samples - taken before and after the study - showed the participants had a greater range of bacteria in their gut.

The research's lead author Professor Ana Faria, of NOVA University in Lisbon, said: "Men who drank either one alcoholic or non-alcoholic lager daily had a more diverse set of microbes."

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Body-building pill under development

A miracle pill that produces the same results as a gym workout could be on the horizon.

The drug could revolutionise the lives of couch potatoes as it fills the body with a protein that is produced in the blood during strenuous workouts and it also slashes the appetite.

Scientists are now hoping to turn the drug into a medication that enables people to sweat it out without ever having to go to the gym and are also assessing the links between exercise and hunger.

Professor Yong Xu, from Baylor College of Medicine in the US, said: "Regular exercise has been proven to help weight loss, regulate appetite and improve the metabolic profile, especially for people who are overweight and obese.

"If we can understand the mechanism by which exercise triggers these benefits, then we are closer to helping many people improve their health."

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Aliens signals believed captured in China

China could have picked up messages from aliens. Reports claim that state-backed scientists in the country detected unusual electromagnetic signals, possibly from intelligent civilisations elsewhere in the galaxy.

The scientists argued they had never seen messages like the one picked up by the Sky Eye - the world's largest radio telescope.

The possible discovery was reported by Science and Technology Daily, the official newspaper of China's Ministry of Science and Technology, but it was quickly taken down.

Experts have detected a number of suspicious signals in recent years but other alien boffins have suggested that it could simply be radio interference.

Zhang Tonjie, who leads an extraterrestrial civilisation search team, said: "The possibility that the suspicious signal is some kind of radio interference is also very high, and it needs to be further confirmed and ruled out."