WEIRD STUFF

Cheese can help people sleep

The dairy snack is often associated with nightmares, but new research has found that those who regularly eat it have a 28 per cent reduced risk of sleep apnoea -- closing of the throat that causes severe snoring.

A study of 400,000 Brits by experts at China's Chengdu University found 20 ways in which cheese can lower sleep apnoea risk -- including increasing testosterone and lowering blood pressure.

They argue that not enough attention has been paid to the connection between diet and sleep apnoea.

The team wrote in the Sleep Medicine journal: "This relationship may be crucial."

The findings come after a recent study proved that people with the healthiest diets were nearly a fifth less likely to develop the condition than those who didn't eat vegetables.

Dr Yohannes Melaku of Flinders University in Australia said: "It could be that a healthy, plant-based diet reduces inflammation and obesity -- key factors in obstructive sleep apnoea risk."

Attractive people are more trusted

Boffins at the University of Lyon in France have found that "beauty bias" is beneficial when it comes to job applications and applying for a loan, as well as in relationships.

Scientists devised an experiment where 357 volunteers played a hidden action game against another volunteer, with the participants' photos being taken beforehand to test the volunteer's trustworthiness.

Following the game, the images were put in front of 178 new participants, and they predicted how the person photographed may have behaved during the hidden action game -- which the researchers could match with their true behaviour.

Later, a third batch of volunteers rated how beautiful those pictured were -- which went on to confirm that good-looking people were more trusting than those who were ugly or plain-looking.

Professor Astrid Hopfensitz, from the university, said: "With 'beauty bias', or 'pretty privilege,' researchers label the unjustified beneficial treatments that more attractive individuals can receive.

"Our research shows that the beauty industry is certainly thriving for a reason, but also that this creates an additional layer of inequalities and unjustified benefits to those judged as attractive."

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Scientists make shocking dinosaur discovery

The remains of a new long-necked dinosaur species have been discovered.

The creature -- which is thought to have lived 73 million years ago -- was found in more than 12,000 fossils that were collected since 2007, when works to install high-speed rail tracks on a line in Cuenca, Spain, were taking place.

The Qunkasaura pintiquiniestra's cervical, dorsal and caudal vertebrae, part of the pelvic girdle and parts of the limbs were discovered.

According to Dr Pedro Mocho, research leader from the University of Lisbon, it is believed it would have been "around 15 metres long, so head to tail, it could have weighed around ten tonnes, and been three metres high up to the shoulder".

He added: "Qunkasaura is a sauropod dinosaur that lived on the Iberian Peninsula in the Upper Cretaceous.

"We know that this dinosaur lived in Cuenca and died there.

"It probably belonged to a group that at least spread across the Iberian Peninsula, and this one in particular belonged to a lineage that we believe had a distribution that had affinities with other sauropod dinosaurs from European and Asian territories."