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'UK smiles more sincere than Americans'

US scientists have found that Britons and Americans have different smiles.

They say UK smiles are genuine and sincere - but Americans often have "Pan-Am smiles" or "Botox smiles."

Britons generally smile by pulling the lips back and upward to expose lower teeth. Americans go for a big smile by parting their lips and stretching the corners of their mouths.

Scientists at the University of California could tell the difference by studying photographs in 90 per cent of cases.

Psychology professor Dacher Keltner nicknamed the most common British smile the "Prince Charles" because he has a typical British smile.

Where do they put the batteries?

A musical condom has been invented that gets louder as the sex gets more passionate.

Different sexual positions determine what tune is played by the condom.

The contraceptive has tiny sensors connected to a mini electronic device that produces the sounds.

Ukrainian inventor Dr Grigoriy Chausovskiy said: "There is no danger of being electrocuted."

They will cost 20 per cent more than normal condoms. "But people will pay for the extra stimulation," he added

Time to book that holiday...

A giant asteroid is to pass perilously close to Earth - on Friday, April 13, 2029.

Scientists said asteroid 2004 MN4 will make the closest fly-by of Earth for an object of its size in recorded history.

The asteroid, the size of three football pitches, will pass between the Earth and the Moon, though astronomers say there is little chance of a collision.

It is expected to pass 22,600 miles from Earth and will probably be visible to the naked eye from Britain.

It will shine in the sky as a dim, fast-moving star and will be the first asteroid in modern times to be clearly visible from Earth without the aid of a telescope or binoculars.

The asteroid was first discovered in June 2004 and calculations of its orbit made by astronomers last Christmas Eve suggested that there was a one in 60 chance of it colliding with the Earth.

However, within a week this was revised down to virtually zero probability of a collision.

Only two other asteroids have come closer in recent history and both were much smaller objects.

Souce: Ananova

Japan scans skies for alien life

Two Japanese observatories have started a probe to find signs of extraterrestrial life using radio and optical telescopes, in Japan's first government-backed search for aliens.

"I don't think it would be any wonder if life like us exists somewhere else as space is vast," Mitsumi Fujishita, radioastronomy professor at Kyushu Tokai University, said.

The five-day search is being done jointly at the Nishi-Harima Astronomical Observatory, and the state-run Mizusawa Astrogeodynamics Observatory in northern Japan.

The researchers say there have been earlier Japanese efforts to detect signs of aliens but this is the first such search involving a state-run organisation.

The Mizusawa observatory is using a radio telescope with a diameter of 10 metres to try to find radio waves.

Rhe Nishi-Harima observatory, with a two-metre reflector telescope, aims to detect light.

They will focus on the area near the Hydra constellation where a US researcher detected radio waves in 1988.

Another researcher says it "will be very difficult to find signs as we don't know which radio waves would come at what time or from where."

"Even if they cannot detect anything, however, it is important to find out what it (the lack of detection) means scientifically," he said.

Japan is drafting an ambitious space program, with a goal of a manned station on the moon by 2025, after successfully sending into space a satellite last Saturday.

The launch came 15 months after a similar unmanned launch failed disastrously.

Woman 'Tastes' Sounds

Music can be a mouth-watering experience for one Swiss musician who "tastes" combinations of notes as distinct flavours, according to a report in the science journal Nature.

The 27-year-old woman known as E.S. is a synaesthete, someone who experiences sensation in more than one sense from the same stimulation.

When E.S. hears tone intervals, the difference in pitch between two tones, she not only can see the musical notes as different colours but can taste the sounds.

"This is a special case of a musician who, when she hears tone intervals, she has a perception of a taste of a tone," said psychologist Michaela Esslen, of the University of Zurich in Switzerland.

"She doesn't imagine the taste, she really tastes it."

The case of E.S. reported in Nature is exceptional because seeing letters or digits in a certain color is more common in synaesthesia. It may also involve seeing a musical tone as a colour.

But E.S. sees the colours and depending on the tone intervals a symphony could be bittersweet, salty, sour or creamy.

"Whenever she hears a specific musical interval, she automatically experiences a taste on her tongue that is consistently linked to that particular interval," the scientists said in the journal.

They tested E.S.'s ability by applying solutions tasting sour, bitter, salty or sweet to her tongue and asking her to identify the tone intervals, a difficult task that requires musical training.

When the applied tastes corresponded with the intervals she was able to identify them quicker than other musicians.

"We found that E.S.'s tone-interval identification was perfect," the researchers said.