More studying 'on home computers'

Pupils are more likely to use computers for their schoolwork at home on a daily basis than they are to use them every day at school, according to a survey.

A study carried out in the UK for technology company Microsoft showed 37% of secondary pupils used computers for study every day at home.

This is a more intensive use than at school - where 30% of pupils were using computers each day.

The survey considered the computer use of 512 families with children.

The study reveals the increasingly pervasive use of technology for homework by pupils in their own homes.

Playing on the computer

Among these secondary level pupils, aged between 11 and 18, more than 90% used a home computer for schoolwork at least once a week.

And more than a third were using their family's computer for homework or revision every single day.

There have been concerns about the "digital divide" - in which children from better-off families get an advantage in school from better computer equipment at home.

The government says there are about a million children without the internet at home - leaving them at the other end of the scale from the two in five pupils who are using computers at home every day for schoolwork.

As well as using computers for homework, they have become a major feature of leisure time - identified by 71% of young people as being among their favourite activities.

Parents also use computers as a leisure activity - but at a lower level than their children - with 65% saying it was one of their favourite activities.

There is also a strong belief among parents that having a computer at home is valuable to their children's education.

'Essential as pen and paper'

Microsoft's Ray Fleming suggests that the higher levels of computer use at home for schoolwork by pupils is a reflection of the limitations on computer use in school.

Young people say computer use is one of their favourite activities

"School use of information technology can be very scheduled - it's often structured around particular lessons," he says.

At home children look for information on the computer in a more informal way, he says.

And he forecasts that this trend for studying at home with a computer will increase.

"There is an increasing blurring between learning-time and leisure-time and so computers in the home are becoming as important as those in the classroom," he says.

The widespread availability of computers at home also raises questions about handling this information.

"There are so many sources of information, that the challenge now is not about finding information but finding the most useful questions," he says.

Earlier this month the government announced a £300m Home Access scheme to give a laptop to 270,000 low income families and free broadband access.

Children's Secretary Ed Balls said that being without the internet at home leaves pupils "at a disadvantage to their peers".

"Computers are no longer a luxury for the few, but are as essential a part of education as books, pens and paper."

Journal stem cell work 'blocked'

Stem cell experts say they believe a small group of scientists is effectively vetoing high quality science from publication in journals.

In some cases they say it might be done to deliberately stifle research that is in competition with their own.

It has also emerged that 14 leading stem cell researchers have written an open letter to journal editors in order to highlight their dissatisfaction.

Billions of pounds of public money is spent on funding stem cell research.

The open letter to the major scientific journals claims that "papers that are scientifically flawed or comprise only modest technical increments often attract undue profile. At the same time publication of truly original findings may be delayed or rejected".

Two internationally-renowned researchers have spoken to BBC News about their concerns.

They are Robin Lovell-Badge, who is speaking in a personal capacity, and Austin Smith, from the University of Cambridge.

Professor Lovell-Badge said: "It's turning things into a clique where only papers that satisfy this select group of a few reviewers who think of themselves as very important people in the field is published.

"You can get a lot of hype over a paper published on stem cell research that's actually a minimal advance in knowledge whereas the poor person that is doing beautiful research that is not catching the eye of the editor, you don't get to hear about that, even though it could be the world changing piece of research."

The issue is important because billions of pounds of public money are spent on funding stem cell research internationally. The funding is directed largely towards groups and individuals who have had their research published in the top journals. So if the journals are getting it wrong then public money is going to waste.

Dr Philip Campbell, the editor of Nature, which is one of the leading journals in the field, said: "Last year we used about 400 reviewers in stem cell and developmental biology, and we constantly recruit new referees. The idea that there's some privileged clique is utterly false."

It is a requirement of publicly funded research to publish in scientific journals.

This process involves sending a report of the research to an editor at a journal.

If the editor deems it sufficiently novel and interesting, they will ask two or three scientists who are experts in the field to review the research and send in comments.

It is at this stage where scientists who may well be rivals of the person who submitted their research say whether the research is good or bad. They can also suggest to the journal editor that more experiments need to be carried out in order to justify the conclusions of the research.

'Extra experiments'

The journal editor decides to publish the research paper usually when the majority of reviewers are satisfied. But professors Lovell-Badge and Smith believe that increasingly some reviewers are sending back negative comments or asking for unnecessary experiments to be carried out for spurious reasons.

In some cases they say it is being done simply to delay or stop the publication of the research so that the reviewers or their close colleagues can be the first to have their own research published.

"It's hard to believe except you know it's happened to you that papers have been held up for months and months by reviewers asking for experiments that are not fair or relevant," Professor Smith said.

Dr Campbell denies this as far as his journals are concerned: "It's an editor's responsibility to ensure that delays are minimized, and we stop using any referee where a pattern of delays is apparent, whatever the reason might be."

These kinds of allegations are not new and not confined to stem cell research. But professors Smith and Lovell-Badge believe that the problem has become particularly acute in their field of research recently for two reasons.

Firstly, research grants and career progression are now determined almost entirely by whether a scientist gets published in a major research journal. Secondly, in stem cell science, hundreds of millions of pounds are available for research - and so there is a greater temptation for those that want the money to behave unscrupulously.

"The problem has become more common and more serious now," said Professor Smith.

"The issue here is all about public funding because you have to get these papers published to be able to get your next grant. It could be worth half a million pounds. It can be difficult for people in that position to be objective."

Even if research is not being deliberately stifled, high quality work is being overlooked as an "accidental consequence of journal editors relying too much on the word of a small number of individuals", according to Professor Lovell-Badge.

"You will have what looks like a very good paper by a very reputable scientist - but the journal takes the word of one particular reviewer too strongly. They have their favorite reviewers and what this means is that it distorts what gets published because that's going to be the view of one individual which may not reflect where the field should be going," he said.

Practical obstacles?

Dr Campbell says that as far as his journals are concerned the charge is untrue: "Our editors, who frequently attend conferences and visit laboratories in order to keep abreast of the field and the people in it, have always used their own judgement in what we publish. We have not infrequently overruled two or even three sceptical referees and published a paper."

But at a recent stem cell scientific meeting, 14 of the world's leading stem cell researchers said that journal editors hadn't seen through what they described as "unreasonable or obstructive" reviews. In an open letter to the journals, they proposed that if a paper was published, the accompanying reviews should be provided as supplementary material online.

Dr Campbell said that he was sympathetic to the idea although he envisaged practical obstacles. Professor Lovell-Badge believes that the journal editors could do more to identify bias in the review process.

"Editors should be able to see when reviewers are asking for unnecessary experiments to be carried out and if it's the difference between an opinion of the referee and a factual problem. But what tends to happen is that the editor takes the opinion of an editor rather than the factual substance," he said.

One of the main reasons for this, according to Professor Smith, is that journals are in competition. Editors have become dependent on favored experts who both review other people's stem cell research and submit their own papers to the journal. If the editor offends these experts, they may lose future papers to a rival.

This is leading to the journals publishing mediocre science, according to Professor Lovell-Badge.

"We are seeing the publication of a lot of papers in high profile journals with minimal scientific content or advance, and this is partly because of these high-profile journals needing to keep their so called 'impact factors' as high as possible. That's determined by the number of citations that the papers have and they know that some of this trendy work is going to get cited and they seem not to care about whether its a real scientific advance or not," he said.

Commenting on the allegations, Monica Bradford, executive editor of Science, another major journal, said: "Our current policy is to preserve the confidentiality of reviewers' names and comments. Some journals have tried experiments to test the impact of open review on the quality of the feedback received through peer review.

"We have not been convinced to switch to such a system, but we will continue to monitor such experiments. We also will discuss the pros/cons of our current process internally and with our senior editorial board.

"We do recognize that human factors such as competition and potential financial gains can bias a reviewer's assessment of a paper and we expect our editors to consider these factors when evaluating the comments of the reviewers, particularly in cutting-edge areas of research."

Alarm at Mumbai's teenage suicide trend

A writer once said that more than one soul dies in a suicide.

It seems so in Neha Sawant's home. The atmosphere in the tiny flat in Mumbai has been lifeless since the 11-year-old was found hanging from her apartment window.

It has been weeks but her parents are still in deep shock. They look dazed and sleep-deprived.

Neha's distraught grandmother said in a broken voice: "Our brains are not working. We still cannot believe it."

Neha, at 11, must be one of the youngest in Mumbai to commit suicide. Figures suggest that more and more teenagers in India's financial hub are killing themselves.

Dizzying

Inexplicably, teenage suicides have become an almost daily occurrence in Maharashtra - one of India's most developed states - and its capital Mumbai (Bombay).

The toll of teenage suicides from the beginning of the year until 26 January 2010 stood at 32, which is more than one a day.

While there are no comparative figures for the same period in 2009, there is a consensus among the concerned authorities in Mumbai that teenage suicides are spiralling out of control.

There is also a general agreement between psychologists and teachers that the main reason for the high number of teenagers taking their own lives is the increasing pressure on children to perform well in exams.

The scale of this largely preventable problem is dizzying - both in India with its billion-plus people and particularly in the state of in Maharashtra.

More than 100,000 people commit suicide in India every year and three people a day take their own lives in Mumbai.

Suicide is one of the top three causes of death among those aged between 15 and 35 years and has a devastating psychological, social and financial impact on families and friends.

'Needless toll'

World Health Organisation Assistant Director-General Catherine Le Gals-Camus points out more people die from suicide around the world than from all homicides and wars combined.

"There is an urgent need for co-ordinated and intensified global action to prevent this needless toll. For every suicide death there are scores of family and friends whose lives are devastated emotionally, socially and economically," she says.

In Mumbai the authorities are so alarmed by the scale of the problem that they have began a campaign, Life is Beautiful, which aims to help students cope with academic pressure.

Psychologists visit government schools in Mumbai once a week to train teachers dealing with students' problems.

Sharadashram Vidyamandir school boasts illustrious alumni such as cricketers Sachin Tendulkar and Vinod Kambli. It has been holding parent-teacher assemblies where parents can receive tips on tackling the pressures children face.

And yet such sessions could not prevent 12-year-old Shushant Patil's death. He was found hanging in the school toilet on 5 January.

Mangala Kulkarni is the principal of the girls' section of the school. She says that ultimately families need to be more proactive when it comes to stopping students from feeling stressed.

"The children don't realise they have more avenues than academic successes. They need to be made to realise this by their families from childhood," she said.

Blockbuster

A helpline in Mumbai, called Aasra, has been operating for several years to tackle the problem.

The director of the helpline, Johnson Thomas, says the problems today's children face are manifold: "They have peer pressure, they have communication problems with their parents, broken relationships, academic pressure and fear of failure," he says.

Classes to help vulnerable teenagers are now being held

The home ministry estimates that for every teenage suicide in Mumbai there are 13 failed attempts.

One theory behind the recent rise is the influence of a recently released Bollywood blockbuster, Three Idiots, which has a scene where an engineering student is shown committing suicide after a mediocre exam result.

The film's impact has been debated and scrutinised in prime time television shows, with many directly blaming it for adding to the problem.

But Mumbai clinical psychologist Rhea Timbekar argues that it would be wrong to blame the film, which she says strives to explain that parents should not put too much pressure on their children.

Ms Timbekar says that she recently met a child who had not eaten for four days.

The child's parents said they were upset with him because he only got 89% in exams and stood third in the class, compared to coming first in previous years.

"Such parents need to be counselled," she asserts.

Ms Timbekar said that another explanation for the high teenage suicide rate was "copycat suicides" where children read about suicides in newspapers and decide to do the same thing themselves.

'Extreme steps'

Dilip Panicker, an eminent psychologist in Mumbai, says that pressure of exams is alone is too simplistic an explanation.

It's hoped that young people will have a brighter future

"At one level school pressures and expectations from parents are a valid reason," he says, "but that's always been there.

"In fact, parents used to beat up their kids in our time. What's changed is that today children are more aware, they have more exposure. They are more independent. So they blame themselves for failures and take extreme steps."

Psychologists also argue that the definition of a teenager needs to be revised in 2010.

"Today's 11-year-olds are the new teens. What we did at the ages of 14 and 15 children can do at 11 today," says Rhea Timbekar.

She demolishes the theory that children are more likely to be spontaneous in committing suicide, as opposed to adults who start with an idea, proceed with a plan and end with action.

"A child doesn't just wake up in the morning and says I will commit suicide today," she argues. "Something has gone amiss in their lives quite early on and suicides are a manifestation of that."

The breakdown of India's traditional family system is also being blamed for the problem. In a city like Mumbai - where it is common for both parents to work - children tend to become reclusive and watch too much television.

Dilip Panicker argues that there is a simple solution.

"If parents love their children unconditionally, with all their successes and failures, the problem would be greatly alleviated."

Fish oil supplements 'beat psychotic mental illness'

Taking a daily fish oil capsule can stave off mental illness in those at highest risk, trial findings suggest.

A three-month course of the supplement appeared to be as effective as drugs, cutting the rate of psychotic illness like schizophrenia by a quarter.

The researchers believe it is the omega-3 in fish oil - already hailed for promoting healthy hearts - that has beneficial effects in the brain.

A "natural" remedy would be welcomed, Archives of General Psychiatry says.

"The finding that treatment with a natural substance may prevent, or at least delay, the onset of psychotic disorder gives hope that there may be alternatives to antipsychotic drugs," the study authors said.

Antipsychotic drugs are potent and can have serious side effects, which puts some people off taking them.

Fish oil supplements, on the other hand, are generally well tolerated and easy to take, say the scientists.

The international team from Austria, Australia and Switzerland tested the treatment in 81 people deemed to be at particularly high risk of developing psychosis.

Natural choice

Their high risk was down to a strong family history of schizophrenia, or similar disorders, or them already showing mild symptoms of these conditions themselves.

For the test, half of the individuals took fish oil supplements (1.2 grams of omega-3 fatty acids) for 12 weeks, while the other half took only a dummy pill. Neither group knew which treatment they were receiving.

Dr Paul Amminger and his team followed the groups for a year to see how many, if any, went on to develop illness.

Two in the fish oil group developed a psychotic disorder compared to 11 in the placebo group.

Based on the results, the investigators estimate that one high-risk adult could be protected from developing psychosis for every four treated over a year.

They believe the omega-3 fatty acids found in the supplements may alter brain signalling in the brain with beneficial effects.

Alison Cobb, of the mental health charity Mind, said: "If young people can be treated successfully with fish oils, this is hugely preferable to treating them with antipsychotics, which come with a range of problems from weight gain to sexual dysfunction, whereas omega-3s are actually beneficial to their general state of health.

"These are promising results and more research is needed to show if omega-3s could be an alternative to antipsychotics in the long term."

Indonesian man loses his teeth in a cigarette explosion

An Indonesian man has been given compensation after a cigarette he was smoking exploded, taking out six teeth.

Andi Susanto, 31, told Indonesian media the cigarette had blown up in his mouth while he was riding a motorcycle.

He accepted a payment of 5m rupiah ($535; £335) and all his medical costs from PT Nojorono Tobacco, makers of the brand of cigarette he was smoking.

Police are investigating what caused the blast, but Mr Susanto said he would try to give up smoking now anyway.

He told the Jakarta Post newspaper he had been smoking since he was a schoolboy and had never had any problems.

"The incident was all so unexpected," he said.

He told Metro TV the company had talked to his family and agreed to "settle it amicably" with an out-of-court settlement.

A spokesman for Clas Mild cigarettes, the brand Mr Susanto had been smoking, said there were no plans for a recall.

"We are communicating with the police and still waiting on the forensic laboratory tests," Iwan Sulistyo told the Jakarta Globe.

"We do not put any strange materials in the cigarettes, so we think that this is a weird case. This is the first time for us."

Indonesia has one of the highest smoking rates in the world, with more than 60% of men smoking regularly.