"In many cases, FDA field inspectors have identified serious violations of the law and recommended enforcement action, but FDA has rejected their recommendations," said the report, based in part on a review of more than 4,000 pages of FDA documents.

For example, FDA inspectors in Colorado recommended the agency send a warning letter to the maker of a purported hangover remedy with "a toxic level of caffeine" that sent several people to hospital emergency rooms, the report said. FDA headquarters took no action, according to the report.

The FDA said it had focused on cases posing the greatest public health threat and its efforts had deterred violations.

David Elder, director of the FDA's Office of Enforcement, pointed to a $500 million civil fine in 2002 and the seizure of nearly $1 billion worth of goods in 2005 - both record actions.

"The agency has taken prompt, targeted and aggressive action against firms that are in violation of law," he said.

The Democratic staff report said there was no evidence companies had improved their compliance with FDA regulations, as the number of violations documented by FDA inspectors had remained relatively constant.

The FDA's Elder said there had been a "small but steady decline" in serious violations since fiscal year 2000.

Rep. Henry Waxman, the California Democrat who requested the report, said it provided further evidence that the FDA's enforcement efforts had dropped during the George W. Bush administration.

"FDA can't do its job when its enforcement arm is tied behind its back," Waxman said.

It said the epidemic has been confirmed in three districts of Madang with nine people reported dead. The three districts are Sumkar, Usino-Bundi and Middle Ramu.

Initial reports have put the number of confirmed cases at 400. Sumkar has the worst number of cases with 300 confirmed with the cough and eight deaths. Usino-Bundi has 45 confirmed sick with the cough and one dead, and Middle Ramu has reported 50 sick.

Cases of whooping cough were treated following standard treatment earlier in May. Areas with low immunization recorded one or two cases with the number increasing in June.

The symptoms of whooping cough are running nose, occasionally non-specific cough, sneezing, low grade fever, high outburst of cough with increasing severity and often ending with a "whoop". There is difficulty of removal of thick mucus and the child sometimes vomits after coughing.

Health advisor Markus Kachau has declared the two provinces disaster areas. He said the outbreak is still in its early stages and has not reached other districts.

Kachau said response actions have begun locally and a provincial response committee is in place to coordinate all activities.

He had requested for additional funds outside of budgeted appropriations to cater for the emergency.

So far a total of 120,000 kina (35,000 U.S. dollars) have been provided to fight the spread of whooping cough in Madang province.

The Madang provincial government has committed 50,000 kina (14,000 U.S. dollars) towards the exercise while the national Department of Health has set aside 70,000 kina (21,000 U.S. dollars) through the Health Sector Improvement program (HSIP).

Kachau said Monday that medical supplies had been delivered to some affected areas, and medical supplies for other districts would be delivered this week.

He said health workers were patrolling the affected areas and administering necessary immunization treatment in a bid to control the spread of the disease.

"The general public had been advised to report to the nearest health facility and update immunization status of children less than five years and also to be treated for developing symptoms of whooping cough," said Kachau.

Health authority has appealed to people to seek urgent medical care if they are experiencing any form of cough.

In a statement, the government urged all parents, especially those with infants, to seek medical care at the nearest health facility if they show signs of coughing or sneezing.

About 730 million cell phones are expected to be sold this year, according to industry estimates, and nearly 2 billion people around the world already use them.

Of these, more than 500 million use a type that emits electromagnetic fields known as Global System for Mobile communications or GSM radio phones. Their possible effects on the brain are controversial and not well understood.

Dr. Paolo Rossini of Fatebenefratelli hospital in Milan and colleagues used Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation or TMS to check brain function while people used these phones.

They had 15 young male volunteers use a GSM 900 cell phone for 45 minutes. In 12 of the 15, the cells in the motor cortex adjacent to the cell phone showed excitability during phone use but returned to normal within an hour.

The cortex is the outside layer of the brain and the motor cortex is known as the "excitable area" because magnetic stimulation has been shown to cause a muscle twitch.

The researchers stressed that they had not shown that using a cell phone is bad for the brain in any way, but people with conditions such as epilepsy, linked with brain cell excitability, could potentially be affected.

"It should be argued that long-lasting and repeated exposure to EMFs (electromagnetic frequencies) linked with intense use of cellular phones in daily life might be harmful or beneficial in brain-diseased subjects," they wrote.

"Further studies are needed to better circumstantiate these conditions and to provide safe rules for the use of this increasingly more widespread device."

Medical studies on cell phone use have provided mixed results. Swedish researchers found last year that using cell phones over time can raise the risk of brain tumors. But a study by Japan's four mobile telephone operators found no evidence that radio waves from the phones harmed cells or DNA.

The Dutch Health Council analyzed several studies and found no evidence that radiation from mobile phones was harmful.

The researchers said their results raised questions over the use of mammograms in diagnosing women from families known to have the BRCA 1 and 2 genetic mutations. They said MRI scans - which do not use X-rays - might be a better option.

The BRCA 1 and 2 genes make proteins involved in repairing damage to DNA in breast cells. Mutations to these genes, which affect more than one in 500, leave women with a 40 to 80 per cent chance of developing breast cancer at some point in their lives.

According to the findings, a chest X-ray would see the likelihood of some of these women contracting the disease increase from a "high" chance to "extremely high".

Some experts said that, if confirmed, the study could have "significant practice implications" and "could potentially eliminate" mammographic screening of young women. However, cancer charities warned against spreading alarm among women about having mammograms, saying the study was not "conclusive" as it had been based on people's memories of having had X-rays in the past.

Dr David Goldgar, who led the research at the Genetic Epidemiology Group at the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyons, France, said his study was one of the first to demonstrate "that women genetically predisposed to breast cancer may be more susceptible to low-dose ionising radiation than other women".

However, he stressed the need for further study to confirm the work, as it was based on people's recollections of having X-rays.

More than 1,600 women completed questionnaires asking if they had ever had chest X-rays. The researchers excluded mammograms, saying this would prejudice a study based on recollections "because of its obvious relationship to diagnosis". But they said the results "raise the issue of the potential risks of mammographic screening", which uses X-rays.

The research appeared in yesterday's edition of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, and in an accompanying article, Dr Angela Bradbury and Professor Olufunmilayo Olopade wrote: "If confirmed, this study could have significant practice implications for the BRCA mutation carriers and could potentially eliminate mammographic screening as a surveillance method for early detection of breast cancer in young women."

Professor John Toy, the medical director of Cancer Research UK, urged women not to panic. He pointed to a Lancet Oncology study, published earlier this year, which found no association between mammograms and breast cancer among those with the BRCA mutations.

On balance, he said, it was worthwhile to have the screening to allow early detection of cancer - and therefore more effective treatment - despite the risk the mammogram could kick-start the disease. "We must interpret these results with caution. This type of study has inherent limitations because it relies on participants recalling the X-rays they have received ... [and it] looked at chest X-rays and not mammograms," he said.

However, Prof Toy said that if the study was found to be correct, it could lead to more use of MRI scans. He gave as an example an 18-year-old woman with BRCA mutations attending hospital with a broken rib. "The doctor might say, 'I think you've cracked your rib. Normally, we'd perhaps take an X-ray and confirm this, but I don't think you have punctured your lung and you've told me you are a BRCA mutation carrier, so perhaps we'll agree that we will forgo the X-ray'," he said.

Dr Sarah Rawlings, of the charity Breakthrough Breast Cancer, said: "This study does not yet offer conclusive evidence. It's still important for women to attend their breast screening appointments as mammography can detect breast cancer early, when it is more likely to be successfully treated."

When picked up and put in a bucket, it was reddish-brown but later changed its color to white, apparently in an automatic reaction to blend in with surroundings, according to the WWF.

The biologists named the serpent, two specimens of which were recovered, the Kapuas Mud Snake after the river that flows through the region.

The WWF said although some reptiles with legs, like the chameleon lizard, had the ability to change color, it was rare for snakes.

He and his collaborators believe the mind-reading computer's applications could range from improving people's driving skills to helping companies tailor advertising to people's moods.

"Imagine a computer that could pick the right emotional moment to try to sell you something, a future where mobile phones, cars and Web sites could read our mind and react to our moods," he added.

The technology is already programmed to recognize 24 facial expressions generated by actors. Robinson hopes to get more data from the public to determine whether someone is bored, interested, confused, or agrees or disagrees when it is unveiled at a science exhibition in London on Monday, July 3.

People visiting the four-day exhibition organized by the Royal Society, Britain's academy of leading scientists, will be invited to take part in a study to hone the program's abilities.

The scientists, who are developing the technology in collaboration with researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States, also hope to get it to accept other inputs such as posture and gesture.

"Our research could enable Web sites to tailor advertising or products to your mood," Robinson told Reuters. "For example, a webcam linked with our software could process your image, encode the correct emotional state and transmit information to a Web site."

It could also be useful in online teaching to show whether someone understands what is being explained and in improving road safety by determining whether a driver is confused, bored or tired.

"We are working with a big car company and they envision this being employed in cars within five years," Robinson said, adding that a camera could be built into the dashboard.

Anyone who does not want to give away too much information about what they are feeling, he said, can just cover up the camera.

"We must burn fuel to power aircrafts and generate electricity for our homes. The combustion community is working very hard to find ways to burn the fuel completely and derive all of its energy while minimizing emissions," said Dr. Ben Zinn, Regents' professor, the David S. Lewis Jr. Chair in Georgia Tech's Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering and a key collaborator on the project.

"Our combustor has an unbelievably simple design, and it would be inexpensive to make and inexpensive to maintain."

Attaining ultra low emissions has become a top priority for combustion researchers as federal and state restrictions on pollution continuously reduce the allowable levels of NOx and CO produced by engines, power plants and industrial processes.

Called the Stagnation Point Reverse Flow Combustor, the Georgia Tech device, originally developed for NASA, significantly reduces NOx and CO emissions in a variety of aircraft engines and gas turbines that burn gaseous or liquid fuels. It burns fuel with NOx emissions below 1 parts per million (ppm) and CO emissions lower than 10 ppm, significantly lower than emissions produced by other combustors.

The project's initial goal was to develop a low emissions combustor for aircraft engines and power-generating gas turbines that must stably burn large amounts of fuel in a small volume over a wide range of power settings (or fuel flow rates). But the design can be adapted for use in a variety of applications, including something as large as a power generating gas turbine or as small as a water heater in a home.

"We wanted to have all the clean-burning advantages of a low temperature combustion process while burning a large amount of fuel in a small volume," Zinn said.

The combustor burns fuel in low temperature reactions that occur over a large portion of the combustor. By eliminating all high temperature pockets through better control of the flow of the reactants and combustion products within the combustor, the device produces far lower levels of NOx and CO and avoids acoustic instabilities that are problematic in current low emissions combustors.

To reduce emissions in existing combustors, fuel is premixed with a large amount of swirling air flow prior to injection into the combustor. This requires complex and expensive designs, and the combustion process often excites instabilities that damage the system.

But Georgia Tech's design eliminates the complexity associated with premixing the fuel and air by injecting the fuel and air separately into the combustor while its shape forces them to mix with one another and with combustion products before ignition occurs.

The project was funded by the NASA University Research Engineering Technology Institute (URETI) Center on Aeropropulsion and Power and Georgia Tech. The primary investigators on the project were Professors Ben T. Zinn, Yedidia Neumeier, Jerry Seitzman and Jeff Jagoda from the School of Aerospace Engineering, and Visiting Research Engineers Yoav Weksler and Ben Ami Hashmonay.

The radar scatters a very low-intensity signal across a wide range of frequencies, so a TV or radio tuned to any one frequency would interpret the radar signal as a very weak form of static.

"It doesn't interfere because it has a bandwidth that is thousands of times broader than the signals it might otherwise interfere with," Walton said.

Like traditional radar, the "noise" radar detects objects by bouncing a radio signal off them and detecting the rebound. The hardware isn't expensive, either; altogether, the components cost less than $100.

The difference is that the noise radar generates a signal that resembles random noise, and a computer calculates very small differences in the return signal. The calculations happen billions of times every second and the pattern of the signal changes constantly. A receiver couldn't detect the signal unless it knew exactly what random pattern was being used.

The radar can be tuned to penetrate solid walls - just like the waves that transmit radio and TV signals - so the military could spot enemy soldiers inside a building without the radar signal being detected, Walton said. Traffic police could measure vehicle speed without setting off drivers' radar detectors. Autonomous vehicles could tell whether a bush conceals a more dangerous obstacle, like a tree stump or a gulley.

The radar is inherently able to distinguish between many types of targets because of its ultra-wide-band characteristics. "Unfortunately, there are thousands of everyday objects that look like humans on radar - even chairs and filing cabinets," he said. So the shape of a radar image alone can't be used to identify a human. "What tends to give a human away is that he moves. He breathes, his heart beats, his body makes unintended motions."

These tiny motions could be used to locate disaster survivors who were pinned under rubble. Other radar systems can't do that because they are too far-sighted - they can't see people who are buried only a few yards away. Walton said that the noise radar is inherently able to see objects that are nearby.

"It can see things that are only a couple of inches away with as much clarity as it can see things on the surface of Mars," he added.

That means that with further development, the radar might image tumors, blood clots and foreign objects in the body. It could even measure bone density. As with all forms of medical imaging, studies would first have to determine the radar's effect on the body. The university is expected to license the patented radar system.

Briefing notes given to the then defence secretary Tom King on March 4 1992 show that civil servants did give the idea credence. "There is no knowledge in the MoD of a 'black' programme of this nature, although it would not surprise the relevant desk officers in the Air Staff and [Defence Intelligence Staff] if it did exist."

The response suggested to an MP's question was rather less revealing: "The existence of any such project (or operation) would be a matter for the US authorities." The Americans denied everything, but the reports kept coming.

The most credible witness was Chris Gibson, who had 12 years' experience with the Royal Observer Corps and was an expert on recognising aircraft. He saw a triangular plane flanked by two US fighters being refuelled in flight by tanker while he was working on the Galveston Key oilrig in 1989. The plane was unlike anything he had ever seen. "There was no precedent for this," he said. "I kind of sussed out that it was something I shouldn't have seen." He reported the sighting to Jane's Defence Weekly in 1992.

On December 22 1992, the air attache to the British embassy in Washington wrote to the assistant chief of the Air Staff in London explaining US reaction to renewed MoD questions prompted by Mr Gibson's sighting. "Secretary of the Air Force, the Honorable Donald B Rice, was to say the least incensed by the renewed speculation, and the implied suggestion that he had lied to Congress by stating that Aurora did not exist.

"As you will have gathered, the whole affair is causing considerable irritation within HQ [US Air Force], and any helpful comments we can make to defuse the situation would be appreciated."

"The sort of prickly reaction to people not believing their denials is pretty unusual," said Bill Sweetman, an expert on top secret US black projects with Jane's Defence Review. "They generally don't deny things actually because it generally doesn't hurt them too much if somebody thinks they have a capability they don't."

A further batch of sightings on March 31 1993 over Devon, Cornwall, South Wales and Shropshire prompted another investigation by the MoD. These turned out later to be a Russian rocket re-entering the atmosphere, but the MoD investigators at the time suspected Aurora. "There would seem to be some evidence on this occasion that an unidentified object (or objects) of unknown origin was operating over the UK ... If there has been some activity of US origins which is known to a limited circle in MoD and is not being acknowledged it is difficult to investigate further." Mr Sweetman suspects that by the end of the decade the MoD knew about Aurora. Another document from 2000 on the MoD's investigations into UFO sightings -or unidentified aerial phenomena as they prefer to call them - states that "some UAP reports can be attributed to covert aircraft programmes".

The section, which discusses other covert US aircraft such as the SR-71 Blackbird, contains two paragraphs and two illustrations which were censored before its freedom of information release last month. Codes next to the removed material indicate that it was excised in the interests of international relations. "Certain viewing angles of these vehicles may be described as saucer-like," the document says.