Vittorio Hernandez

The National Health Service (NHS) of the United Kingdom has released an application which will show smokers how fast they age due to the 4,000 chemicals found in cigarettes they puff.

There is a possibility that the two older children of deceased King of Pop, Michael Jackson, could be called as witnesses after Katherine Jackson, the grandmother and guardian of Prince, Paris and Blanket Jackson, filed on Thursday a civil lawsuit against AEG Live.

The Australian share market is trading higher at lunchtime, despite a negative start impacted by more falls on European and US share markets overnight.

Australia's Parliament has summoned representatives of Apple, Microsoft and Adobe Systems to explain the higher prices of music, computer games, movies, e-books and software in the country compared to the U.S.

After throwing the Australian Labor Party (ALP) on Thursday in chaos by calling for settling of the party's leadership issue, Labor senior minister Simon Crean is paying a heavy price.

The saying that art imitates life appears to be true in a firearms possession case heard by a British court on Thursday. It turned out that two main characters in the trial - the accused and the judge had names as the characters in the famous cartoon The Simpsons.

Cigarette smoke emanates from the mouth or nostrils, but a Canadian anti-smoking campaign taps another type of emission from another orifice to drive home their message that social smoking is still smoking which damages a person's health.

A European Commission study made by its Joint Research Centre released recently found that pirates have minimal effect on the music industry.

Despite creeping into positive territory at times, the Australian market fell once again, with the All Ordinaries Index slipping 0.1 per cent to 4976.8. So far, this has been the biggest weekly pullback for the local market in 10 months, when the All Ords lost 5.62 per cent in just five days.

Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, whose supporters were pushing him to challenge current Prime Minister Julia Gillard for the top Australian Labor Party (ALP) post has blinked. He backed out of the leadership ballot on Thursday afternoon.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard surprised Parliament on Thursday by announcing a caucus leadership ballot at 4:30 p.m. during question hour.

Dr Ed Lu, a physicist and former NASA astronaut, said there is a 30 per cent chance that a near-Earth asteroid would hit the planet within this century. He estimated the hit would have a five-mega tonne impact.

Despite a positive start on the back of gains on Wall Street and Europe overnight, the Australian share market is flat at lunchtime in the East.

There are now more than 1 billion unique users monthly for the video sharing site YouTube. That means 50 per cent of people who are on the Internet visits YouTube.

Kayleigh Lawrie, 14, of Willoughby, predicted on Aug 4, 2012 her own death in Facebook minutes before the car she was riding was hit by another vehicle. Her post - "I think I'm going to die. Xx. luv you all." - was referring to the very fast and drunken way that Steven Hayter, 42, of Seymour Terrace, was driving the car.

Pope Francis generated controversy on his first week of reign as head of the 1.2-billion strong Roman Catholic Church when he greeted and shook the hand of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Tuesday after his inaugural mass.

Australian dairy farmers are crying, not over spilt milk, but over lost income as they continue to be caught in the price war between supermarket giants Woolworths and Coles. Thus, while prices of milk in the international market soar due to the drought that hit neighbor New Zealand, the $1 per litre price tag at groceries continues to hurt their pockets and caused some farms to close.

A bovine anthrax outbreak in northwestern New South Wales has hit Australia and caused so far the death of 40 cattle, the Department of Primary Industry reported on Wednesday.

A week after his election as leader of the 1.2-billion strong Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis's popularity continues to soar as his online followers doubled that of his predecessor and he receives invitations from governments for an apostolic visit.

The lack of resolution in relation to the Cypriot bailout remained the main influence on regional markets on Wednesday. The Cypriot parliament has voted against levy on bank deposits by a margin of 36 to 0 with 19 members abstaining. Eurozone officials remain defiant that Cyprus must contribute to its rescue.

Residents of Alaska were treated on Monday, March 18, to the awesome sight of the Northern Lights. The Aurora Borealis was seen from the Interior to South East and parts of South-Central, which includes Anchorage, according to the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute.

A video on YouTube of penguins at the Aquarium of the Pacific has become viral with more than 100,000 hits so far.

Followers of Pope Francis would soon be able to read one of his books in English. Image Books said the pope's On Heaven and Earth: Pope Francis on Faith, Family and the Church in the 21stt Century, will be released in the U.S. and Canada on May 7.

Taiwanese tech company HTC Corporation is delaying again the release of its flagship smartphone, the HTC One, due to parts shortage.

To meet Indonesia's target to become self sufficient in its beef meat requirement by 2014, Jakarta said it is considering running a cattle breeding farm in Australia. The Indonesian government pointed to lower production cost as the reason behind the plan.

The Australian sharemarket is falling for the third straight day, taking the losses for the week to almost 3 per cent. The All Ordinaries Index (XAO) down 0.74 per cent and has slipped below the key 5000.0 point level for the first time this month.

It's not only Apple and Samsung that are battling each other in courts across continents over copyright infringements. Two major Chinese tech giants are also engaged in lawsuits over the LTE and terminal patents outside Asia.

BBC Worldwide announced on Tuesday the sale of Lonely Planet, its travel guide business, for $75 million. The American company, NC2 Media, is the buyer.

Microsoft is offering a $100 fee to U.S. developers for every app they would write for Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8. There is a limit of 10 apps per Store, and the Keep the Cash offer promo runs only from March 8 to June 30, 2013.