BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s broadcast watchdog has slammed a provincial station for ignoring an order to remove sexually explicit television programs from the air, and demanded better “spiritual food” for viewers.

In September, the regulator told two small cable channels in the central province of Hubei to stop showing “obscene” programs, but in early January the same content appear on another provincial channel.

“The order banned the showing of programs about exaggerated sexual life, sexual experiences, sexual understanding, sexual organs and the abilities of aphrodisiacs,” the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television said.

“Repeatedly broadcasting base and lascivious programs is serious and has had a terrible effect,” it said in a statement on its Web site (www.sarft.gov.cn).

The central Hubei broadcaster, which is supposed to oversee the content of radio and television stations in the province, had failed in its supervision role, the watchdog said.

“This shows that the Hubei People’s Radio and Television Station’s propaganda and management abilities have serious flaws which are in urgent need of rectification,” it added.

But the station got away with merely a “criticism,” the statement said, without explaining why the punishment was so light.

“Provide more and better spiritual food for the masses,” it added in an admonition to other provincial broadcasters.

The government has moved to crack down on increasingly free-wheeling TV broadcasters, urging them to reject “vulgarity” and “weirdness” in the pursuit of ratings and put on more wholesome shows, especially in this Olympic year.

“Happy Boys Voice,” China’s male-only take-off of U.S. talent show “American Idol,” cut scenes involving contestants in tears, with wild hair or singing “unhealthy” songs in its first season to comply with the watchdog’s demands.

BEIJING (Reuters) – The names of three banks and the word “stocks” beat “sex” to become four of the most Googled words in China last year, according to a Google China list seen on Thursday.

China Merchants Bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and China Construction Bank ranked second, third and sixth, according to a list supplied by Google China on its website (www.google.cn).

“On the Chinese mainland, it was money and technology that took the honours last year,” the China Daily said, pointing out that “sex” was the most popular keyword for Google users in some other countries.

Fourth on the list was “stock”, not surprising with Shanghai shares having risen 97 percent last year. At number 1 was “QQ”, a Chinese instant message service and a brand of car.

China’s Central Bank, the Ministry of Finance and Banking Regulatory Commission ranked first, third and fifth in the “Most Popular Departments” list, the Web site said.

In another list named “qiu zhi”, or “seeking knowledge”, “what is a blue chip” and “how to invest in the stock market” were the most searched questions on Google in China, while “what is love” and “how to kiss” ranked top of the global list.

China keeps a tight rein on Internet content and has launched several campaigns to root out online pornography, perhaps one reason why “sex” did not score so well.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) – A tiny Canadian political party that promotes sexual freedom complained in Federal Court on Monday it was discriminated against by the country’s postal service.

The Sex Party is upset that Canada Post refused to distribute a flyer during the 2006 federal election that outlined the group’s philosophy, after deeming some its contents to be pornographic.

“We are advocating for rights established for any citizen,” said Sex Party leader John Ince, who told a judge in Vancouver that the pamphlet was intended to help recruit new party members and raise donations.

The Vancouver-based party — which advocates liberalization of Canada’s prostitution laws among other issues — says its political mailing ran afoul of rules aimed at prohibiting use of the postal system to distribute mass-mailing flyers for hard-core pornography or other illegal material.

“That is not what our material is,” Ince told the court.

Ince, a former lawyer who owns an erotica shop, said the Sex Party does not oppose restrictions on mailing hard-core porn, but said postal officials have been inconsistent in applying their own rules.

Lawyers representing the post office were not expected to present their court arguments until on Tuesday, but Canada Post said it has an obligation to refuse material that could be seen by children or others who might find it offensive.

Canada Post has denied its motives were political.

The Sex Party, founded in 2005, ran three candidates in that year’s provincial election in British Columbia, and the mailing was part of its efforts to become registered as a federal political organization, Ince said.

Among the political ideas it advocated in the 2005 provincial campaign were increased sex education in schools, more designated public areas for nudists, and the party describes itself as the world’s first political party “dedicated exclusively to sex-positive issues”.

Ince said Canada Post has a government monopoly on distributing flyers to mailboxes and the low cost of mass mailings is the only way that small political parties can get their message out and gauge public support.

LONDON (Reuters) – One microscopic organism has thrived despite remaining celibate for tens of millions of years thanks to a neat evolutionary trick, researchers said.

Asexual reproduction has allowed duplicate gene copies of the single-celled creatures — called bdelloid rotifers — to become different over time.

This gives the rotifers a wider pool of genes to help them adapt and survive, the researchers said in the journal Science.

“It is like having a bigger tool kit,” Alan Tunnacliffe, a molecular biologist at the University of Cambridge, said in a telephone interview. “You can do the same job but better.”

Other researchers had shown the translucent, waterborne creatures could survive for 40 million years without sexual relations.

The question, Tunnacliffe said, was how the creatures found in pools of water accomplished this feat without the gene-swapping made possible by sexual reproduction.

“Sexual reproduction is supposed to be a good thing in evolution,” he said on Thursday.

“So when you come across an organism like the bdelloid, which hasn’t engaged in sexual reproduction for tens of millions of years, you begin to question why sex is important.”

Every species of plant and animal that reproduces sexually has pairs of genes nearly identical to each other, with one of each pair coming from the mother and father.

These creatures get around that problem with the evolutionary trick that allows their genes to drift apart and evolve on their own, Tunnacliffe said, after using molecular cloning techniques.

“No sex means the genes can evolve in different directions,” he said. “It is like you have a bigger gene pool to select from for different functions in evolution.”

The theory of natural selection says sex mixes up the genes to cope with unexpected changes in a treacherous world.

Some genetic changes are good and boost survival, for example against new strains of disease, but others lead to conditions like cystic fibrosis in humans.

ULYANOVSK, Russia (Reuters) – The governor of a central Russian province urged couples to skip work on Wednesday and make love instead.

And if a woman gives birth in exactly nine months time — on Russia’s national day on June 12 — she will qualify for a prize.

“It’s normally something for the home — a fridge or a television set,” Yelena Yakovleva at the Ulyanovsk regional administration press office, said.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s a girl or a boy.”

Regional governor Sergei Morozov told employers to contribute to a Kremlin campaign to boost the birth rate by giving couples Wednesday off to have sex.

Russia wants to reverse a trend in which the population is shrinking by about 700,000 people a year as births fail to outpace a high death rate boosted by AIDS, alcoholism and suicide.

This is the third year Ulyanovsk region, famous as the birthplace of Soviet state founder Vladimir Lenin, has dedicated a day to encouraging couples to produce more babies.

Prizes will extend equally to unwed women who produce children on the right day, though the biggest prizes will go to married couples.

On Russia Day this year, a family won a jeep after their fourth baby was born on the holiday.

This year a record 78 babies were born on June 12 at the main hospital in the regional capital of Ulyanovsk, beating the 2006 total of 26, said chief doctor Andrei Malykh.

“The scheme is working. People want the prizes,” he said.

A mass wedding and special lessons for children at school on how to deal with having a brother or sister are also planned in Ulyanovsk city, which is about 900 km (560 miles) from Moscow.

This week First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, a possible successor to President Vladimir Putin, said he wanted to stabilise the population at about 142 million by 2015 and boost it back to 145 million by 2025.

BEIJING (Reuters) – China has banned sexually explicit television shows, such as those featuring sex toys and contraceptives, as it tries to clean up its airwaves and imbue socialist values.

The order follows the axing of controversial “Beautiful Makeover,” a reality program in the southern province of Guangdong showing plastic surgery operations, and the banning of shows featuring “public participation” in sex-change operations.

The State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television scolded provincial television stations in the western frontier city of Chengdu for broadcasting “lewd and obscene” footage, according to its online Web site (www.safrt.gov.cn).

“All levels of television broadcasters must not air any vulgar content involving sexual experiences or functions of sex toys and birth control devices, effective immediately,” SARFT said in the notice.

China is worried about sexist and sexually suggestive adverts on screen, and recently instructed state broadcaster CCTV to rein in advertisers.

The administration has moved to crack down on increasingly free-wheeling TV broadcasters, urging them to reject “vulgarity” and “weirdness” in the pursuit of ratings.

“Happy Boys Voice,” China’s male-only take-off of U.S. talent show “American Idol,” cut scenes involving contestants in tears, with wild hair or singing “unhealthy” songs in its first season to comply with the watchdog’s demands.

LONDON (AFP) – A British police officer who had sexual relations while on duty was acquitted in court because he was in constant radio contact due to the earpiece he was wearing during his sex romp.

Police transport inspector Massoud Khan, 41, found his 43-year-old partner on the Internet dating site uniformdating.com.

He conducted his illicit encounter in a room at the police station at Gatwick Airport, near London, it was reveaLed during the trial on Wednesday.

The jury quickly came to a unanimous verdict as the policeman proved he was able to respond to all emergencies as he was equipped with an earpiece tuned in to the police radio frequency.

“If there was a call for me, I would have answered it and I would have dealt with it,” he told the court, according to the Times newspaper.

His lawyer Kevin Baumber believes that the inspector certainly misbehaved, but his bad decision is not a crime.

“This is a criminal court, not a moral court. It’s doubtful that this case would have been brought if he had taken an extended lunch break or gone for a game of golf,” he said.

The inspector still may face disiplinary action.

BERLIN (Reuters) – German workaholics may be suffering from a lack of sex, according to a university study published on Friday.

A survey of 32,000 men and women by researchers at the University of Goettingen found over 35 percent of those reporting unsatisfying sex lives tended to use hard work as a diversion.

Some 36 percent of men and 35 percent of women surveyed for the “Apotheken Umschau” newsletter said they were likely to put in extra time at the office and volunteer for extra assignments.

The hard work ethic was even more pronounced among those who reported having no sex — 45 percent of men and 46 percent of women said they voluntarily took on more responsibilities.

“These findings are worrying,” the leader of the study, Ragnar Beer, was quoted as saying.

WELLINGTON (AFP) – They say you are what you eat, and growing numbers of vegans are shunning sex with meat-eaters because they see them as “a graveyard for animals”, a New Zealand researcher says.

These vegans not only refuse to eat meat or animal products but refuse to have sexual contact with meat-eaters because their bodies are made up of dead animals, the researcher was reported saying in The Press newspaper on Tuesday.

Annie Potts, co-director of the New Zealand Centre of Human and Animal Studies at New Zealand’s Canterbury University, said she coined the term vegansexuals during her research.

She discovered the vegansexuals while interviewing 157 vegetarians and ethical consumers for a study.

“It’s a whole new thing — I have not come across it before,” said Potts.

One vegan said while she found non-vegans attractive, but would not want to be physically close to them.

“I would not want to be intimate with someone whose body is literally made up from the bodies of others who have died for their sustenance,” she said.

LONDON (Reuters) – Young Britons would rather give up sex than live without their mobile phones, according to a survey.

One in three people would not sacrifice their mobile phone for one million pounds or more, with women leading the way on those most likely to refuse, the survey by the Carphone Warehouse and the London School of Economics found.

Most respondents aged between 16 and 24 would rather give up alcohol, chocolate, sex, tea, or coffee than live without their mobile phone for a month.

In contrast, more than 40 percent of the those aged over 45 would give the phone simply to be able to have their favourite hot drink.

The online survey polled 1,256 adults aged between 16 and 64.

PUNTA GORDA, Fla. – A police officer interrupted a couple’s weekend sex romp on top of a 100-foot construction crane, but let them go with a warning, authorities said.

Police went to the construction site to investigate Saturday night after bystanders spotted the couple climbing into the cab of the crane. An officer’s command to come down was followed by a naked foot popping over the railing, police said.

The officer noted the couple then got dressed and climbed down.

The man, who worked at the site and had keys to the crane, told officers he was photographing the city skyline.

HONG KONG (Reuters) – More than 800 Hong Kong residents have called on authorities to reclassify the Bible as “indecent” due to its sexual and violent content, following an uproar over a sex column in a university student journal.

A spokesperson for Hong Kong’s Television and Entertainment Licensing authority (TELA) said it had received 838 complaints about the Bible by noon on Wednesday.

The complaints follow the launch of an anonymous Web site — www.truthbible.net — which said the holy book “made one tremble” given its sexual and violent content, including rape and incest.

The Web site said the Bible’s sexual content “far exceeds” that of a recent sex column published in the Chinese University’s “Student Press” magazine, which had asked readers whether they’d ever fantasised about incest or bestiality.

That column was later deemed “indecent” by the Obscene Articles Tribunal, sparking a storm of debate about social morality and freedom of speech. Student editors of the journal defended it, saying open sexual debate was a basic right.

If the Bible is similarly classified as “indecent” by authorities, only those over 18 could buy the holy book and it would need to be sealed in a wrapper with a statutory warning notice.

TELA said it was still undecided on whether the Bible had violated Hong Kong’s obscene and indecent articles laws.

But a local protestant minister shrugged off this possibility.

“If there is rape mentioned in the Bible, it doesn’t mean it encourages those activities,” said Reverend Wu Chi-wai. “It’s just common sense … I don’t think that criticism will have strong support from the public,” he added.

SYDNEY (AFP) – Asia’s lovers rate sex far less highly than those elsewhere around the globe, spend less time having intercourse and are less likely to reach orgasm, according to a survey released Tuesday.

The international survey of more than 26,000 people in 26 countries found Asians ranked themselves among the least satisfied with their sex lives.

The Global Sexual Wellbeing Survey was conducted by condom-maker Durex and released at this week’s World Congress on Sexual Health in Sydney.

The survey found most people around the globe had sex 106 times a year, with the Japanese the most infrequent on 48 and the Greeks putting in an Olympian effort on 164.

It might explain why respondents from Japan were the least satisfied with their sex lives, with only 10 percent ranking it as exciting, well behind the global average of 49 percent, led by Nigerians on 78 percent.

Hong Kong (32 percent), Australia (40), Singapore (41), Thailand (42) and New Zealand (43) were also among the bottom 10 nations in the exciting sex life stakes.

India’s lovers were the world’s quickest, taking 13.2 minutes per session compared to the global average of 18.3 minutes, with the ranking again topped by Nigeria, on a leisurely 24 minutes.

Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Thailand and Australia were also well below the world average for time spent on intercourse.

However, China’s lovers were the seventh most lengthy in the world on 20 minutes, a heartbeat behind Malaysia’s on 19.9.

Only 24 percent of respondents from Hong Kong and China reported always experiencing an orgasm during sex, the lowest in the survey, followed by Japan on 27 percent and Singapore on 36.

On average, 59 percent of respondents strongly agreed that sex was important to them, with the lowest rankings coming from Thailand on 38 percent, Japan (39) and Hong Kong (48 percent).

CONCORD, N.H. – A former court security officer has been convicted of offering to pay a couple behind on a fine $20 an hour to have sex while he watched. The couple testified that they were skeptical when Robert Theriault told them they would be testing sheets and condoms as part of an insurance company survey to see if they increased sperm count.

But they said they ultimately trusted Theriault, who resigned as a Franklin District Court security officer in December 2005 after being accused of the crime, because he worked for the court.

The couple said they agreed to Theriault’s offer because they needed money to pay a $500 speeding fine.

“At first I thought it was a joke,” the man testified. “But every time I asked a question about it, he was right there with a response. So I began to think he was telling the truth.”

The couple reported Theriault in 2006 after they read news accounts about another man who had accused the former court officer of a similar offer.

Theriault, 49, who was convicted Tuesday, took the stand in his own defense and said he only offered the couple, whom he met in court, jobs in a restaurant. Theriault faces a maximum of two years in jail and a $4,000 fine when he is sentenced.

New Hampshire’s prostitution laws prohibit people from offering to pay for sex whether it involves themselves or other people.

TEMPE, Ariz. – A woman has been arrested on suspicion that she tied up a man during sex, then stabbed him repeatedly with a knife and told him she likes to drink blood, police said.

Tiffany Sutton, 23, was arrested on suspicion of aggravated assault Tuesday night at a Tempe home where she and the victim were living, according to authorities.

The man, whose identity was not released, told police he had consented to being tied up but became scared when the woman attacked him with a knife.

He eventually freed himself and ran away, but Sutton chased him with a pickax, police said.

The man was taken in an ambulance to a local hospital, where he was treated for injuries.

Police said both Sutton and the man admitted that they had consumed alcohol and drugs prior to the incident.

Sutton claimed the entire encounter was consensual, police said.

HANAHAN, S.C. – A former city firefighter fined $200 after he and a girlfriend had sex in an unfinished house now has been charged with arson for setting fire to the structure.

Paul Joseph Sloan, 26, of North Charleston, is charged with second-degree arson, Hanahan Police Sgt. Matt Woodall said.

Sloan is accused of starting fires Aug. 24 in the attic and master bedroom of an upscale three-story house, according to an affidavit from a State Law Enforcement Division investigator.

Sloan, a Hanahan firefighter at the time, was off duty when he reported the 3 a.m fire. The fire damaged the roof of the house, which was about 70 percent finished, and delayed completion of the home.

The fire started when someone lit a cardboard box filled with door molding in the attic and a piece of floor molding that was pushed into insulation in the master bedroom.

Sloan earlier told investigators his DNA would be found inside the house because he and his former girlfriend had sex in several places there earlier.

He pleaded guilty in November to unlawful entry and was fined $200.

LONDON (Reuters) – A devout Christian who said an accident at work boosted his libido and wrecked his marriage as he turned to prostitutes and pornography was awarded more than 3 million pounds ($5.89 million) in damages Tuesday.

Stephen Tame, 29, from Suffolk, suffered severe head injuries in a fall, transforming him from a loyal newlywed into a “disinhibited” character who had two affairs.

He was in a coma for two months after falling from a gantry while working at a bicycle warehouse shortly after his marriage in January 2002. Doctors said it was a miracle he survived.

Awarding him 3.1 million pounds in compensation at London’s High Court, Judge Michael Harris said: “His life and the life of his young wife were shattered.”

His former employer, Professional Cycle Marketing, of Essex, had argued through their lawyers that his injuries were not as bad as suggested in court.

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) – A South African couple have been ordered by their village chief to hold off on their love-making sessions until after 10:00 pm following a string of complaints about their howls of passion.

Neighbours of Emily Dolo and her boyfriend Barnett Motloung, who live in the eastern state of Mpumalanga, had complained to the village kgosi (elder) that their meals and television watching were being disrupted by the amorous couple for hours at a time.

“I have a nine-year-old boy and he always asks what is happening every time the woman screams,” one neighbour told The Sowetan daily.

Dolo was initially ordered to stop making a noise when the couple were summoned to a tribal council but the elder later ruled that they must limit their sex sessions to between 10:00 pm and 5:00 am.

LONDON, Oct 25 (Reuters Life!) – Researchers are struggling to understand a rare medical condition where sufferers unknowingly demand, or actually have, sex while asleep, New Scientist magazine reported on Wednesday.

Research into sexsomnia — making sexual advances toward another person while asleep — has been hampered as sufferers are so embarrassed by the problem they tend not to own up to it, while doctors do not ask about it.

As yet there is no cure for the condition, which often leads to difficulties in relationships.

“It really bothers me that I can’t control it,” Lisa Mahoney told the magazine. “It scares me because I don’t think it has anything to do with the partner. I don’t want this foolish condition to hurt us in the long run.”

Most researchers view sexsomnia as a variant of sleepwalking, where sufferers are stuck between sleep and wakefulness, though sexsomniacs tend to stay in bed rather than get up and walk about.

While sleepwalking affects two to four percent of adults, sexsomnia is not thought to be as common a problem, according to Nik Trajanovic, a researcher at the sleep and alertness clinic at Canada’s Toronto Western Hospital.

But an Internet survey of sexsomniacs carried out in 2005 that drew 219 reliable respondents concluded it was more prevalent than medical case reports alone might suggest.

“Most of the time sleep sex occurs between people who are already partners,” Mark Pressman, a sleep specialist at Lankenan Hospital in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, told the New Scientist.

“Sometimes they hate it,” added Pressman of the reactions of sexsomniacs’ partners. “Sometimes they tolerate it. On rare occasions you have stories of people liking it better than waking sex.”

With no cure, addressing triggering factors — stress or sleep deprivation — can help, while Michael Mangan, a psychologist at the University of New Hampshire in the U.S. has set up a Web site, www.sleepsex.org, to help sufferers.

Meanwhile Trajanovic is devising a procedure for diagnosing sexsomnia in legal cases where sufferers have been accused of sexual assault.

TORONTO (Reuters) – An undergraduate program at Canada’s august University of Toronto offers discussions on flogging, restraint, and role-play, as well as an arts course called “Queerly Canadian.” But teachers and students insist it’s a serious academic program that isn’t simply about sex.

“It’s not sexy sex sex, where we’re talking about whips and chains, but we will talk about whips and chains,” said graduating student Robbie Morgan, 33, who left her job teaching sex education in Chicago to attend the Sexual Diversity Studies program, one of the largest of its kind in North America.

“We’ll talk about whips and chains in a political, social, cultural, religious context of sexuality and how that sexuality affects those institutions.”

The Sexual Diversity program appears one of the edgier ones on offer at the university, which was founded in 1827 and is best known for its science and medical research. Alumni include Nobel Peace Prize laureate Lester B. Pearson, insulin inventors Frederick Banting and Charles Best, author Margaret Atwood and film director David Cronenberg.

The program promises an academic approach to gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and heterosexual issues — from history and law to the performance of sadomasochism.

“It’s a very serious analytical exercise and it isn’t what a lot of people think it is,” director David Rayside told Reuters during a visit to the school, which is located in the original Romanesque-style University College building at U of T’s leafy downtown campus.

The program, established eight years ago, got a C$1 million (424,906 pounds) boost this week with a donation from Canadian winemaker Mark Bonham to expand the curriculum. There are plans for Canada’s first undergraduate major in sexual diversity studies, and for master’s and doctorate programs from 2008.

“This is a long-neglected area and Canada provides an ideal environment to take up these questions creatively,” said Bonham in a statement.

The program includes a drama course called “Sexual Performance: Case Studies in S/M (sadomasochism)” and the arts and literature course “Queerly Canadian,” for which one student wrote an in-depth review of a male strip show.

But it also focuses on traditional academic discussion — from Plato to same-sex marriage, with courses like “Theories of Sexuality” and “Sexual Diversity Politics.”

Canadian provinces were the first jurisdictions in North America to legalise gay marriage — and Toronto, with one of the largest gay and lesbian communities in the world, is a perfect backdrop for such a program, said Rayside.

“This is a city that has diversified a lot, and is muddling through how to recognise that diversity in ways that are quite interesting,” he said.

“We’re located in the heart of a tremendous laboratory where cultural and international differences actually play a role, and that’s part of what we do.”

Students were keen to dispel the perception that the program caters only to activists and gays.

“The stereotype is it’s a bunch of queers talking about sex and gay rights,” says Kirstin Caspersen, 22, who wants to apply her degree with criminology to look at how gender and sexual issues affect people in the justice system.

Rayside said the sexual orientation of students in the program is as diverse as the studies themselves.

“I would estimate — of course I don’t ask — that 50 percent of our students are not queer-identified by any use of that term, which is great,” he said.

“A lot of the people from the university, from the president on down, think that what we’re doing is important work. But there’s still a lot entailed at persuading more and more people that what we’re doing is legitimate.”

NAIVASHA, Kenya (Reuters) – A couple caught having sex in a Kenyan mosque during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan have been sentenced to 18 months jail for what the judge called an “abominable” affront to religion.

Peter Kimani and Jennifer Wairimu pleaded guilty to the charge of having sex in a place of worship after being caught on October 3 at the Abubakar mosque in Gilgil, about 100 km (60 miles) north of Nairobi. Neither is a Muslim.

A worshipper heading for evening prayers found the couple having sex after investigating what the prosecution described as strange noises emanating from a dark corner of the mosque.

Kimani and Wairimu both pleaded for clemency at Monday’s hearing, saying they were too drunk to know where they were. Kimani told the court he thought he was in a lodging house.

John King’ori, senior magistrate in nearby Naivasha, dismissed their plea.

“Having sex in a mosque is a most abominable thing to religion and only a custodial sentence can add justice to this,” he said.

LONDON (Reuters) – Over a million motorists think about sex rather than the road ahead and millions more who don’t indulge in intimate thoughts are worrying about work or thinking about their families, a survey said on Thursday.

Research from car insurer More Than found one in five drivers admit to concentrating behind the wheel less than 75 percent of the time, with 1.2 million thinking mostly about sex.

And sex wasn’t the only non-traffic thoughts motorists have. For 3.2 million drivers work was the main focus and for 2 million more it was family issues that dominated.

“Unsafe habits can be unlearned just as easily as they can be learned, but first, drivers must recognize the risk they face by not concentrating on their driving,” said Lisa Dorn, director of Driver Research at Cranfield University of the findings.

The study also revealed drivers’ pet hates.

Topping the list were tailgaters (28 percent), lane hoggers (20 percent) and drivers who cut in (11 percent).

Other road users who drove too fast and those who drove too slowly were also rated on 11 percent.

The research carried out by Sky Living for More Than questioned 4,497 adults in June, 2006.

LONDON (Reuters) – The 17th century punishment for sex crimes was public humiliation and 1930s Britons pretended to be drunk so they could get away with sex on the beach.

Historical attitudes to sex in Britain will be laid bare for all to see this week in archives which reveal a nation rich in sexual experience and enthusiasm.

The historical documents, to be given a public outing by the Centre for Archive Studies at Liverpool University, include the nation’s first ever sex survey, conducted 57 years ago but deemed too shocking for publication at the time.

The survey shows many of the nation’s men had homosexual experiences, many were frequent visitors to prostitutes and many wives pursued sex outside marriage.

The archives also have details of public displays of sexual behaviour in the 1930s on the west coast’s famous Blackpool Beach as well as in cinemas and dance halls, and show how many Britons threw sexual caution to the wind during World War Two.

According to archivists, who will debate the papers on Saturday, Britons “tended to pretend they were drunk or playing a joke” in order to get away with sexual behaviour in public.

Caroline Williams, of the Centre for Archive Studies, says the documents show that attitudes have broadened over the years.

Dorothy Sheridan, a fellow archivist from the University of Sussex, has looked at decades of extracts from personal diaries, letters and autobiographical accounts of experiences in which people describe the most intimate aspects of their lives.

“Materials in our archive range from holiday makers enjoying themselves on the beach at Blackpool to the experiences of the Second World War when many people, fearing they may not survive the war, were more sexually active,” she said.

Despite the taboos of the time, the 1949 sex survey, originally meant for national newspapers but never published due to its content, found one in five men had homosexual experiences and a quarter admitted to having sex with prostitutes. One in five women confessed to extra-marital affairs.

Alan Crosby, a historian at Liverpool University, said the archives also show how attitudes to sex crimes have changed.

“Sexual offences in the past were recognised as serious crimes, just as they are today,” he said, but the punishment system was very different.

Documents detail how a man convicted of a sex crime in a northern town in 1630 was punished by being paraded through the streets and humiliated in front of fellow citizens.

LONDON (Reuters) – A large number of Britons would be prepared to give up sex if it meant they would live to be 100, according to a survey on Friday.

The Mori research found that 40 percent would pass on the passion for longevity, although far more women (48 percent) were willing to make the sacrifice than men (31 percent).

However nearly all (94 percent) would not give up their friends or family in order to reach their century while a half thought scientists should keep trying to prolong people’s lifespans.

Private health care provider BUPA commissioned the survey as part of a debate on the implications of an ageing population.

“Britain is facing an ageing time bomb with major challenges presented by retirement, the desire to live longer and the increasing burden of caring for older people,” said Andrew Vallance-Owen, BUPA’s medical director.

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) – They are calling it the “crossed legs” strike.

Fretting over crime and violence, girlfriends and wives of gang members in the Colombian city of Pereira have called a ban on sex to persuade their menfolk to give up the gun.

After meeting with the mayor’s office to discuss a disarmament program, a group of women decided to deny their partners their conjugal rights and recorded a song for local radio to urge others to follow their example.

“We met with the wives and girlfriends of gang members and they were worried some were not handing over their guns and that is where they came up with the idea of a vigil or a sex strike,” mayor’s office representative Julio Cesar Gomez said.

“The message they are giving them is disarm or if not then they will decide how, when, where and at what time,” he told Reuters by telephone.

Gomez said the city, in Colombia’s coffee-growing region, reported 480 killings last year.

Crime and violence have dropped in Colombia since 2002 when President Alvaro Uribe was first elected promising to crackdown on left-wing rebels fighting a four-decade insurgency and the illegal militia groups who formed to counter them.

But cocaine-trafficking gangs and armed groups still roam parts of Colombia and murder and kidnappings remain a problem despite the fall in crime statistics.

How human the up-and-coming business of space tourism will be! Early space tourists will marvel at the view, but as orbital vacations become more affordable, space tourists will include couples who want to experience space and weightlessness together. Sex in Space is the “killer app” that will transform space tourism into a mega business. Making love with a view of the Earth below may be the ultimate aphrodisiac for space buffs. But, let’s think about the implications of space-based sex for a moment. The sex-in-space revolution is about to begin!

Many have wondered what it might be like to make love in space. The passionate couples who book flights to the very first space hotel will be more than excited to try zero-g sex. From what I’ve learned while working on my soon-to-be-released book, Sex in Space, I’ve come to the conclusion that honeymoons in space and out-of-this-world sex will be a reality within a decade.

Some people believe that space sex will be a frustrating experience and that lovers will give up. No way! Weightless couples will find a way to get together. I’ve written an entire chapter in my Sex in Space book where I suggest ways to, shall we say, accomplish things, but it’s too much to cover here. I’m not advocating that people go into space and have casual sex. I’m advocating that people take romantic vacations in space with their significant other, preferably their soul mate. The bottom line is that sex in space will probably take some practice and hard work at first. Since people are very creative, I have no doubt that it will make for a wonderful otherworldly experience.

On a cautionary note, men and women in their childbearing years will need to be careful not to conceive a child while in space since it may be dangerous to the mother and baby. Based on animal experiments, we know that fetal development is affected in space. Bones, muscles (including the heart), and neurology, will simply not develop properly without Earth gravity. We also know that human hormones and even sperm motility are affected by the lack of gravity. Radiation is a serous problem too, even in Earth orbit where our magnetic field protects us somewhat.

What we don’t know is how conception may be affected in humans. There are so many questions that need to be answered. For example, is human conception in space even possible? Will a fertilized embryo attach properly to the uterus wall? Are life-threatening ectopic pregnancies more likely in weightlessness? How will reentry acceleration affect a mother and fetus? Are the higher radiation levels of Earth orbit likely to cause problems with the first cell divisions? It may be perfectly safe to conceive in orbit, but we just don’t know enough to take that chance with the health and happiness of a child.

To prevent pregnancy, couples may rely on oral contraceptives, but there is no proof that this method of birth control will be effective in space. Many drugs that are effective on Earth don’t work as well, or at all, in space. Tests on astronauts in orbit suggest that some drugs aren’t absorbed as well in zero gravity.

We simply need to know more. We need more research into conception and fetal development in animals, especially primates, before we can feel comfortable enough to conceive human space babies. NASA is drastically cutting back its biology programs to make more money available for Moon missions, so the money just isn’t available. I’m afraid that the first experiment will be done unintentionally by space honeymooners, and with tragic results.

Sex in space will happen, and therefore it’s a legitimate topic to explore. The sex drive is a basic part of our nature. It drives sex and love, the expansion of our families, and even our exploration of the unknown. We can’t afford to be ashamed of sex. That will only prevent us from looking into the risks and possibilities. If we are to follow our hearts and create a civilization in space, we will need to address the possibilities of sex and reproduction in Earth orbit and beyond. Think about it, the first space babies will be space aliens in some ways.

The sex in space revolution is about to begin, and that’s wonderful. But before it does, we need to be sure that we know what we’re doing. I call on all the space agencies, especially NASA, to do more testing. It would be easy, for example, to test the blood of women astronauts who are on oral contraceptives while in space to measure the drug’s effectiveness in orbit. If the space agencies are unwilling, then it’s up to the personal spaceflight companies to take responsibility before sending couples on orbital honeymoons.

LONDON (AFP) – Three-quarters of British sport fishermen would rather go fishing than go to bed with their partners, a survey showed.

More than half of the 1,000 anglers surveyed by bookmaker Totesport also said they would rather catch a record-breaking trout or salmon than spend a night with a supermodel.

Fishermen who took part in the poll spent, on average, eight times as much money on fishing equipment than on gifts for their partners.

“It is odds on that there are fishing widows the length and breadth of the country that can relate to these results,” Paul Petrie, a spokesman for Totesport, said.

Forty-six percent of respondents also said they lied about the real size of their catch to impress their peers.

TOKYO (Reuters) – More sex.

That’s what one expert says is needed to solve Japan’s baby shortage.

“Japanese people simply aren’t having sex,” Dr. Kunio Kitamura, director of the Japan Family Planning Association, was quoted as saying by the Japan Times, an English language daily.

An association survey of 936 people between the ages of 16 and 49 showed 31 percent had not had sex for more than a month “for no particular reason” — a condition known as “sexless.”

“As much as subsidies and welfare programmes are important, sexlessness is also a critical issue in this problem.”

Japan’s fertility rate — the average number of children a woman bears in her lifetime — fell to an all-time low of 1.25 last year. Demographers say a rate of 2.1 is needed to keep a population from declining.

Japan came last among 41 nations in a poll last year by condom manufacturer Durex, with lovers there having sex just 45 times a year compared to a global average of 103 times a year.

Kitamura said that while many men in workaholic Japan are simply too “stressed out” from their jobs to have enough energy for sex, many other couples simply do not have sex regularly.

In the association’s survey, 44 percent of the people who said they weren’t having much sex felt that having a relationship with the opposite sex was “very tiresome” or “tiresome.”

Kitamura’s advice? Couples should talk to each other.

“Ultimately, it’s these interactions with the opposite sex that bring out the inevitable animal instinct in us — to reproduce,” he said.

SHERIDAN, Wyo. – A woman woke up over the weekend to find a man she didn’t know climbing into her bed, according to police.

Eva Olson, 40, said she felt her bed move and heard the man say he wanted to talk to her, according to police.

Olson didn’t know William O’Dell, 48, of Sheridan, but O’Dell allegedly told police he knew Olson because she was a bartender. He allegedly said he’d stopped by her house to visit.

Olson asked O’Dell to leave, then showed him out the door without incident.

Police said they found O’Dell at his home, smelling heavily of alcohol. He was jailed and charged with criminal entry.

CHICAGO (AFP) – The T-shirt says it all: “95 percent of Americans like cereal; 57 percent like sex.”

A new restaurant chain is poised to capitalize on the most important meal of the day by offering consumers tantalizing combinations of their favorite cereals in trendy shops that scream fun.

Bright colors and pajama-clad servers greet customers who are offered their choice of name-brand hot and cold cereals and toppings that range from bananas and molasses to mini marshmallows and malted milk balls.

Tucked into kitschy cardboard boxes and coupled with an optional “sloop” spoon that acts as a straw, Cereality is also a chance to indulge the inner child on the go.

The aim is to create a “metabrand” that draws on the existing consumer loyalty to breakfast cereals and creates a unique experience, said co-founder David Roth over breakfast Monday at the flagship store in the heart of Chicago’s business district.

“The goal is to be ubiquitous in the culture where we’re showing up in all the places where people want cereal and being another option for people when they want to snack,” Roth said.

Cereality has recently partnered with Dodge to create roving vans — modeled on the ice cream-truck — which sell cereal, drinks and snacks at suburban soccer games, zoos, shopping centers and even night clubs.

It has also started a catering operation serving everything from office meetings, to wedding rehearsals to the after-party for the Broadway premier of Harry Connick Jr. in “The Pajama Game.”

Quick-serve restaurants are planned for hotels, airports, college campuses and storefronts across the United States as the company prepares to launch franchise operations after having generated two years of media buzz through three prototype locations and a savvy marketing campaign.

“We’re looking at 30 development deals with multiple units of 10 to 20 stores by the end of 2007,” Roth said, adding that Cereality expects to expand to Canada and Britain before considering other markets in Europe and Asia.

Roth, who spent years working as a brand development consultant, came up with the idea for Cereality during a meeting with a client in New York.

“He’s in a Brooks Brothers suite and snacking on Coco Puffs,” Roth said. “And he said look around, everyone’s doing it.”

Roth did some research and approached Rick Bacher, 38, an art director and designer who had done extensive work on branding.

Instead of trying to simply make cereal more portable, or to try to come up with their own cereal, Roth and Bacher decided to exploit the familiarity of existing brands in a new environment.

“People have very strong emotional connection to their cereal,” Roth said. “People will come in here and have their Lucky Charms even though it’s not what’s best for them — it says something about you what cereal you eat.”

While Roth focused on drawing in partners like oatmeal giant Quaker Foods and customers like Old Navy — which offered a million free breakfast bars to customers who showed up early for the biggest shopping day of the year — Bacher created the look that makes Cereality both hip and homey.

Comfy sofas, bar stools and farmhouse tables are used to create seating areas that look like living rooms, dining rooms and home-style kitchens. A sense of fun was created with snappy (and trademarked) slogans like Always Saturday Morning and the Moo Machine milk bar.

“The moos get fatter as you move from skim to whole” milk, Bacher explained as he pointed to the logos.

The T-shirts — or Cereali-Tees — worn by servers are also for sale with slogans like “United Flakes of America,” “Captain of Crunch” and “Go Ahead. Flake out.”

Early reviews have been good.

“I love cereal and I like to mix it up,” said Randy Alaniz, 28, a hog and cattle futures trader who regularly takes breaks from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange to indulge in a four dollar carton of Captain Crunch and Reese’s Pieces.