Children born to mothers who drink even small amounts of alcohol early in pregnancy are shorter and weigh less at 14 than children born to mothers who abstain, a study says. "Women should not drink at all during pregnancy," said University of Pittsburgh researcher Nancy Day, the study's principal investigator. The deficiencies found were slight and within normal height and weight ranges. "I had thought growth deficits would go away after puberty" said Day, whose research is reported in the October issue of Alcoholism : Clinical and Experimental Research. Day found that even light drinking - about 1 1/2 drinks a week - had measurable effects on children years later.

Jedi, klingons, grinches, gearheads, bunny-huggers and bunny-boilers have all found a place in the new edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.

The new edition, distilled from the massive Oxford English Dictionary, includes 3,500 new words which have met the publisher's test of appearing in atleast five printed sources within five years.

Jedi from Star Wars and Klingsons from Star Trek joined Grinches (spoil-sports) which originated in the fantasies of Dr Seuss.

Bunny-hugger is defined as a conservationist or animal lover, while a bunny-boiler is a vindictive woman, a la Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. A gear-head is a car enthusiast.

Since the previous edition of the dictionary in 1993, other new words include alcopops, carjacking, control freaks, DVDs, line dancing, lap dancing, pashminas, road rage, shock jocks, speed cameras, or supermodels.

From the dining table, new words include balsamic vinegar, BLTs, bruschetta, cava, chargrilling, dauphinois potatoes, and Heimlich maneuver.

New slang terms include "get real" and "badass".

There are also 500 new quotations. Among the writers whose literary citations appear for the first time are best-sellers Tom Clancy and Nick Hornby, Bridget Jones author Helen Fielding and, inevitably, Harry Potter creator, J K Rowling.

But although new words from science fiction films like Star Wars and Star Trek have made it, words coined for the Harry Potter books are still too new to appear.

US doctors have managed to grow pig teeth in rat intestines, a feat of bio-engineering that could spark a dental revolution.

Researchers at the Forsyth Institute said their successful experiment suggests the existence of dental stem cells, which could one day allow a person to replace a lost or missing tooth with an identical tooth grown from his or her own cells. The research may signal that the days of synthetic dental implants - dentures, bridges and crowns - are numbered.

"The ability to identify, isolate and propagate dental stem cells to use in biological replacement tooth therapy has the potential to revolutionise dentistry," said Dominick DePaola, President and CEO of the Boston-based research institute.

The experiment involved taking seeded cells from immature teeth of six-month-old pigs and then placing them within the intestines of rats.

Black carbon soot from coal burning, diesel engines, open fires and other sources is contributing to global warming and climate change in China and India, researchers report.

A study appearing in Friday’s Science is based on computer modelling at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies by researchers Surabi Menon and James Hansen.

"If our interpretation is correct, then reducing the amount of black carbon or soot may help diminish the intensity of floods in the south and droughts in the northern areas of China, in addition to having human health benefits," Hansen said.

Black carbon, a product of incomplete combustion, comes from industrial pollution, traffic, fires, the burning of coal in homes and bio-mass fuels. It is especially prevalent in countries such as China and India, where cooking and heating are typically done at a low temperature using wood, cow dung or coal.

A new form of vitamin D has shown promising results on osteoporosis, with an improvement of 25 per cent in vertebrae which tend to be worst affected by the crippling disease.

Many post-menopausal women suffer from the condition which can raise the risk of damaging fractures. Dr Hector DeLuca conceded that the compound could be an alternative to hormone replacement therapy, often used by post-menopausal women to halt bone loss. Long-term use of HRT has been linked with an increased risk of cancer or thrombosis.