A German scientist is working on an "anti-stupidity pill. " So far, the pill has only been tested on mice and fruitflies, but the results were encouraging, Germany's Bild newspaper reported Saturday. The paper said Hans-Hilger Ropers, director at Max-Planck-Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin, is testing a pill aimed at improving short-term memory and attentiveness by preventing hyperactivity in certain brain cells.

A British company is set to introduce into the London market its first-ever square-shaped melon this October. Tesco, the largest grocery homeshopping service in the world says the square melons would be imported from Brazil. It said the grower of the melons placed boxes around the fruit during its growing period which naturally swells to fill the shape.

In a unique tradition, the origins of which remain unknown, thousands of childless couples offer cucumbers at a fourth century church in Goa, in the hope of being blessed with a child, reported the Asian News International. Welcome to St Anne's Church in Velha, located around 15 kilometers southeast of Panjim.

The world's largest blackberry is set to go on sale, and no it's not everyone's favorite handheld PDA of choice, but rather, the actual soft fruit itself. Marks and Spencer stores in the UK will sell 'king-sized' blackberries that are about 3-4cm long, and were first discovered in New Zealand. The British retailer predicts that shops nationwide will sell out of the oversized fruit.

Bananas, the world's most popular fruit and the fourth most important food crop, is in deep trouble. Its genetic base, the wild bananas and traditional varieties cultivated in India, has collapsed. Virtually all bananas traded internationally are of a single variety, the Cavendish, the genetic roots of which lie in India. According to New Scientist, for years, the world Cavendish crop has been threatened by pandemics of diseases such as that caused by the black sigatoka fungus. The main hope for survival of the Cavendish lies in developing new hybrids resistant to the fungus, but this is a difficult and time-consuming task because the seedless modern fruit does not reproduce sexually and has to be bred from cuttings.