Watermelon rinds could be the new natural aphrodisiac, new research has shown. Researchers from Texas A&M's Fruit and Vegetable Improvement Center say the fruit's rind can have a Viagra-like effect. The flesh and rind of watermelons contain citrulline, which reacts with the body's enzymes when consumed in large quantities. The compound is changed into arginine, an amino acid that benefits the heart and the circulatory and immune systems. Just like the popular Viagra and other drugs meant to treat erectile dysfunction (ED), it also helps relax and dilate blood vessels.

A firm formed by Silicon Valley executives is trying to produce in commercial quantity genetically-modified bug waste that is similar to crude oil but cheaper, cleaner and renewable. LS9 Inc. is planning to build by 2011 demonstration-scale and commercial-scale plants that will produce the so-called Oil 2. 0, which is composed of excrement from altered industrial yeast or nonpathogenic strains of E. coli bacteria. So far, the company's laboratory can produce the biofuel in small amounts, enough to fill a beaker, but has yet to test a 264-gallon (1,000-liter) fermenting machine that can produce the equivalent of one barrel of the fuel per week.

Low thermostat settings in the office is driving up the sales of space heaters even during summer. According to Tom Flippo, manager at Bering's on Bissonnet, while the bulk of their heaters are sold during winter, an average of 100 space heaters are purchased during the hot months. Most of the buyers are office workers who find the thermostat setting too low for comfort. According to Don Young, vice president of the International Facility Management Association, the top two complaints of office workers in various countries were the office was too cold or too hot.

A Canadian baby is born every minute and 29 seconds, while a Canadian passes away every two minutes and 29 seconds. Given this trend of birth and deaths, Canada's population is expected to hit 33. 3 million by July 2008. For the Action Democratique du Quebec, the country's natural birth rate is not growing fast enough to spare the province from becoming a gray one. ACT believes a faster pace of economic growth can be achieved by Quebec if their women have more babies. ACT is suggesting at least two children per Quebec woman.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Chiang Mai University are conducting a workshop in Thailand about insect consumption, collection, harvest, processing and marketing. The workshop aims to impart to forest managers the knowledge on insects and insect management possessed by traditional forest dwellers and forest-dependent people. It also aims to provide income and jobs in rural areas for people who capture, rear, process, transport and market edible insects.