There’s new advice for older men who want to preserve their sexual function: have sex, and have it often, researchers say.

In a study that followed nearly 1,000 older Finnish men for five years, researchers found that those who were regularly having sex at the start of the study were at lower risk of developing erectile dysfunction (ED) by the study’s end.

In fact, the more often the men had sex, the lower their ED risk.

The implication, say the researchers, is that men should be encouraged to stay sexually active into their golden years.

Dr Juha Koskimaki and colleagues at the University of Tampere in Finland report the findings in the American Journal of Medicine. The study included 989 men who were between the ages of 55 and 75 at the outset.

Full story: More sex means less chance of ED for older men

In a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press, Paul Freundlich, a publicist for her husband, Keith Urban, said: "Nicole and Keith Urban are delighted to announce that Nicole Kidman gave birth to a baby girl on Monday morning, July 7, 2008, in the United States. Sunday Rose Kidman Urban weighed 6 pounds, 7 1/2 ounces. Husband Keith was by Nicole's side and mother and baby are very well."

Urban posted a message on his Web Site that said: "Earlier this morning Nic gave birth to our beautiful baby girl, Sunday Rose Kidman Urban. We want to thank everybody that has kept us in their thoughts and prayers. We feel very blessed and grateful that we can share this joy with all of you today."

Full story: Kidman gives birth Monday to girl named Sunday

John LeSieur is in the software business, so he took particular interest when computers seemed mostly useless to his 6-year-old grandson, Zackary. The boy has autism, and the whirlwind of options presented by PCs so confounded him that he threw the mouse in frustration.

LeSieur tried to find online tools that could guide autistic children around the Web, but he couldn't find anything satisfactory. So he had one built, named it the Zac Browser For Autistic Children in honor of his grandson, and is making it available to anyone for free.

LeSieur's quest is a reminder that while the Web has created important communication and educational opportunities for some people with cognitive impairments, computers can also introduce new headaches for families trying to navigate the contours of disability.

The Zac Browser greatly simplifies the experience of using a computer. It seals off most Web sites from view, to block violent, sexual or otherwise adult-themed material. Instead it presents a hand-picked slate of choices from free, public Web sites, with an emphasis on educational games, music, videos and visually entertaining images, like a virtual aquarium.

Other programs for children already offer that "walled garden" approach to the Web. But LeSieur's browser aims to go further: It essentially takes over the computer and reduces the controls available for children like Zackary, who finds too many choices overwhelming.

For example, the Zac Browser disables extraneous keyboard buttons like "Print Screen" and turns off the right button on the mouse. That eliminates commands most children don't need anyway, and it reduces the chance an autistic child will lose confidence after making a counterproductive click.

Full story: Grandfather builds Web browser for autistic boy

Japanese youngsters are getting so addicted to Internet-linking cell phones that the government is starting a program warning parents and schools to limit their use among children.

The government is worried about how elementary and junior high school students are getting sucked into cyberspace crimes, spending long hours exchanging mobile e-mail and suffering other negative effects of cell phone overuse, Masaharu Kuba, a government official overseeing the initiative, said Tuesday.

"Japanese parents are giving cell phones to their children without giving it enough thought," he said. "In Japan, cell phones have become an expensive toy."

The recommendations have been submitted from an education reform panel to Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's administration, and were approved this week.

The panel is also asking Japanese makers to develop cell phones with only the talking function, and GPS, or global positioning system, a satellite-navigation feature that can help ensure a child's safety.

About a third of Japanese sixth graders have cell phones, while 60 percent of ninth graders have them, according to the education ministry.

Most mobile phones in Japan are sophisticated gadgets offering high-speed Internet access called 3G, for "third-generation."

But the panel said better filtering programming is needed for Internet access to protect children.

Some youngsters are spending hours at night on e-mail with their friends. One fad is "the 30 minute rule," in which a child who doesn't respond to e-mail within half an hour gets targeted and picked on by other schoolmates.

Full story: Japan urges limiting kids' cell phones

Tickets, check. Passports, check. Luggage, check. Baby ... oops.

A family boarded a flight on Monday in westernmost Canada, and forgot their tot at the Vancouver international airport, media said today.

The 23-month-old boy's family had just arrived in Canada from the Philippines, but they were forced to repack their overweight bags before catching a connecting flight to Winnipeg, causing them to run late.

In their sprint to the gate, the family became separated.

The boy's father Jun Parreno, told local media he had thought his son was with his wife and the boy's grandparents, who ran ahead. They thought the boy was with his dad.

On the plane, the family members were seated separately and so did not immediately realise they had left the child behind.

Full story: Parents board flight, forget toddler at airport

Michelle Duggar, 41, is due on New Year's Day, and the latest addition will join seven sisters and 10 brothers. There are two sets of twins.

"We've had three in January, three in December. Those two months are a busy time for us," she said, laughing.

The fast-growing family lives in Tontitown in northwest Arkansas in a 7,000-square-foot home. All the children — whose names start with the letter J — are home-schooled.

Duggar has been been pregnant for more than 11 years of her life, and the family is in the process of filming another series for Discovery Health.

Full story: Happy Mother's Day: Woman Pregnant With 18th Child

Women can influence the gender of their child with what they eat before they conceive, according to new research that lends scientific support to age-old superstitions about pregnancy.

The discovery shows higher calorie intake prior to conception can significantly increase the chances of having a son while women on restricted diets are more likely to produce daughters.

Scientists at Britain's Oxford and Exeter Universities, who studied eating habits of 740 women during their first-time pregnancies, say that their findings seem to back certain traditional links between diet and gender while disproving others.

"We were able to confirm the old wives' tale that eating bananas and so having a high potassium intake was associated with having a boy, as was a high sodium intake," research leader Fiona Mathews, a specialist in mammalian biology at Exeter University, told the Guardian newspaper.

Full story: Study shows bananas make baby boys

Women seeking a lifelong mate might do well to choose the guy a notch below them in the looks category. New research reveals couples in which the wife is better looking than her husband are more positive and supportive than other match-ups.

The reason, researchers suspect, is that men place great value on beauty, whereas women are more interested in having a supportive husband.

Researchers admit that looks are subjective, but studies show there are some universal standards, including large eyes, "baby face" features, symmetric faces, so-called average faces, and specific waist-hip ratios in men versus women.

Past research has shown that individuals with comparable stunning looks are attracted to each other and once they hook up they report greater relationship satisfaction. These studies, however, are mainly based on new couples, showing that absolute beauty is important in the earliest stages of couple-hood, said lead researcher James McNulty of the University of Tennessee. But the role of physical attractiveness in well-established partnerships, such as marriage, is somewhat of a mystery.

Full report: Why Beautiful Women Marry Less Attractive Men

The way to keep children safe in the virtual world is to give them the skills that they have always needed in the real world

The day after Barack Obama won in Iowa, I tried to engage my nine-year-old daughters in a conversation about what had the feel of a historic moment. "Oh yeah," one replied. "I've seen him on Presidential Paintball." I looked bemused, and she promptly Googled up a game in which players could adopt the persona of White House hopefuls, blasting away at each other with green goo.

It was one of those moments that make you love the internet. Kids who would otherwise have no interest in US politics could now reel off the field of candidates as if it were the Arsenal team. But such moments are far outnumbered by the paralysing kind: the porn site stumbled on in a search for pets; the latest supposed web suicide pact; some fresh warning about grooming on social networking sites.

So Tanya Byron's study into children's computer use is a timely response to a widespread sense of anxiety. Any day on the talk boards of Mumsnet.com you'll find parents asking each other how to protect their kids from the perils of the virtual world (this week's scare story is Miss Bimbo, the online game tempting teenagers with plastic surgery and diet pills). The big bad world that once started beyond the front door is now in our sitting rooms or, worse, behind the closed doors of our children's bedrooms. There's a sense that nothing we do can thwart them if they're determined to break the boundaries.

But whether grooming (the No 1 fear for parents) and bullying (the No 1 fear for kids) are widespread or not, many of Byron's proposals - about laws on assisted suicide, child internet safety, and the classification system for video games - make good sense. Codes of practice for social networking sites are sensible, if only to flag up the need for caution about what children post.

Full report: Good old parenting will keep the online bogeymen at bay