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Woman arrested for provocative dancing

A belly dancer has been arrested in Egypt on charges of offending public morality.

Linda Martino, an Italian-Egyptian dancer with over two million followers on Instagram, is facing a year of hard labour after she was detained at Cairo airport and accused of "using seduction techniques and provocative dancing to incite vice".

Martino's arrest follows the arrests of other famous belly dancers in Egypt in recent times as President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's hardline government takes a dim view of the dancing - even though it remains popular in the country.

She is accused of appearing in "indecent clothing, deliberately exposing sensitive areas of her body, in clear violation of public morals and social values".

Martino has defended belly dancing as "an art" and has asked the Italian consulate to get involved in the case.

She said: "I am a dancer and the videos on which the accusations are based are normal - they show a dance performance that does not go against or violate public morality.

"I don't know why Egypt is doing this, but I am also an Italian citizen and at this point I am asking for the Italian consulate to get involved."

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Night lights linked to heart risks

Falling asleep with the light on can increase a person's risk of heart disease.

A study from the Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute in Australia has suggested that the danger of five cardiovascular diseases are raised depending on how bright the light is.

This is because light is disruptive to a person's circadian rhythm - the body's 24-hour clock that determines when a person feels tired or alert as well as other biological functions.

Even minor circadian disruptions have been linked to an increased threat of blood clots and elevated heart rate and blood pressure.

The experts wrote: " Individuals exposed to higher levels of personal night light had higher risks for incident coronary artery disease, heart attack, heart failure, atrial fibrillation, and stroke.

"These findings support night light exposure as an important risk factor for adverse cardiovascular health.

"Exposure to night light predicted higher risk of cardiovascular diseases, with clear close-dependent relationships for each outcome."

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Scientists say end of time draws nigh

The end of the universe will happen far sooner than thought.

A team of scientists from the US and China have established that the universe will reach its 'death date' and no longer expand once it turns 33.3 billion years old.

As the universe is estimated to be 13.8 billion years old at present, it leaves just over 19 billion years to go before everything ends in what boffins describe as a 'Big Crunch'.

Experts at New York's Cornell University and Shanghai's Jiao Tong University have created a new cosmic model that suggests that dark energy - the force believed to be responsible for the universe's expansion - will weaken over time and ultimately succumb to gravity.

Scientists are still attempting to prove that dark energy actually exists but the theory contradicts previous ideas that the universe could continue indefinitely.

NASA's Chelsea Gohd said: "What exactly is dark energy? The short answer is: We don't know. But we do know that it exists, it's making the universe expand at an accelerating rate, and approximately 68.3 to 70 per cent of the universe is dark energy."