PARIS - People who live alone in middle age face nearly double the risk of developing cognitive problems in later life compared with married or cohabiting counterparts, according to a study published on Friday.

Researchers interviewed 2,000 people selected randomly in the Kuopio and Joensuu regions of eastern Finland in the 1970s and 80s, when their average age was 50.4 years.

HONG KONG - RAMPANT piracy and a crumbling market for CDs has put the music industry in Asia under immense pressure, but experts are hoping that technology and social media will help fill the gap.

While demand for music continues to rise across the region, the global economic downturn has accelerated the Internet-fueled fall in sales of physical music.

WASHINGTON - WITH H1N1 flu continuing to spread around the world, researchers say they have found the reason it is - so far - more a series of local blazes than a wide-raging wildfire.

The new virus, H1N1, has a protein on its surface that is not very efficient at binding with receptors in people's respiratory tracts, researchers at the Harvard University-Massachusetts Institute of Technology Division of Health Sciences and Technology report in Friday's edition of the journal Science.