The small Australian town of Bundanoon has become the first place in the country, and possibly the world, to ban the sale of bottled water.

Residents of the town southwest of Sydney voted overwhelmingly in favour of the ban on Wednesday night.

Local businesses have agreed to stop selling bottled water and free water fountains will now be installed in the town.

The voluntary boycott was triggered by concerns of the environmental impact of bottling and transporting water.

“Bottled water has a role to play in various parts of Australia and many parts of the world but we don’t really need it as we have a wonderful municipal water supply,” local businessman Huw Kingston, who led the campaign, told Reuters news agency.

“We’re not a bunch of raving greenies but this is us showing we can work together as a community for sustainability.”

‘Better for your wallet’

The vote in Bundanoon prompted the premier of New South Wales state earlier this week to announce an immediate ban on state departments and agencies buying bottled water.”Tap water isn’t just better for the environment, it’s better for your wallet – you can refill your drink bottle 1,350 times for the average cost of a bottle of spring water,” Nathan Rees said.

Environmental groups like WWF have campaigned against bottled water, saying resources are wasted in bottling and transporting water which may be no safer or healthier than tap water while selling for up to a thousand times the price.

But Geoff Parker, director of the Australasian Bottled Water Institute Inc, a group which represents the industry, said the bans were disappointing.

“The environmental footprint of one bottle of water of locally produced water would be much smaller than a tin of canned tomatoes imported from overseas, some imported cheese, or French champagne,” he told Reuters.

“We need to keep it in perspective.”

The vote in Bundanoon prompted the premier of New South Wales state earlier this week to announce an immediate ban on state departments and agencies buying bottled water.”Tap water isn’t just better for the environment, it’s better for your wallet – you can refill your drink bottle 1,350 times for the average cost of a bottle of spring water,” Nathan Rees said.

Environmental groups like WWF have campaigned against bottled water, saying resources are wasted in bottling and transporting water which may be no safer or healthier than tap water while selling for up to a thousand times the price.

But Geoff Parker, director of the Australasian Bottled Water Institute Inc, a group which represents the industry, said the bans were disappointing.

“The environmental footprint of one bottle of water of locally produced water would be much smaller than a tin of canned tomatoes imported from overseas, some imported cheese, or French champagne,” he told Reuters.

“We need to keep it in perspective.” – Al Jazeera

A few cups of coffee a day may be all that is needed to reverse the effects of Alzheimer’s disease, new research suggests.

They plan to follow up the initial results from animal experiments with human patient trials. Leading researcher, the US neuroscientist Gary Arendash said: “The new findings provide evidence that caffeine could be a viable ‘treatment’ for established Alzheimer’s disease, and not simply a protective strategy. That’s important because caffeine is a safe drug for most people. It easily enters the brain, and it appears to directly affect the disease process.”

A key aspect of Alzheimer’s is sticky clumps of abnormal protein in the brain called beta amyloid plaques. Mice with a rodent equivalent of the disease showed a 50 per cent reduction in levels of amyloid protein in their brains after scientists spiked their drinking water with caffeine. The change was reflected in their behaviour as the mice developed better memories and quicker thinking.

Dr Arendash’s team, from the Florida Alzheimer’s Disease Research Centre in Tampa, studied 55 mice, genetically engineered to develop dementia symptoms identical to those of Alzheimer’s. At the age of 18 to 19 months, about 70 in human years, the mice were showing signs of memory impairment. The researchers then gave half the mice water containing caffeine while the other half continued to drink ordinary water.

Humans receiving an equivalent dose for their body weight would be consuming two cups of strong “coffee shop” coffee, 14 cups of tea, or 20 cola drinks a day.

At the end of the two-month study, the caffeine-drinking mice performed far better on tests of memory and thinking than mice given “straight” water. Their memories were as sharp as those of healthy older mice without dementia. Almost half the abnormal protein previously seen when the brains of Alzheimer’s mice were examined had vanished after two months. The study was published online in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.

But the scientists found no evidence that caffeine boosted the mental performance of healthy young brains. Normal mice given caffeinated drinking water throughout their lives had memories no better than those raised on regular water when they reached old age. – The Independent

Over the next fortnight, I want to share my passion for a form of food that lends itself well to summer eating indoors and out, static and mobile. I’m talking tarts – savoury this week, sweet next – and I hope you’ll use the guiding principles to make up your own tarts.

First things first: pastry. The simple combo of flour, butter and enough liquid to bind, is straightforward enough, but the results can be magical or dire. The thought of making pastry can strike fear into the most competent cooks, so if that’s you, feel the fear and bake it anyway with my guide to the perfect pastry case.

With pastry, it’s a case of “cold hands, top tart”. The butter must be firm and cold (ideally, the flour should be cold, too). And work quickly, handling the mix as little as possible. A food processor is great for this, but fast fingertips work just as well. Add the liquid a bit at a time until the dough just comes together, then chill – this stops the butter from melting too quickly, and helps the shell hold its shape as it bakes.

If your past attempts have been thwarted by soggy bottoms to your tarts, bake blind. Line a greased tart tin with pastry, prick the base with a fork and line with baking parchment or clingfilm. Fill with baking beads, uncooked rice or dried pulses, and bake for 20 minutes at 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Remove the lining, patch any cracks, glaze with egg yolk beaten with a little water and bake for five minutes more. Now you have the perfect foil for your filling.

Pea and lettuce tart

Serves four to six.

200g plain flour
100g cold unsalted butter, cubed
1 generous pinch salt
Ice-cold water, about 3-4 tbsp

For the filling

1 tbsp unsalted butter
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 little gem, finely shredded
100g peas (defrosted if frozen, lightly cooked if fresh)
2 whole eggs and 3 egg yolks
150ml double cream
150ml whole milk
20g hard goat’s cheese, grated
1 tbsp fresh mint leaves, chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Process the flour, butter and salt until like coarse breadcrumbs, add just enough water to bring it together into a soft dough, wrap in clingfilm and chill for two hours. Heat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Grease a loose-bottomed 24cm flan tin and grate the pastry into it. Press evenly into the sides and base, and chill for 30 minutes. Blind bake as described left.

Melt the butter in a frying pan and gently sauté the onion until soft. Add the lettuce, cook for a minute to wilt, then add the peas and remove from heat. In a bowl, beat the eggs, yolks, cream and milk, add the contents of the pan, two-thirds of the cheese and mint, and season. Pour into the case, sprinkle on the remaining cheese and bake for 25 minutes, until the filling is just set and pastry golden.

Beetroot & goat’s cheese tart

Use the same tart shell as in the previous recipe. Serves four to six.

25g unsalted butter
3 red onions, halved and finely sliced
150ml red wine
2 tbsp cider vinegar
1½ tbsp honey
1 tbsp thyme, roughly chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
500g small beetroot, roasted, peeled and cut into wedges
2 tbsp dill, chopped
280g goat’s cheese log

I use a loose-bottomed Victoria sandwich tin to give me a deep tart 20cm in diameter and 5cm deep (for a thinner tart, use a 24cm diameter tin). Prepare and blind bake a pastry case as in previous recipe. Increase the oven temperature to 200C/400F/gas mark 6. Warm the butter in a pan and gently fry the onions until soft. Add the wine, vinegar, honey, thyme, salt and a few grinds of pepper, stir, raise the heat and cook until almost all the liquid is absorbed and the mix is glossy; stir in the beetroot and dill, and season well. Cut the cheese into 1cm slices and lay a few on the base of the tart. Tip in the beetroot mix and put the rest of the cheese on top. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until the cheese is bubbling and golden. Strew dill fronds on top and serve warm.

Leek & gruyere tart

This easy rough-puff requires no blind baking. Serves four to six.

250g plain flour
125g unsalted butter, very cold,
cut into small cubes
1 good pinch salt
1 egg, plus one egg yolk
2-3 tbsp iced water

For the filling

8 thin leeks, washed and trimmed
80ml crème fraîche
3 egg yolks
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves
100g Gruyère, grated
A few gratings of nutmeg
Salt and pepper

Put the flour, butter and salt in a food processor and pulse briefly – you want little, pea-sized pieces of butter in the mix. Drop in the egg and yolk, pulse to combine, then turn out into a bowl and add the water a little at a time, stirring gently with your hands to bring it together into a ball – you may not need all the water. Put the dough on a floured surface and, with the heel of your hands, lightly stretch it out into a ragged rectangle. Fold it over in three sections, rather as you would a letter, and repeat four or five times. Wrap in clingfilm and chill for at least two hours.

Preheat the oven to 220C/425F/gas mark 7. Put the leeks in a pan that holds them lengthwise and poach in boiling water until very tender, eight to 10 minutes. Drain, refresh in iced water and dry well. Cool.

Whisk together the crème fraîche egg yolks, mustard, thyme, cheese, nutmeg, salt and pepper. Roll out the pastry and use it to line a greased 30cm x 15cm rectangular tin (or a 24cm diameter round one). Chill for 15 minutes and trim. Lay in the leeks, spoon over the crème fraîche mix and bake for 20-25 minutes, until golden. Serve at once. – Guardian

A court in the Indian capital, Delhi, has ruled that homosexual intercourse between consenting adults is not a criminal act.

The ruling overturns a 148-year-old colonial law which describes a same-sex relationship as an “unnatural offence”.

Homosexual acts were punishable by a 10-year prison sentence.

Many people in India regard same-sex relationships as illegitimate. Rights groups have long argued that the law contravened human rights.

Delhi’s High Court ruled that the law outlawing homosexual acts was discriminatory and a “violation of fundamental rights”.

The court said that a statute in Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which defines homosexual acts as “carnal intercourse against the order of nature” and made them illegal, was an “antithesis of the right to equality”.

‘India’s Stonewall’

The ruling is historic in a country where homosexuals face discrimination and persecution on a daily basis but it is likely to be challenged, says the BBC’s Soutik Biswas in Delhi.

It also promises to change the discourse on sexuality in a largely conservative country, where even talking about sex is largely taboo, our correspondent says.

Gay rights activists all over the country welcomed the ruling and said it was “India’s Stonewall”.

New York’s Stonewall riot in 1969 is credited with launching the gay rights movement.

“It [the ruling] is India’s Stonewall. We are elated. I think what now happens is that a lot of our fundamental rights and civic rights which were denied to us can now be reclaimed by us,” activist and lawyer Aditya Bandopadhyay told the BBC.

“It is a fabulously written judgement, and it restores our faith in the judiciary,” he said.

Leading gay rights activist and the editor of India’s first gay magazine Ashok Row Kavi welcomed the judgement but said the stigma against homosexuals will persist.

“The social stigma will remain. It is [still] a long struggle. But the ruling will help in HIV prevention. Gay men can now visit doctors and talk about their problems. It will help in preventing harassment at police stations,” Mr Kavi told the BBC.

But the decision was greeted with unease by other groups.

Father Dominic Emanuel of India’s Catholic Bishop Council said the church did not “approve” of homosexual behaviour.

“Our stand has always been very clear. The church has no serious objection to decriminalising homosexuality between consenting adults, the church has never considered homosexuals as criminals,” said Father Emanuel.

“But the church does not approve of this behaviour. It doesn’t consider it natural, ethical, or moral,” he said.

The head cleric of Jama Masjid, India’s largest mosque, criticised the ruling.

“This is absolutely wrong. We will not accept any such law,” Ahmed Bukhari told the AFP news agency.

In 2004, the Indian government opposed a legal petition that sought to legalise homosexuality – a petition the high court in Delhi dismissed.

But rights groups and the Indian government’s HIV/Aids control body have demanded that homosexuality be legalised.

The National Aids Control Organisation (Naco) has said that infected people were being driven underground and efforts to curb the virus were being hampered.

According to one estimate, more than 8% of homosexual men in India were infected with HIV, compared to fewer than 1% in the general population. – BBC

The findings of international experts should make it easier to predict which women may need special care during pregnancy.

Women who have a miscarriage are more likely to give birth prematurely in their next pregnancy, doctors have found.

The findings of an international group of experts, to be presented at the annual conference today of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) in Amsterdam, Netherlands, should make it easier for doctors to predict which women may need special care and attention during pregnancy.

Premature babies can survive from as early as 22 weeks’ gestation, but they are on the border of viability. Every extra week of life in the womb increases chances of survival and improves prospects of long-term health without significant disability.

Dr Robbert van Oppenraaij from the department of obstetrics and gynaecology at Erasmus University medical centre in Rotterdam, Netherlands, and colleagues from the UK, Denmark and Spain reviewed 75 studies carried out between 1980 and 2008, looking at the impact of complications in early pregnancy.

They found that women who experienced complications either early in their current pregnancy or who had had a miscarriage or other problem in a previous pregnancy were more at risk of going into labour prematurely or experiencing other difficulties in later weeks.

Women who had experienced one or more miscarriages had nearly double the risk in their next pregnancy of giving birth prematurely. Those who had suffered three or more miscarriages were at even greater risk.

Termination of a previous pregnancy, for any reason, also increased the risk of premature birth in a subsequent pregnancy.

A whole range of problems in the first three months of a pregnancy were predictive of later complications:

• Vaginal bleeding increased the risk of pre-eclampsia or dangerously high blood pressure in the woman, as well as raising the chances that the baby would be born prematurely and under-weight.

• The survivor of a vanishing twin pregnancy (where one twin miscarries very early on) was more likely to be born prematurely, had three times the normal risk of very low birth weight and was more than three times more likely to die around the time of birth.

• Women who suffered from extreme early morning sickness were three times more likely to give birth prematurely and the baby was nearly three times more likely to be of low weight.

Identifying these women as at high risk of problem births would help to ensure their babies have the best chance of survival through careful monitoring of the baby’s development, said Van Oppenraaij. More studies are needed to confirm the findings, he said.

Events and complications in early pregnancy can be extremely distressing for women, Van Oppenraaij said. For the clinician it is important to interpret the symptoms and to understand not only the short-term consequences, but also the long-term consequences of these early pregnancy complications. This is especially important for reassuring and supporting the couple at a difficult time. – Guardian

Cadillac Converj

Everybody knows the auto world has shifted. The trick is divining which brands have got the gumption to last.

Now, with President Obama’s new efficiency standards requiring a fleet-wide fuel economy average of 35.5 miles per gallon, automakers have their work cut out for them.

Domestic carmakers in particular are gearing up to battle forthcoming offerings from new-to-the-U.S.Fiat ( FIA – news – people ), with its diminutive 55.5-mile-per-gallon Fiat 500, and Chinese newcomer BYD, maker of the staid hybrid-electric F3DM sedan.

In Pictures: The Cars You’ll Drive In 2014

Motor City had better get cracking. It takes four years to produce a market-ready vehicle, and a typical lifecycle for one model is seven years. While we wait to see what brands emerge victorious, Honda’s ( HMC – news – people ) mod CR-Z and Ford’s ( F – news – people ) “eco-boosted” Euro models point to the types of cars we can expect by 2014.

Alfa Romeo Milano

BMW X1

BYD F3DM

Ford C-MAX

Honda CR-Z

Hyundai HED-5

MINI E

Toyota FT EV

VW Concept BlueSport

Fiat 500

Incremental Improvement
Just don’t get your hopes up for lots of choices when it comes to plug-in cars. Automakers insist there’s still much to improve about the humble combustion engine, and they plan to eek out all the improvement they can get.

Tom Plucinsky, a spokesman for BMW, says the company will bring a gasoline-powered and highly efficient X1 compact SUV to market by 2014.

“There’s no breakthrough,” Plucinsky says. “It’s all little things that can add up. We’ve made big advances over the last five years or so in the efficiency of the gasoline engine, but we think that there’s another 10% there.”

BMW will find that 10% by using smaller (read: lighter), forced-induction engines that generate more power. (Plucinsky says naturally aspirated engines will be relatively nonexistent by 2014). Ford and Mercedes have also said they’ll bring 4-cylinder, turbo-charged engines to the U.S. in the next several years.

Audi has joined the light-engine surge as well, committing to building a next-generation S5 that weighs hundreds of pounds less than the current version. Audi’s Bradley Stertz says advances in aluminum construction will lighten its load, making it more fuel-efficient.

China Rising
In the meantime, Americans can expect a trickle of vehicles from afar. Italian-run Fiat and Alfa Romeo will likely have vehicles in U.S. showrooms by 2014. But the real news lies further east: China.

At the Detroit Auto Show Chinese automakers Brilliance and BYD (”Build Your Dreams”) showed cars that could eventually reach the states, perhaps branded under a different name. Geely and Chery are other Chinese automakers with ideas for expansion outside the East.

Lincoln Merrihew, senior vice president of business solutions for market research firm TNS, says he expects a China-made car to hit in five years or less.

“It’ll be a mixture of capabilities and bravado that will determine who comes in under their own flag,” Merrihew says.

The Great Technological Unknown
Asia leads the green-power front. Nissan ( NSANY – news – people ) is testing battery-charging networks in Arizona, saying an unnamed electric vehicle will go on sale by late 2010. Toyota ( TM – news – people ) says it will sell one million gas-electric hybrids per year during the 2010s; Honda President Takeo Fukui has repeatedly said his company is most-heavily endorsing hydrogen technology.

Still, no one technology has emerged the clear winner. Sara Pines, a spokeswoman for Honda, says the company is experimenting with several possible solutions. Others say the as-yet undetermined carbon-emission standards in California will largely determine how automakers move forward.

That uncertainty has basically created a level playing field. Now it’ll come down to whether the upstarts can hang with the big boys. – Forbes

Global markets for cocaine, opiates and cannabis are steady or declining, the UN’s annual drug report says.

Opium cultivation in Afghanistan fell by 19% in 2008 while cocaine production in Colombia dropped 28%, it says.

Consumption of the drugs in major markets in Western countries is said to be stable or declining.

But the production and consumption of synthetic drugs are thought to be growing as they shift increasingly to the developing world.

In its report, the UN Office for Drugs and Crime said that what used to be a cottage industry producing synthetic drugs – amphetamines, methamphetamine and ecstasy – has now become “big business”.

The head of the agency, Antonio Maria Costa, also used the report to argue against legalising drugs, saying such a move would be a “historic mistake”.

“A free market for drugs would unleash a drug epidemic, while a regulated one would create a parallel criminal market,” he said.

‘Seismic shifts’

Overall cultivation of opium poppies, which can be converted into heroin, fell 16% in 2008.

This was mainly attributed to the sharp decline in Afghanistan, where 93% of the world’s opium is grown.

For cocaine, there was some increase in production in Peru and Bolivia, but not enough to offset the 28% drop reported in Colombia – where half of the world’s cocaine is produced.

Cultivation of cocaine fell by 18% in Colombia.

Mr Costa said changes in the cocaine market could help explain recent drug-related violence in Mexico, and that cartels in Central America were “fighting for a shrinking market”.

“The $50bn global cocaine market is undergoing seismic shifts,” said Mr Costa.

“Purity levels and seizures in main consumer countries are down, prices are up, and consumption patterns are in flux.”

A fall in seizures of cocaine in West Africa after half a decade of rapid growth showed that international efforts to tackle trafficking there “were paying off”, Mr Costa said.

But he also said European demand for cocaine was continuing to fuel violence and political instability in the region, especially in Guinea-Bissau.

Vulnerable states

Analysts know less about the production of cannabis and synthetic drugs, which can be produced anywhere in the world, but the report cited several indications that the problem for amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) was worsening.

Huge laboratories in South East Asia, especially in the Greater Mekong sub-region (Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, and parts of southern China), are producing massive quantities of methamphetamine tablets, crystal meth and other substances including ketamine, it said.

It said EU countries were the main suppliers of ecstasy, while Canada had become a major hub for the trafficking of both ecstasy and meth.

But 30% of global ATS seizures in 2007 were made in the Near and Middle East, where use was reported to have risen sharply.

The UNODC said shifts in the production of ATS showed how criminal groups could exploit the situation in more vulnerable, developing states. – BBC