Guess what the deadliest mental sickness is. Schizophrenia? Depression? Nope. It's anorexia nervosa, an eating disorder in which the sufferer does not eat correctly, due to an obsessive fear of gaining weight. The disease has been linked to some trends in the fashion community. The sufferers have an irrational desire to be very thin, thinking only then will they become happy or normal.

We're not sure why the disease hasn't been given much attention. It's been said that only 10 percent of anorexics get help. And of all anorexic sufferers, 15 percent are sure to die. They say that the reason why there are so many anorexics who die is because anorexia is very difficult to diagnose and the victims are not often aware of how gravely ill they already are.

In this regard, the UK government decided to release UK£ 2M (US$ 3.9M) to fund a research project that will help anorexia victims in the country. Researchers at the Institute of Psychiatry say that they're going to use the money to find ways of diagnosing and treating victims before the disease takes hold. The study will also develop new forms of cure aimed for victims with special needs, including mothers, and women with reproductive problems.

The fund has been given to the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust, in partnership with the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, and eating disorder charity Beat. Researchers hope that the study to be funded by this grant will enable to have new treatments for anorexia in five years.

In an effort to stop the spread of the fatal West Nile Virus, officials of the City of Ardmore, Oklahoma are now trapping and testing mosquitoes to see if they can locate an insect carrying the virus. After seven reported cases of the virus from Carter County this year, with one resulting in death, the city has been setting traps all over town for almost a month now.

The trap is a bait of grass mixed with water and allowed to sit for five days, then placed into a pan. A battery-powered fan is installed to suck the mosquitoes up a tube, which is seated over the pan leading up to netting.

"All areas of town where we have trapped the mosquitoes has been negative," said Ardmore Street Superintendent Bruce Cypert. While they know that the species of mosquito carrying the virus is indeed present in Ardmore, the ones that they have caught so far do not carry the disease.

After the mosquitoes are trapped and frozen for two hours until they die, they are then sent to a lab every week at the university. The process is limited to a minimum of 50 mosquitoes per jar tested at a time, as it is expensive. However, the whole thing does not cost the city even a single dime, as the State University has offered its free service for it.

The West Nile virus mainly infects birds, but can also infect humans through the bite of an infected mosquito. About 80% of the cases show that the infection causes no symptoms. However, for others, the virus causes flu-like symptoms known as West Nile fever, with symptoms including malaise, fever, anorexia, nausea, vomiting, eye pain, headache, myalgia, diarrhea, rash and lymphadenopathy.

What makes this virus fatal is that it is able to pass the blood-brain barrier, and the most serious effects of which are encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) and meningitis (inflammation of the lining of the brain and spinal cord). The symptoms develop 3 to 15 days after infection, lasting three to six days. No effective treatment is known.

Don't hate us because we're skinny! That seems to be the reaction of most model agencies and fashion models when organizers of Madrid's fashion week imposed the world's first ban on sickly thin models at a top-level fashion show.

According to the organizers they want to project an image of beauty and health, not the waif-like, heroin chic look.

Under the Madrid ruling, models must have a BMI rating of around 18. BMI, or Body Mass Index, is a statistical measure of the weight of a person scaled according to height. BMI has become controversial because it has been used for medical diagnosis, which is not the BMI's purpose.

At any rate, the set BMI restriction would disqualify supermodels like Kate Moss from the fashion show. To qualify, models who are 5'9" tall must weigh around 128 lb. In the fashion world, only elephants and hippos are allowed to weigh that much.

Madrid's regional government, which sponsors the show and imposed the restrictions, clarified that it was not blaming designers and models for spreading anorexia and bulimia among teenage girls. But it claimed the fashion industry had a responsibility to portray healthy body images.

Naturally, top modelling agencies where aghast. New York's Elite modeling agency called the ban "outrageous," curtails the freedom of designers and discriminates against naturally "gazelle-like" models.