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Almost two-thirds of children want their parents to spend more time reading to them before bed, and most prefer Mum's storytelling to Dad's, researchers said on Friday. They conducted a study that showed younger children aged 3-4 were most hungry for more stories, with over three-quarters saying they wished their parents read to them more often. More than half of all children aged 3-8 said story time was their favorite pastime with their parents.

"The results of our research confirm the traditional activity of storytelling continues to be a powerful learning and emotional resource in children's lives," said child psychologist Richard Woolfson, who led the study commissioned by Disney/Pixar World of Cars. Storytelling ranked higher than television or video games among pastimes for kids, and 82 percent said reading a story with their parents helped them sleep better, according the survey of 500 children aged 3-8 in Britain. The best storytellers were mothers who used funny voices to illustrate different characters or made their own special sound effects to keep the story moving, researchers said.

The novel H1N1 virus accounted for 40 percent of flu viruses logged in the U.S. in the past week and helped propel an uptick in overall flu-like illnesses, said Dr. Anne Schuchat, a deputy director with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"I think the cases we're confirming are the tip of the iceberg here," Schuchat said in a press briefing Monday.

The CDC has confirmed 2,600 cases in 43 states and Washington D.C., with 94 hospitalizations and three deaths. Another 700 cases are suspected. Although the flu is spreading quickly, it remains relatively mild in the U.S., say health officials.

"They tell us for sure this virus is circulating throughout the United States and it's likely to be in every state," Schuchat said, adding: "It's a time when we really need to guard against complacency as we move to a new normal."

New research by consultancy Mindlab International at the University of Sussex says reading works better and faster than other methods to calm frazzled nerves such as listening to music, going for a walk or settling down with a cup of tea. Psychologists believe this is because the human mind has to concentrate on reading and the distraction of being taken into a literary world eases the tensions in muscles and the heart.

The volunteers were monitored and their stress levels and heart rate were increased through a range of tests and exercises before they were then tested with a variety of traditional methods of relaxation. Reading worked best, reducing stress levels by 68 per cent, said cognitive neuropsychologist Dr David Lewis. Subjects only needed to read, silently, for six minutes to slow down the heart rate and ease tension in the muscles, he found. In fact it got subjects to stress levels lower than before they started.

Listening to music reduced the levels by 61 per cent, have a cup of tea of coffee lowered them by 54 per cent and taking a walk by 42 per cent. Playing video games brought them down by 21 per cent from their highest level but still left the volunteers with heart rates above their starting point.

Nearly half of all men and one-third of women have lied about what they have read to try to impress friends or potential partners, a survey suggests. Men were most likely to do this to appear intellectual or romantic, found the poll of 1,500 people by Populus for the National Year of Reading campaign.

The men polled said they would be most impressed by women who read news websites, Shakespeare or song lyrics. Women said men should have read Nelson Mandela's biography or Shakespeare. Among the 1,500 who took part in the research were 864 teenagers. About four in 10 of the 1,500 said they had lied about what they had read to impress friends or potential partners - 46% of men and 33% of women.

Among teenagers, the figure rose to 74%, with most saying they would pretend to have read social networking pages or song lyrics. One in five adults said they would read their chosen material whilst waiting for their date to arrive in the hope of making a good fir

The Plastic Logic reader supports a full range of business document formats, such as Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint, and Adobe PDFs, as well as newspapers, periodicals and books. It has an easy gesture-based user interface and powerful software tools that will help business users to organize and manage their information. Users can connect to their information either wired or wirelessly and store thousands of documents on the device. The reader incorporates E Ink technology for great readability and features low power consumption and long battery life.

His prices range from $20.95 to $199.95 per pair. Croak says he sells about 12,000 pairs a year. "We get so many customers who buy three or four at a time. It's not uncommon for them to spend $200 to $300 (for multiple pairs)," Croak says.