In Brief: Prison riot leaves 55 hospitalised

A California state prison near Los Angeles was on lockdown last night after a riot left 55 prisoners in hospital.

Prison spokesman Lt Mark Hargrove says 80 officers responded to the riot at the weekend, which involved up to 1,300 inmates in seven barracks at the jail, 56km east of Los Angeles. The uprising lasted for about four hours and more than 250 inmates suffered injuries.

Iranian protesters 'raped in custody'

Iran's defeated presidential candidate Mehdi Karoubi has claimed some of those detained after the country's disputed June presidential vote were raped in detention.

"Some senior officials told me that . . . young male detainees were raped [and] also some young female detainees were raped in a way that have caused serious injuries," Karoubi wrote 10 days ago to Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, head of a powerful arbitration body.

Symmetry link to mental strength

Men worried about keeping their marbles should take a long look at themselves in the mirror. Scientists have found that the more symmetrical a man's face is, the less likely he is to suffer mental decline in very old age.

Although the connection between a symmetrical face and cognitive ability may seem surprising, scientists believe that it could be explained by the idea that a good set of genes for facial symmetry may be linked with an equally good set of genes for brain preservation. The same study, however, failed to find any link between facial symmetry in women and mental decline in old age.

Helicopter bid to cull Aussie camels

Thousands of camels in Australia's Outback could be shot from helicopters under a government proposal aimed at cutting down the population of the havoc-wreaking creatures.

First introduced into Australia in the 1840s, there are now about a million camels roaming the country, with the population doubling every nine years. They compete with sheep and cattle for food and invade remote settlements in search of water.

Student sleeps on her dream job

A student has landed her "dream" job -- getting paid to sleep, a bed company said.

Roisin Madigan (22) is earning £1,000 to sleep in designer beds every day for a month. The student, from Harborne, Birmingham, is helping with a "sleep survey" carried out by luxury bed specialists Simon Horn Ltd.