I was sitting in a restaurant the other night,” Sunny Leone giggled, her brightly-coloured fingernails curling in her palms, “and aunties and uncles with their kids came looking for an autograph! I’ve never had nine- and ten-year-old boys ask me for an autograph before.”

Leone is right to be surprised. She has, after all, built her name and reputation as a porn star. And when Leone became a household Indian name last winter, thanks to her participation in Bigg Boss 5 (a reality show structured around the format of the Dutch-created, mega-franchise Big Brother), a public controversy erupted over her supposed “past”. It was enough to incite the Press Council of India (PCI) to weigh in on her growing popularity.

“My opinion is that Sunny Leone was earning her livelihood in America in a manner acceptable in that country, though it is not acceptable in India,” read a statement by Markandey Katju, the PCI chief. “There is no saint without a past, and no sinner without a future,” he added. But what was striking about Katju’s statements, and the debate surrounding Leone at large, was the expressed interest in her supposed past and future. Sunny Leone “was earning her livelihood”: the implication being that Leone somehow arrived on Indian shores seeking an entirely new life. Leone’s extremely popular website, however, broadcasts a different narrative to the millions of men (and perhaps women) who actively visit it: “Goddess”, a clickable icon proclaims in reference to Leone, “Watch Sunny’s first B/G [Boy/Girl] anal scene.”

Leone’s future, it would seem, does not involve any deliberation about whether she wants to be a sinner or a saint. What is most fascinating about the story that’s being told about her rise to mainstream Indian stardom – including the rash of rumours about Bollywood castings, and asinine celebrity gossip linking her romantically to Indian male celebs (Leone is, in fact, a married woman) – is that it misunderstands the obvious truth: Leone is exploiting her ethnicity (and, for that matter, cultural issues of Indian male sexual repression) for money. According to an article inMint, Leone’s X-rated website saw an increase in traffic numbering somewhere around 630 per cent during the run of Bigg Boss 5. Her website was (at the height of the show’s popularity) ranked at 296 in terms of viewership in India. (As a comparison point, the paper notes, the website for The Indian Express fell 15 slots behind it.) Charging over `1,000 in monthly subscription, Leone’s foray into the consciousness of Indians has earned her a lot of money, perhaps more than she could have earned as a B-grade Bollywood actress.

Strikingly attractive in person, Leone’s brown eyes brim with the confidence of a woman who has been told her entire life that she is good-looking, and been paid well for it. When asked about how active she is in the porn industry, Leone is completely forthright. “Oh, I’m not done,” she smiles, “I’m going home now to [host] the AVN [Adult Video News] awards in Las Vegas.” The AVN awards, heavily protested against in America by feminists and Christian groups, and referred to affectionately by insiders as the “Oscars of porn”, is hardly the place to go when a woman wants to escape her promiscuous past. It’s also located not too far from Leone’s wealthy and comfortable life in California.

A strong earthquake centred off the coast of northeastern Japan shook buildings as far away as Tokyo on Friday and triggered a one-metre tsunami in an area devastated by last year's Fukushima disaster. The quake had a preliminary magnitude of 7.3, the U.S. Geological Survey said, adding that there was no risk of a widespread tsunami. There were no immediate reports of death or injury.

Thousands of children lined up the streets, clapping and waving the different national flags, as the ASEAN-India car rally reached the capital city of Cambodia after covering a total distance of 3,232kms across four nations on Wednesday.

Organised by the CII and MEA, the rally, which was flagged off from the Angkor Wat temple, the largest Hindu temple in the world, was given a rousing welcome by the Cambodians.

 Elders and school children lined up the streets throughout the highway to welcome the 124 participants, who had set out to cover around 8,000kms across nine nations from Yogyakarta, Indonesia on November 26.

As the 31 cars moved past the highway, children were seen waiting for the convoy. With paper flags of different countries in their hand, they waved, clapped and even stretched out their hands to greet the participants.

The participants also had a rare chance to cross the Kampong Kdei bridge, which is located in Doeumpor village in Chi Kreng district of Siem Reap province.

Erected in the 12th century, the bridge is 80m long and 14m wide with four naga heads on both its ends. It was a great experience for the participants as they clicked pictures and also marvelled at the archaeological sophistication.

The historic rally, which covered a distance of 322km on Wednesday from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh, made a stop at Solar Cafe, where the participants were served deep fried spiders and crickets for lunch and they savoured them with pleasure.

The rally will cover around 250 km on Thursday and make its entry to Vietnam through the Babet border.

A five-storey house, which was marooned in the middle of a new road in China for more than a year because its owner refused to leave, has finally been demolished. The road, in China's eastern Zhejiang province, was built around the house because duck farmer Luo Baogen was holding out for more compensation, reports the BBC. Luo, 67, said he had just finished the home at a cost of 95,000 dollars and had been offered only 35,000 dollars to move. Officials said Luo and his wife had accepted a new compensation offer of 41,000 dollars, and moved to a relocation area with the help of relatives on Saturday morning. The house had earned the nickname "nail house" because, like a stubborn nail, it was difficult to move. "It was never a final solution for us to live in a lone house in the middle of the road. After the government's explanations, I finally decided to move," Luo said. The road is a key infrastructure project - linking the city to a new railway station on the outskirts. Luo was the only owner of 459 households to reject the relocation plans.The case has highlighted what is a major cause of unrest in China, as huge infrastructure and real estate developments spark hundreds of thousands of re locations.

How about using your mobile phone to beam an image or a presentation? There are phones that can be used as mini projectors. This is an emerging technology and is catching on fast. However, big companies are yet to invest in this segment, save for Samsung. There are many options from small handset companies such as Maxx, GFive and Intex. They may offer cheaper alternatives but they are not built very well. Here are some of the good options in this segment.

New drugs could be developed to treat hardening of the arteries, say American scientists. Hardening of arteries - atherosclerosis - a major cause of heart disease, has been thought to be caused by complex interactions between excess cholesterol and swollen heart and blood vessels.

But now scientists from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, along with other American colleagues, believe a forerunner to cholesterol subdues inflammatory response genes.

This precursor molecule could be targeted by atherosclerosis drugs, according to the study published in the Cell medical journal.

In our arterial walls are immune system cells called macrophages (which means "big eater" in Greek) that consume other cells or matter that are believed to be foreign or dangerous.

Senior author Christopher Glass, MD, PhD, a professor in the Departments of Medicine and Cellular and Molecular Medicine and senior author says, "When they do that, it means they consume the other cell's store of cholesterol. As a result, they've developed very effective ways to metabolize the excess cholesterol and get rid of it."

Some macrophages do not adequately dispose of the excess cholesterol and allow it to build up as foamy lipid (fat) droplets, hence their name, macrophage foam cells.

These foam macrophages generate molecules that call other immune cells and release molecules, signalling some genes to launch an inflammatory response. It assumed that atherosclerotic lesions - areas of fat-laden foam cells in arterial walls - are caused by a link between unregulated cholesterol accumulation and inflammation, says Christopher Glass.

The researchers set out to discover how cholesterol accumulation causes inflammation, and why macrophages perform. Using modelling based on mice that produce many macrophage foam cells, they had two unexpected discoveries.

"The first is that foam cell formation suppressed activation of genes that promote inflammation. That's exactly the opposite of what we thought happened. Second, we identified a molecule that helps normal macrophages manage cholesterol balance. When it's in abundance, it turns on cellular pathways to get rid of cholesterol and turns off pathways for producing more cholesterol."

That molecule is desmosterol - the last forerunner in cholesterol production, which cells create and use as a structural component of their membranes. In atherosclerotic lesions, the ordinary function of desmosterol seems to be "crippled."

The next area of research is to discover why that happens, says Christopher Glass. It may be connected to overwhelming, pro-inflammatory signals from proteins called Toll-like receptors on macrophages and other cells that are vital parts of the immune system.

Discovering desmosterol's ability to cut macrophage cholesterol gives researchers and drug developers a new target to cut the risk of atherosclerosis.

Christopher Glass says a synthetic molecule much the same as desmosterol already exists, which offers an immediate test-case for new studies.

Scientists in the 1950s developed a drug called triparanol that reduces cholesterol production, effectively boosting desmosterol levels. It was sold as a heart disease drug, but was later found to cause severe side effects, including blindness, so it was abandoned.

"We've learned a lot in 50 years. Maybe there's a way now to create a new drug that mimics the cholesterol inhibition without the side effects," concludes Christopher Glass