Coleen McLoughlin, fiancee of the England footballer Wayne Rooney, has become a national emblem of shopaholism. The 20-year-old has been known to spend 15,000 pounds (US$26,700) in one weekend on shopping sprees in New York.

The American Psychiatric Association has previously concluded that "compulsive shopping" is not a specific mental disorder. Instead, some experts see it as an addiction associated with low self-esteem.

The latest US study also threw up another intriguing finding: when monkeys were asked to choose between juices, their decision was not affected by the way the juice was offered.

It did not matter in which order the juices were placed: the monkeys still made a calculated choice based on the values they had established. If there was at least three times more orange juice, they would choose orange whatever its position.

The Times

(China Daily 04/26/2006 page1)