Hi to all
Easter is over and so are my vacations – my family and I spent 2 weeks in Acapulco - yeah, yeah, it’s a tough life, but someone’s gotta do it J This newsletter has been growing for a couple of weeks now, so some of the articles may be old news to you by now. For those of you who don’t live in the USA, Eliot Spitzer was the Governor of New York, and he had to resign his post because of an alleged $4,000 date with a prostitute. I found two interesting articles that discuss the connection between power and sex, and why we cheat (in the Psychology section of the newsletter). Teachers, you may be interested in the discussions on math reform and how to teach math and Dr. Bob Sylwester’s articles on how we learn language (Education section). The Brain section is full of articles on memory, sleep, the discovery of “Nerve O” the secret sex nerve, etc. Also note that April is National Autism Awareness Month.
TIDBITS
Revisionist History: How We Twist Our Tales to Soothe Our Minds by Annie Jia, Psychology Today Magazine, Jan/Feb 2008
What happens when your behavior and your beliefs don’t match up? You can’t change what actually happened to clear up the cognitive dissonance, but memories and opinions are infinitely malleable:
VIDEOS
Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight
Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened -- as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding -- she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/229
Transcript of above video: http://blog.ted.com/2008/03/jill_bolte_tayl.php#more
Christopher deCharms: Looking inside the brain in real time
Neuroscientist and inventor Christopher deCharms demos an amazing new way to use fMRI to show brain activity while it is happening -- emotion, body movement, pain. (In other words, you can literally see how you feel.) The applications for real-time fMRIs start with chronic pain control and range into the realm of science fiction, but this technology is very real.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/236
ARTICLES
BRAIN
Going broke? Blame your primitive brain
Your brain's pleasure center can lead you to financial ruin. Here's how to keep it under control.
In a famous experiment in the 1950s, scientists planted electrodes in the brains of rats, enabling them to self-administer pleasurable sensations by pressing a bar. If allowed, the rats would stimulate an area called the nucleus accumbens to the exclusion of all other activities, passing up opportunities to eat, drink or even have sex. They did it until they fell over.
Stupid rats, right? But we humans also have a nucleus accumbens, and it can take over our lives, too. If we let it, it can lead us into financial ruin. That's what happened recently to Jerome Kerviel, the junior trader at the French bank Société Général. In December, his risky bets turned a $2 billion profit. "That produced a desire to continue," Kerviel told prosecutors. "There was a snowball effect." By the time his risky investments came undone in January, Kerviel had lost the bank $7.2 billion. What was going on in his mind? And what goes on in yours? Think of the nucleus accumbens as appetite central. It's part of the primitive brain, and it has evolved to light up and get us moving forward at the sight of almost any kind of reward. It doesn't matter whether it's a piece of chocolate cake, a BMW M5 sports car, Scarlett Johansson in a party dress or a stock that gets the kind of hype Enron used to enjoy. All of them produce a surge of the neurotransmitter dopamine, and that makes the nucleus accumbens do the shimmy. So far, so good. The problem, however, is that an activated nucleus accumbens can make boneheaded investments seem brilliant.
Novel mechanism for long-term learning identified by Carnegie Mellon researchers
There has always been a paradox at the heart of learning: repetition is vital, yet at the level of individual synapses, repetitive stimulation might actually reverse early gains in synaptic strength. Now the mechanism that resolves this apparent paradox has been uncovered. N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors appear from studies to be required for the synaptic strengthening that occurs during learning, but these receptors undergo a sort of Jekyll-and-Hyde transition after the initial phase of learning. Instead of helping synapses get stronger, they actually begin to weaken the synapses and impair further learning. The new study reveals that while the NMDA receptor is required to begin neural strengthening, a second neurotransmitter receptor — the metabotropic glutamate (mGlu) receptor — then comes into play. Using an NMDA antagonist to block NMDA receptors after the initiation of plasticity resulted in enhanced synaptic strengthening, while blocking mGlu receptors caused strengthening to stop.
The findings were published in the January 4 issue of Science.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-01/cmu-nmf010308.php
MIT: Culture influences brain function
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - People from different cultures use their brains differently to solve the same visual perceptual tasks, MIT researchers and colleagues report in the first brain imaging study of its kind.
Psychological research has established that American culture, which values the individual, emphasizes the independence of objects from their contexts, while East Asian societies emphasize the collective and the contextual interdependence of objects. Behavioral studies have shown that these cultural differences can influence memory and even perception. But are they reflected in brain activity patterns."
To find out, a team led by John Gabrieli, a professor at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, asked 10 East Asians recently arrived in the United States and 10 Americans to make quick perceptual judgments while in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner--a technology that maps blood flow changes in the brain that correspond to mental operations.
In previous behavioral studies of similar tasks, Americans were more accurate on absolute judgments, and East Asians on relative judgments. In the current study, the tasks were easy enough that there were no differences in performance between the two groups.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-01/miot-mci011108.php
Kids may roll their eyes when their mother asks them about their school day, but answering her may actually help them learn. New research from Vanderbilt University reveals that children learn the solution to a problem best when they explain it to their mom.
“We knew that children learn well with their moms or with a peer, but we did not know if that was because they were getting feedback and help,” Bethany Rittle-Johnson, the study’s lead author and assistant professor of psychology at Vanderbilt’s Peabody College of education and human development, said. “In this study, we just had the children’s mothers listen, without providing any assistance. We’ve found that by simply listening, a mother helps her child learn.”
Rittle-Johnson believes the new finding can help parents better assist their children with their schoolwork, even when they are not sure of the answer themselves. Although the researchers used children and their mothers in the study, they believe the same results will hold true whether the person is the child’s father, grandparent, or other familiar person. … “The basic idea is that it is really effective to try to get kids to explain things themselves instead of just telling them the answer,” she said. “Explaining their reasoning, to a parent or perhaps to other people they know, will help them understand the problem and apply what they have learned to other situations.”
http://www.physorg.com/news120320713.html
Most people know it from experience: After so many hours of being awake, your brain feels unable to absorb any more-and several hours of sleep will refresh it.
Now new research from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health clarifies this phenomenon, supporting the idea that sleep plays a critical role in the brain's ability to change in response to its environment. This ability, called plasticity, is at the heart of learning.
Reporting in the Jan. 20, 2008, online version of Nature Neuroscience, the UW-Madison scientists showed by several measures that synapses - nerve cell connections central to brain plasticity - were very strong when rodents had been awake and weak when they had been asleep.
The new findings reinforce the UW-Madison researchers' highly-debated hypothesis about the role of sleep. They believe that people sleep so that their synapses can downsize and prepare for a new day and the next round of learning and synaptic strengthening.
http://www.physorg.com/news120059987.html
6-minute catnap sharpens memory By Linda Carroll
Beverly Fike calls them “power naps.” Any time she feels her brain going dull, Fike scouts out a quiet spot and allows herself to doze – but only for 10 minutes. Experience has taught her that any longer and she’ll feel groggy. “With that quick nap, my brain works faster,” Fike says.
As it turns out, the 77-year-old from Galt, Calif., years ago figured out something that researchers have just proven to be true: the power catnap can sharpen wits. … You can think of sleep as the time when the brain’s graveyard shift comes on line. While the night clerk is filing away memories, the warehouse workers are restocking brain chemicals and the cleaning crew is tidying up the detritus left over from a hard day of thinking. During sleep, the brain “gets rid of what you don’t need so that during the next period of wakefulness, you’re ready to acquire more information,” Mahowald explained.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23301456/
We Never Forget Anything (Anymore) By Diane di Costanzo, Prevention
The Expert: Vincent Fortanasce, MD, a Neurological Rehabilitation Specialist at the Fortanasce Neurology Center in Acadia, Ca
When she forgets the names of her coworkers, Teresa isn't just embarrassed, she's scared. Before her parents passed away, they both developed dementia—a disorder that impaired their memory, judgment, and motor skills (the most common causes are Alzheimer's and stroke). Teresa was concerned that her "senior moments" were signs she'd suffer the same fate.
If Teresa were to inherit the disease, she would develop symptoms when her parents did (they were in their 70s). Instead, Fortanasce believes her poor lifestyle habits are to blame for her blank moments now, though they might put her at a higher risk for memory loss later. The good news: There's still plenty of time to make adjustments. "Genes determine 30% of your risk of developing Alzheimer's," says Fortanasce. "The other 70% comes from factors you can control—diet, fitness, and stress levels." Though Teresa did recently start exercising, which has been shown to help slow mental decline, she should also make these changes:
10 research-proven tips for better memory By Harvard Health Publications
Healthful habits help protect memory, but the aging brain may need an extra tweak or two to stay sharp.
If you’re age 50 or over, chances are you’ve noticed some decline in your ability to remember things. Perhaps you can’t recall why you raced to the pantry, or you forget the names of people you just met at a party.
While most people notice memory changes with age, only a small percentage — about 10% by age 65 — experience actual dementia, a serious and progressive decline in memory and cognitive abilities. Such significant loss of mental functioning is due not to aging but to organic disorders, injury, or neurological illness. Good general health habits help protect cognitive function and reduce the risk of dementia. Studies have shown that women are less likely to experience cognitive decline or dementia if they stay physically active, get enough sleep, don’t smoke, reduce their stress levels, maintain a rich social network, limit alcohol to one drink or less a day, and eat a balanced diet low in saturated and trans fats. And physical problems or medication side effects are less likely to disturb memory in women who seek and follow medical advice (see "Remember your health," below).
Normal age-related changes in the brain can slow some cognitive processes, making it a bit harder to learn new things quickly or to ward off distractions. Fleeting memory difficulties ("Where did I leave the keys?") may occur more often. These changes are considered normal, but they can be frustrating. The good news is that, thanks to decades of research, most of us can sharpen our minds with proven, do-it-yourself strategies. Here are some ways to boost your ability to remember as you age:
http://health.msn.com/health-topics/alzheimers-disease/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100104769
Scientists discover secret sex nerve By Dr. Laura Berman
Looking for a perfect match? Research says to follow your nose
What makes us fall in love? Is it lust, mutual interests, shared life goals, or something much more intangible? Recent research suggests the latter. … Researchers have only recently discovered an olfactory nerve which they believe is the route through which pheromones are processed. Nerve “O,” as it is called, slipped under the radar for many years because it is so tiny. However, when the nerve was discovered in a whale, scientists surmised that this little nerve might be found in humans as well. And it was!
So what is the role of Nerve “O”? Nerve “O” has endings in the nasal cavity, but the fibers go directly to the sexual regions of the brain. Indeed, these endings entirely bypass the olfactory cortex! Hence we know the role of Nerve “O” is not to consciously smell, but to identify sexual cues from our potential partners.
What sexual cues do our scents give off? For one thing, we are more likely to be attracted to people whose scent is dissimilar to our own. Family members often share similar chemicals, so our attraction to differing chemical makeup suggest that sexual cues evolved to protect close family members from procreating together. On the other hand, pregnant women have been shown to be more drawn to people with similar chemical makeup, which might be due to the fact that during this crucial time, women are more apt to seek out family members than potential mates.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23781652/
EVOLUTION
The Dance of Evolution, or How Art Got Its Start By NATALIE ANGIER
If you have ever been to a Jewish wedding, you know that sooner or later the ominous notes of “Hava Nagila” will sound, and you will be expected to dance the hora. And if you don’t really know how to dance the hora, you will nevertheless be compelled to join hands with others, stumble around in a circle, give little kicks and pretend to enjoy yourself, all the while wondering if there’s a word in Yiddish that means “she who stares pathetically at the feet of others because she is still trying to figure out how to dance the hora.”
I am pleased and relieved to report that my flailing days are through. This month, in a freewheeling symposium at the University of Michigan on the evolutionary value of art and why we humans spend so much time at it, a number of the presenters supplemented their standard PowerPoint presentations with hands-on activities. Some members of the audience might have liked folding the origami boxes or scrawling messages on the floor, but for me the high point came when a neurobiologist taught us how to dance the hora. As we stepped together in klezmeric, well-schooled synchrony, I felt free and exhilarated. I felt competent and loved. I felt like calling my mother. I felt, it seems, just as a dancing body should.
Through singing, dancing, painting, telling fables of neurotic mobsters who visit psychiatrists, and otherwise engaging in what Ms. Dissanayake calls “artifying,” people can be quickly and ebulliently drawn together, and even strangers persuaded to treat one another as kin. Through the harmonic magic of art, the relative weakness of the individual can be traded up for the strength of the hive, cohered into a social unit ready to take on the world.
As David Sloan Wilson, an evolutionary theorist at Binghamton University, said, the only social elixir of comparable strength is religion, another impulse that spans cultures and time.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/27/science/27angi.html?th&emc=th
EDUCATION
WASHINGTON - Schools could improve students' sluggish math scores by hammering home the basics, such as addition and multiplication, and then increasing the focus on fractions and geometry, a presidential panel recommended Thursday.
"Difficulty with fractions (including decimals and percents) is pervasive and is a major obstacle to further progress in mathematics, including algebra," the panel, appointed by President Bush two years ago, said in a report. … Because success in algebra is linked to higher graduation rates and college enrollment, the panel focused on improving areas that form the foundation for algebra. Average U.S. math scores on a variety of tests drop around middle school, when algebra coursework typically begins. That trend led the panel to focus on what's happening before kids take algebra.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23613329/
Report Urges Changes in Teaching Math By TAMAR LEWIN
American students’ math achievement is “at a mediocre level” compared with that of their peers worldwide, according to a new report by a federal panel, which recommended that schools focus on key skills that prepare students to learn algebra.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/14/education/14math.html?em&ex=1205726400&en=43d6c2db14891c1f&ei=5087%0A
How Children Learn a Language: Part 1 – Learning How to Talk By Robert Sylwester, Ed.D.
Communicative capability is an obviously essential innate property of all social species. Humans and other social mammals typically use two communication systems:
The first is an intimate system that two individuals use to establish and maintain their relationship. Touch dominates, but it uses all sensory modalities. It's called grooming in primates, but no equivalent single word exists for humans that covers everything from social dancing to a handshake to a military salute to a caress to a pat on the back to a swat on the rear…
The second is a signal system that uses a set of sounds to alert others to specific group dangers and opportunities. Primate signal systems are holistic in that a single cry communicates the nature and location of the challenge. It's innate in that an infant monkey who hadn't previously heard a specific signal (such as for danger above) will still respond appropriately (by looking up).
http://www.brainconnection.com/content/266_1
How Children Learn a Language: Part 2 – Knowing What to Say and How to Say It By Robert Sylwester, Ed.D.
We’re born capable of speaking any language in the world, but we’re not born proficient in any of them. Last month’s column focused on how children master the complex task of learning how to speak. It’s one thing to know how to talk, but it’s quite another thing to know what to say and how to say it—so this column will focus on that issue.
The renowned linguist, S. I. Hiyakawa once suggested that if you want to know about water, don’t ask a fish. Language similarly is so integral to our existence that it’s difficult to back off sufficiently to comprehend what it actually is. … For example, is language essential to thought? Do we think in language, and then also use it to share our thoughts with others? That may seem to be the case, in that we often converse with ourselves as we think, decide, act, and then reflect on what we’ve done.
http://www.brainconnection.com/content/267_1
PSYCHOLOGY
A costly date for Spitzer, but not so surprising, scientists say By Faye Flam
Why would someone as rich and powerful as Eliot Spitzer put his family, his job and his promising future on the line for an alleged $4,000 date with a prostitute? Is this pathological or inherent in human nature?
Scientists says it's more likely to be the latter. They attribute this kind of behavior to natural promiscuity combined with opportunity - along with a risk-taking personality common to men like Bill Clinton and John F Kennedy. It's what makes them seek office and what makes us want to vote for them.
Psychologist Christopher Ryan, author of "Sex in Prehistory," says the desire for sex with more than one person has always been there - for leaders and followers alike. "The desire is not a function of status or power - it's a question of availability." ... What's relatively new to the human race, he said, is the ability to exercise power and the connection between power and sex.
That's because, for most of human existence, there was only so far a man could coerce others when food was essentially free and hard to hoard. And until relatively recently, sex with multiple partners was the norm. "It would have been very unusual 100,000 years ago for a person to have one sexual partner for 30 years," said Ryan in an interview from Barcelona.
We don't know this for sure, because prehistoric sexual behavior doesn't fossilize, but there's much we can infer from studying how people in foraging cultures live today, he said. Such cultures tend to be relatively egalitarian and promiscuous, at least by American standards, he said. But prostitution is rare, as he believes it was for most of our past. "There would be no need for prostitutes because there would be very few sexually frustrated men," he said.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/16579966.html
His Cheating Brain By Mary Carmichael
Why do powerful men risk everything for sex? It has to do with brain chemistry, evolution and, yes, testosterone.
We'll never know exactly what New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer was thinking when he allegedly arranged a dalliance with a high-priced prostitute, risking the collapse of both his career and his family. Even he may not fully understand his own actions. But all too many powerful men can at least identify with him, because they've been there. Spitzer is simply the latest married politician caught with his pants down, a group so large that "pretty soon there will be enough of them to do a scientific study," says Texas psychologist Brian Gladue. Why do men with so much to lose take the chance that they may in fact lose it? Psychologists say they fit a profile: the traits that help them succeed at high-powered jobs are often the same ones that cause them to fail in their personal lives. NEWSWEEK's Mary Carmichael asked several analysts to put the typical philandering politician on the couch.
Gimme More: Many fallen politicians fit a personality type known as a "sensation seeker," defined in the early 1970s. Sensation seekers crave novel and intense experiences more than other people do, and, as part of that, they tend to have many sexual partners. "They get a bigger kick out of things," says Marvin Zuckerman, a pioneering psychologist and author of the 2006 book "Sensation Seeking and Risky Behavior." There's chemical evidence: sensation seekers have lower levels of monoamine oxidase A, which regulates the brain's levels of dopamine, the "pleasure" neurotransmitter.
He's Hormonal. Alpha males are high on testosterone, the hormone that underlies almost all the typical traits of the politico-sexual animal: high levels of testosterone make for a high sex drive, a love of risks, aggressiveness and competitiveness. "These people have a strong need to win at games, which is obviously important in power politics," says Zuckerman. Success sends their testosterone spiraling up, while a loss brings the levels down—a phenomenon that's been documented in the lab as well as in athletes and chess champions.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/121492>1=43002
A new UCLA study shows that only about half of children diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, exhibit the cognitive defects commonly associated with the condition. … The study also found that in populations where medication is rarely prescribed to treat ADHD, the prevalence and symptoms of the disorder are roughly equivalent to populations in which medication is widely used.
The results of the first large, longitudinal study of adolescents and ADHD, conducted among the population of northern Finland, appeared in several papers in a special section of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry published in December and are currently online.
ADHD is a common, chronic behavioral disorder characterized by inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity that is thought to affect some 5 to 10 percent of school-age children worldwide. … In adolescence, ADHD is generally associated with cognitive deficits, particularly with working memory and inhibition, which have been linked to overall intelligence and academic achievement, according to UCLA psychiatry professor Susan Smalley, who headed the research. Interestingly, the study showed that these deficits are only present in about half of adolescents diagnosed with ADHD.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-01/uoc--srq012208.php
Inoculated Against Facts By PAUL A. OFFIT
ON March 6, Terry and Jon Poling stood outside a federal courthouse in Atlanta, Ga., with their 9-year-old daughter Hannah and announced that the federal government had admitted that vaccines had contributed to her autism. The news was shocking. Health officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and at the American Academy of Pediatrics have steadfastly assured the public that vaccines do not cause autism. Now, in a special vaccine claims court, the federal government appeared to have said exactly the opposite. What happened?
The answer is wrapped up in the nature of the unusual court where the Poling case was heard. In 1986, after a flood of lawsuits against vaccine makers threatened the manufacture of vaccines for children, Congress created the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, financed by a tax on every dose of vaccine.
The Hannah Poling case is similar. In 2000, when Hannah was 19 months old, she received five shots against nine infectious diseases. Over the next several months, she developed symptoms of autism. Subsequent tests showed that Hannah has a mitochondrial disorder — her cells are unable to adequately process nutrients — and this contributed to her autism. An expert who testified in court on the Polings’ behalf claimed that the five vaccines had stressed Hannah’s already weakened cells, worsening her disorder. Without holding a hearing on the matter, the court conceded that the claim was biologically plausible.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/31/opinion/31offit.html?th&emc=th
Short people are most prone to jealousy, say scientists
PARIS (AFP) - Short people should pray for a return to the Seventies fashion of stack heels, for the power of jealousy depends on how tall you are, the British weekly New Scientist says.
Researchers at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and University of Valencia in Spain asked 549 Dutch and Spanish men and women to rate how jealous they felt, and to list the qualities in a romantic competitor that were most likely to make them ill at ease.
Men generally felt most nervous about attractive, rich and strong rivals. … But these feelings were increasingly relaxed the taller they were themselves. The more vertically challenged the man, the greater his feelings of jealousy.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080312/od_afp/sciencepsychologysexoffbeat
Clueless Guys Can't Read Women By Jeanna Bryner
More often than not, guys interpret even friendly cues, such as a subtle smile from a gal, as a sexual come-on, and a new study discovers why: Guys are clueless. More precisely, they are somewhat oblivious to the emotional subtleties of non-verbal cues, according to a new study of college students.
"Young men just find it difficult to tell the difference between women who are being friendly and women who are interested in something more," said lead researcher Coreen Farris of Indiana University's Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. This "lost in translation" phenomenon plays out in the real world, with about 70 percent of college women reporting an experience in which a guy mistook her friendliness for a sexual come-on, Farris said.
It pays to play nice, Harvard study says By SETH BORENSTEIN
WASHINGTON - Screaming sports coaches and cutthroat tycoons have it wrong: Nice guys do finish first, a new study suggests. The Harvard University study involved 100 Boston-area college students playing the same game over and over — a punishment-heavy version of the classic one-on-one brinksmanship game of prisoner's dilemma. The research appears in Thursday's edition of the journal Nature.
Common game theory has held that punishment makes two equals cooperate. But when people compete in repeated games, punishment fails to deliver, said study author Martin Nowak. He is director of the evolutionary dynamics lab at Harvard where the study was conducted. … "On the individual level, we find that those who use punishments are the losers," Nowak said his experiments found. … Those who escalate the conflict very often wound up doomed.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080319/ap_on_sc/nice_guys
Neatness a sign of godliness — or compulsion? By Melissa Schorr
She has color-coded folders to organize her take-out menus and bills. Clear containers to stash her toddler’s toys. A fridge with condiments neatly in a row. Welcome to the world of a compulsive neat freak. “I do drive myself crazy,” confides Donna Sullivan, a mother of two and a part-time accountant in Scituate, Mass. “Sometimes I wish I wasn’t like this. But when I come in and everything is clean, I feel calmer. I think that’s why I do it.”
Clutter-phobia may also be programmed into certain people’s genes, since extreme cleanliness likely once conferred a survival advantage by warding off germs, disease and death.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23565682?GT1=43001
HEALTH
Is salvia the next marijuana? By JESSICA GRESKO
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - On Web sites touting the mind-blowing powers of salvia divinorum, come-ons to buy the hallucinogenic herb are accompanied by warnings: "Time is running out! ... stock up while you still can."
That's because salvia is being targeted by lawmakers concerned that the inexpensive and easy-to-obtain plant could become the next marijuana. Eight states have already placed restrictions on salvia, and 16 others, including Florida, are considering a ban or have previously.
Native to Mexico and still grown there, salvia divinorum is generally smoked but can also be chewed or made into a tea and drunk. … Called nicknames like Sally-D, Magic Mint and Diviner's Sage, salvia is a hallucinogen that gives users an out-of-body sense of traveling through time and space or merging with inanimate objects. Unlike hallucinogens like LSD or PCP, however, salvia's effects last for a shorter time, generally up to an hour.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080311/ap_on_re_us/hallucinogenic_plant
Beer, With Benefits By Matt Allyn & Matt Bean
Beer makes you feel good. You knew that. But you don't realize just how good. Recent research has revealed bioactive compounds in beer that battle cancer, boost your metabolism, and more. And these benefits come on top of the oft-touted upsides of moderate alcohol intake: clot prevention, cleaner arteries, and reduced stress. Just in time for the summer, we set out with a stack of studies, a panel of parched testers, and a full fridge to find the best-tasting, healthiest brews available. Enjoy.
http://health.msn.com/nutrition/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100197361>1=31036
Best Allergy Busters By Allison Van Dusen
People tend to dislike spring for one of three reasons. They no longer get a booze-soaked break, they can't stand basketball or, maybe worst of all, they spend the whole season sneezing. … It's most likely the latter. That's because seasonal allergic rhinitis, or hay fever, affects more than 20% of the U.S. population, according to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. It's also the cause for about 14.1 million doctor's visits at an overall cost of $6 billion each year.
At the root of the problem are allergens, such as airborne pollens and mold spores. They trigger nasty symptoms, including sneezing, congestion, runny noses and itchiness. Pollen season generally stretches from February or March through October, but is usually even longer in the South due to the warmer weather. … Doctors don't know exactly what causes some people to battle terrible allergies, while others get off scot free. … They have, however, identified some risk factors, such as genetics.
http://health.msn.com/health-topics/allergies/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100159953
The Gender Divide Starts Over Dinner By Steven Reinberg
U.S. survey shows men eat the meat, women go for the veggies
WEDNESDAY, March 19 (HealthDay News) -- In the culinary battle of the sexes, men are decidedly the carnivores while women prefer leaner, greener fare, a new study finds.
Why the difference? Biology may play a role, but "more obvious are cultural influences, which suggest that salads and quiche are dainty; hunks of meat manly," according to Dr. David L. Katz, director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn. … Besides confirming some well-worn stereotypes, the findings might be of public health benefit, because understanding the differences in eating habits between men and women could help develop strategies to get both sexes to eat healthier diets, experts say.
"We thought it would be interesting to see whether there were any gender differences," lead researcher Beletshachew Shiferaw said in a prepared statement. "To our knowledge, there have been studies in the literature on gender differences in eating habits, but nothing this extensive."
http://health.msn.com/nutrition/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100198420
Fruitful reading and hope you have a great week.
Marie-Louise
