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Young age at first drink can turn under-15s into alcoholics

September 19, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Sept 19 (ANI): Drinking at young age may affect genes linked to alcoholism and make youngsters vulnerable to severe problems, says a new study.

The study led by Dr Arpana Agrawal, from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, revealed that the younger an individual was at first drink, the greater the risk for alcohol dependence and the more prominent the role played by genetic factors.

“There seemed to be a greater genetic influence in those who took their first full drink at a younger age,” said Agrawal.

“That’s very consistent with what has been predicted in the literature and in the classification of types of alcohol dependence, but we present a unique test of the hypothesis,” she added.

During the study, the researchers studied 6,257 adult twins from Australia and measured the extent to which age at first drink changed the role of heritable influences on symptoms of alcohol dependence.

The study showed that when twins started drinking early, genetic factors contributed greatly to risk for alcohol dependence, at rates as high as 90 percent in the youngest drinkers.

The team also found that those who were 15 or younger when they started drinking tended to have a greater genetic risk for alcohol dependence.

However, some who were 16 or older before they took their first drink later became alcohol dependent, but their dependence was related more to environmental factors.

“Something about starting to drink at an early age puts young people at risk for later problems associated with drinking,” Agrawal says.

“We continue to investigate the mechanisms, but encouraging youth to delay their drinking debut may help.

“Some early-onset drinkers do not develop alcohol problems and some late-onset drinkers do – we are working on why that is the case, but it is important to note that this is one risk factor among many and does not determine whether a person will, or will not, develop alcohol dependence.

“But age at first drink is a well-known risk factor, and there have been two main hypotheses about why:

One has been that common genetic and environmental factors contribute both to the risk for alcohol dependence and to the likelihood a person will be younger when consuming their first drink,” she added.

The study will be published Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. (ANI)

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Migrating birds chill at stopovers to save energy

September 12, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, September 11 (ANI): In a new research, scientists have suggested that migrating birds drop their body temperature at night during stopovers to save energy and build up their reserves faster.

Scientists Michal Wojciechowski and Berry Pinshow carried out the research.

Collecting migrating blackcaps at their stopover site on the Sede Boqer Campus of Ben-Gurion University and near Toron, Poland, Wojciechowski and Pinshow weighed the birds and monitored their body temperatures and metabolic rates as the birds stocked up on fruit supplemented with mealworms.

During the day, the birds’ body temperatures hovered around 42.5 degrees Celsius, but as dusk fell, their temperatures began to drop.

The average normal body temperature at night was about 38.8 degrees C, while one particularly skinny individual’s temperature plummeted to 33 degrees C.

When the team plotted the birds’ body masses against their nocturnal temperatures, the smaller birds’ temperatures correlated with their body masses.

Finally, the team looked at the relationship between the birds’ temperatures and their metabolic rates and found that the heavier birds dropped their metabolic rates least, while the lightest birds dropped their metabolic rates most.

Some conserved a remarkable 30 percent of their energy by becoming hypothermic.

Knowing that small birds also conserve energy by huddling together for warmth, Wojciechowski and Pinshow suggest that migrating birds may combine both strategies to shorten refuelling stopovers to fatten up fast before hastening on their way. (ANI)

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Poor money savers likely to be overeaters, smokers, love cheats

September 4, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Sept 4 (ANI): People who are poor at saving money are likely to have impulsive behaviour such as overeating, smoking and infidelity, according to a new study.

The study conducted through the BBC website measured people’s financial impulsivity by asking whether they would they prefer to receive 45 pounds in three days or 70 pounds in three months.

The findings revealed that nearly half of those who preferred the smaller-sooner sum of money were more likely to show a raft of other impulsive behaviours.

“One of the big questions about people’s financial planning is whether decisions to spend or save come from personal knowledge and experience of money matters or whether they reflect someone’s personality more generally,” said Dr Stian Reimers, ESRC Centre for Economic Learning and Social Evolution at UCL.

“Our research shows that people with an impulsive money-today attitude ignore the future in other ways.

“For example, they are more likely to smoke and more likely to be overweight, which may reflect a preference for immediate pleasure of nicotine and food over long-term good health,” Reimers added.

Moreover, people who chose to take the smaller-sooner amount of money were also more likely to admit to having had an affair in recent years.

The study also showed that those most likely to make impulsive financial choices were young, poorly educated, and on lower incomes.

“Learning to make decisions that lead to long-term happiness, not just instantaneous gratification, could benefit us all. Simple techniques can help reduce impulsivity: like imagining how you’d feel about your decision in a year’s time, or trying to avoid making decisions in the heat of the moment,” Reimers added.

The study appears in journal Personality and Individual Differences. (ANI)

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Saudi King warns Pak to call off Musharraf ‘witch hunt’

September 2, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Lahore, Sep.2 (ANI): Expressing concern over the political brickbatting between the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) over the trial of former President General Pervez Musharraf, Saudi Arabia has asked the Pakistani leadership to abide by the agreement on Musharraf’s immunity from prosecution, and stop the infighting, saying it could further deteriorate the country’s situation.

Sources privy to the Saudi Royal family said Saudi King, Abdullah, told Interior Advisor Rehman Malik, that Musharraf’s trial and altercations between the PPP and the PML-N could further affect Pakistan’s political stability.

According to a private television, the Saudi King has assured Musharraf that no action would be taken against him by the Pakistani leadership.

The king had said if a political party or any individual demanded his (Musharraf) trial, then it could have serious implications on Pak-Saudi relations.

Sources said that former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif would be visiting Saudi Arabia next week to hold meetings with Saudi officials, who may force him to abide by the agreement.

Meanwhile, Musharraf, who is currently in Saudi Arabia, met the Saudi intelligence chief to discuss the issue relating to his high treason trial, The Daily Times reports.

It may be noted that the Saudi intelligence chief was the main facilitator of Nawaz Sharif’s return to Pakistan. (ANI)

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First round of Indo-Swiss talks on black money to be held in December

September 1, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

New Delhi, Aug. 31 (ANI): The first round of consultations between New Delhi and the Swiss Government on tracing the black money deposited in tax havens in that country will be held in December.

However, there is no guarantee of prosecution of offenders on the basis of information secured from them.

According to Finance Ministry sources, Indian officials will have their first round of discussions with officials of Swiss government to evolve a legal system that will enable India to trace black money.

They said that such a system could be evolved through a Double Taxation Avoidance Treaty (DTAT) with Switzerland on the model of the agreements reached with countries of the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Although, the DTAT could lead to information being secured from Switzerland in specific cases (in which individuals would have violated laws in India), but it cannot guarantee that such persons could also be prosecuted for that offence, they pointed out.

In April, Germany gave information in a case where an individual had violated tax laws and on the information given by the German government tax due from him was also collected.

But Germany gave the information on the specific condition that no prosecution would be launched against the individual and the government had to comply with that condition

Getting information from the Swiss banks was not an easy task, and Indian government will have to become eligible to ask for such information under a proper bilateral treaty.

Recently, the US government successfully tracked some cases of American citizens stashing away their money there. The US could even prosecute them. (ANI)

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New computer program studies handwriting to detect liars

August 29, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Aug 29 (ANI): While experts have long been trying to use handwriting as a tool in forensic labs or their personality traits, researchers have now developed a computerized tool that can measure handwriting characteristics more effectively, making it greatly useful in lie detection.

Headed by Gil Luria and Sara Rosenblum at the University of Haifa, the researchers utilised a computerized tablet that measured the physical properties of the subject’s handwriting, which are difficult to consciously control (for example: the duration of time that the pen is on paper versus in the air, the length height and width of each writing stroke, the pressure implemented on the writing surface).

And they have found that these handwriting characteristics differ when an individual is in the process of writing deceptive sentences as opposed to truthful sentences.

The handwriting tool has the potential to replace, or work in tandem, with popular, verbal-based lie detection technology such as the polygraph to ensure greater accuracy and objectivity in law enforcement deception detection.

Besides, polygraphs are often intrusive to the subject and sometimes inconclusive.

Thus, the handwriting tool provides ease and increased accuracy over common, verbal-based methods.

The study appears in an upcoming issue of Applied Cognitive Psychology. (ANI)

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Obama’s health care reform less popular than Bill Clinton’s ’94 proposal

August 28, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Aug. 28 (ANI): Americans are more sceptical about President Barack Obama’s health care reform than they were about Bill Clinton’s health care proposals in 1994, a survey conducted by a Republican polling firm has found.

Thirty seven percent of Americans are opposed to the Obama plan compared with 25 percent who favor it, a poll conducted by Public Opinion Strategies shows.

In June of 1994 – just a few months before a White House-led health care reform push effectively died on Capitol Hill – 35 percent of Americans said they opposed the Clinton administration’s plan while 23 percent favored it, Politico cited a survey conducted by the same firm, as saying.

But in 1994 as well as now, the polls showed that large numbers of Americans remain undecided about health care reform.

At that time, 42 percent of those surveyed said they had no opinion about Clinton’s plan and this August, 37 percent also had no opinion about Obama’s proposal.

The recent Public Opinion Strategies Poll surveyed 800 registered voters Aug. 11-13 and has a 3.5 percentage point margin of error.

The poll asked about Obama’s plan, but in reality, there are several versions of health care reform currently working their way through Congress.

Bill McInturff, a partner at the firm who poll-tested the “Harry and Louise” advertising campaign that played a key role in the defeat of the Clinton administration’s health care reform efforts in the 1990s, said that opposition to the Obama plan has been fuelled, in part, by the notion that “government has gotten way too big and is going way too far.”

McInturff also predicted that the death of Senator Ted Kennedy would not have much of a practical impact on the health care debate.

“Individual members will make those votes based on their own calculus, for their own situation and not as a memorial to his long and distinguished career,” McInturff said. (ANI)

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‘Mobile ID’ devices herald next generation of biometric gadgets

August 27, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, August 27 (ANI): Reports indicate that a new generation of small, portable, versatile biometric devices, referred to as ‘Mobile ID’, are flourishing.

These devices gather, process and transmit an individual’s biometric data, which includes fingerprints, facial and iris images.

They were developed by NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) researchers working with first responders, criminal justice agencies, the military, industry and academia.

Previous work on standards for these biometric devices has focused primarily on getting different stationary and desktop systems with hardwired processing pathways to work together in an interoperable manner.

But, a new generation of small, portable and versatile biometric devices are raising new issues for interoperability.

“The proliferation of smaller devices including advanced personal digital assistants (PDAs), ultra-portable personal computers and high-speed cellular networks has made portable biometric systems a reality,” said computer scientist Shahram Orandi.

“While the portable systems have made leaps and bounds in terms of capability, there are still intrinsic limitations that must be factored into the big picture to ensure interoperability with the larger, more established environments such as desktop or large server-based systems,” he added.

The new mobile biometric devices allow first responders, police, the military and criminal justice organizations to collect biometric data with a handheld device on a street corner or in a remote area and then wirelessly send it to be compared to other samples on watch lists and databases in near real-time.

Identities can be determined quickly without having to take a subject to a central facility to collect his or her biometrics, which is not always possible.

Soldiers are beginning to use these devices to control access to secured areas, and first responders can use them to ensure that only approved workers are on-site during an incident or investigation. (ANI)

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Marriage, the secret to ‘beating cancer’

August 25, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Aug 24 (ANI): They may joke that marriage raises their blood pressure but married people have the best chance of surviving cancer, a new study has found.

What’s more, those going through the pain of separation have the poorest survival rates, the study claimed.
The research will be published in the November 1, 2009 issue of Cancer, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society.

According to the study’s authors, the results suggest that the stress associated with marital separation may compromise an individual’s immune system and lead to a greater susceptibility to cancer.

Research has shown that personal relationships have a significant role in physical health-specifically that good relationships are beneficial and poor relationships are deleterious.

Also, many studies of cancer prognosis have found that patients who are married live longer than those who are single. However, little information is available regarding differences in survival among the various types of people who are unmarried.

To look for trends in cancer survival among patients who are separated, divorced, widowed, and never married, researchers led by Gwen Sprehn, Ph.D., of the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis analyzed data from the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database, a population-based cancer registry in the United States.

The researchers assessed the 5 and 10 year survival rates of 3.79 million patients diagnosed with cancer between 1973 and 2004.

They found that married patients had the highest 5 and 10 year survival rates, at 63.3 percent and 57.5 percent respectively. At the other end of the spectrum, separation carried the poorest survival outcome. Specifically, the 5 and 10 year survival rates for separated patients were 45.4 percent and 36.8 percent respectively.

The 5 and 10 year survival rates of widowed patients were the next lowest, at 47.2 percent and 40.9 percent respectively; for divorced patients, the respective survival rates were 52.4 percent and 45.6 percent; and for never married patients, they were 57.3 percent and 51.7 percent.

“Patients who are going through separation at the time of diagnosis may be a particularly vulnerable population for whom intervention could be prioritized,” says Sprehn.

“Identification of relationship-related stress at time of diagnosis could lead to early interventions which might favorably impact survival. Ideally, future research will study marital status in more detail over time and also address individual differences in genetic profile and biomarkers related to stress, immune, and cancer pathways in order to determine mechanisms which might underlie this possible critical period for cancer pathogenesis,” the expert added. (ANI)

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Jaswant Singh rules out walking away from politics

August 20, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

New Delhi, Aug 20 (ANI): Expelled Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Jaswant Singh on Thursday ruled out walking away from active politics, saying he will continue to remain in public life.

He also said that he would continue with his literary and creative pursuits while being in politics.

Interacting with media persons after his arrival from Shimla, Singh said he will make the letter written to key members of the party on the reasons of party’s debacle in the 2009 elections public on Saturday (August 22).

In a meeting held immediately after the debacle of the party in the elections to the Lok Sabha in May, Singh is said to have written a note titled Inaam (Award) and Parinaam (Result).

Singh said he has never associated himself with the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS), nor violated any ideological stand of the party.

“I have not violated the ideology of the party, I don’t know which core ideology of the party they are speaking about. I don’t want to explain any conduct,” he said.

Singh also criticised the BJP’s comparison of vote and vichar (thinking).

Commenting on the banning of the his controversial book “Jinnah, India- Independence, Partition” by the Gujarat State Government, Singh asked “Where I made derogatory remarks about Sardar Patel in that book? Whether they read the book before banning ?.

On Wednesday, a spokesperson of the Gujarat Government announced that the state is banning the publication of the book because of derogatory remarks made about India’s first Home Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.

“Banning the book means shutting the door for thought” Singh said.

“If any individual or organisation stops reading, writing, debating, thinking, and reflecting then it is heading towards darkness,” Singh added.(ANI)

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Archaeologists discover third century mansion in City of David excavations

August 18, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Jerusalem, August 18 (ANI): An Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) excavation in the City of David, Israel, has revealed a large third century CE building, which is apparently a large mansion.

The spacious edifice from the Roman period (third century CE) – apparently a mansion that belonged to a wealthy individual, was uncovered in excavations carried out in the ‘Givati Car Park’ at the City of David, in the Walls Around Jerusalem National Park.

According to Dr. Doron Ben-Ami, the excavation director on behalf of the IAA, together with Yana Tchekhanovets, “Although we do not have the complete dimensions of the structure, we can cautiously estimate that the building covered an area of approximately 1,000 square meters. In the center of it was a large open courtyard surrounded by columns.”

“Galleries were spread out between the rows of columns and the rooms that flanked the courtyard. The wings of the building rose to a height of two stories and were covered with tile roofs,” he said.

A large quantity of fresco fragments was discovered in the collapsed ruins from which the excavators deduced that some of the walls of the rooms were treated with plaster and decorated with colorful paintings.

The painted designs that adorned the plastered walls consisted mostly of geometric and floral motifs.

Its architectural richness, plan and particularly the artifacts that were discovered among its ruins bear witness to the unequivocal Roman character of the building.

The most outstanding of these finds are a marble figurine in the image of a boxer and a gold earring inlaid with precious stones.

The building, which was constructed during the third century CE, was shaken by a tremor in the fourth century, the results of which are clearly apparently in the excavation area: the walls of the rooms caved-in and their stone collapse, which was piled high, covered the walls of the bottom floor, some of which still stand to a considerable height.

Architectural elements such as columns and capitals, as well as mosaics and the large amount of fresco fragments that were used in the rooms of the second story were discovered inside the collapsed ruins.

The coins that were discovered among the collapse and on the floors indicated the building’s ruins should be dated to circa 360 CE.

According to Dr. Ben-Ami, “Edifices such as these are ‘urban mansions’ from the Roman period that were discovered in Antioch, Apamea and Palmyra. If this parallel is correct, then in spite of its size and opulence, it seems that this building was used originally as a private residence.” (ANI)

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Synchronised light bursts may make jet lag history

July 15, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, July 15 (ANI): A software program that prescribes a regimen for avoiding jet lag using timed light exposure has been created by researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the University of Michigan.

The method has been described in the open-access journal PLoS Computational Biology.

Traveling across several times zones can cause an individual to experience jet lag, which includes trouble sleeping at night and difficulty remaining awake during the day. These effects largely reflect de-synchronization between the body”s internal time clock and local environmental cues.

Now, the program, which seeks to re-synchronize the body with its new environment, considers inputs like background light level and the number of time zones traveled. Then, based on a mathematical model, the program gives users exact times of the day when they should apply countermeasures such as bright light to intervene and reduce the effects of jet lag.

Timed light exposure is a well known synchronization method, and when used properly, this intervention can reset an individual”s internal clock to align with local time. The result is more efficient sleep, a decrease in fatigue, and an increase in cognitive performance. Poorly timed light exposure can prolong the re-synchronization process.

Using their computational method, researchers simulated shifting sleep-wake schedules and the subsequent light interventions for realigning internal clocks with local time.

They found that the mathematical computation resulted in quicker design of schedules and also predictions of substantial performance improvements. They were able to show that the computation provided the optimal result for timing light exposure to reduce jet lag symptoms.

“Using this computation in a prototyped software application allows a user to set a background light level and the number of time zones traveled to obtain a recommendation of when to expose a subject to bright light, such as the bright lights sometimes used to treat Seasonal Affective Disorder” said lead-author Dennis Dean.

“Although this method is not yet available to the public, it has direct implications for designing schedules for jet lag, shift-work, and extreme environments, such as in space, undersea or in polar regions,” the expert added.

“This work shows how interventions can cut the number of days needed to adjust to a new time zone by half,” said co-author Daniel Forger. (ANI)

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Genetic mapping shows how staph infections disrupt immune system

July 14, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, July 14 (ANI): Researchers have used genetic mapping to explain how the human immune system is programmed to respond to Staphylococcus aureus infections.

Infectious disease specialists at UT Southwestern Medical Center have mapped the gene profiles of children with severe S. aureus infections, to see how the pathogen alters the human immune system.

The findings of the study could open new doors for improved therapeutic interventions.t has long been unknown how the host’s immune system responded to S. aureus infection, and why some individuals are more vulnerable towards severe staphylococcal infections than others.

“The beauty of our study is that we were able to use existing technology to understand in a real clinical setting what’s going on in actual humans – not models, not cells, not mice, but humans. We have provided the first description of a pattern of response within an individual’s immune system that is very consistent, very reproducible and very intense,” said Dr. Monica Ardura, lead author of the study.

The immune system consists of two components- the innate system, which provides immediate defense against infection, and the adaptive system, whose memory cells are called into action to fight off subsequent infections.

During the study, the researchers extracted ribonucleic acid from a drop of blood, and placed it on a special gene chip called a microarray, which probes the entire human genome to determine which genes are turned on or off.

It was found that in children with invasive staphylococcal infections, the genes involved in the body’s innate immune response are overactivated while those associated with the adaptive immune system are suppressed.

“It’s a very sophisticated and complex dysregulation of the immune system, but our findings prove that there’s consistency in the immune response to the staphylococcus bacterium. Now that we know how the immune system responds, the question is whether we can use this to predict patient outcomes or differentiate the sickest patients from the less sick ones. How can we use this knowledge to develop better therapies?” said Ardura.

The researchers used blood samples collected between 2001 and 2005 from 77 children – 53 hospitalized at Children’s Medical Center Dallas with invasive S. aureus infections and 24 controls.

Ardura claimed that more research was needed because the results represented a one-time snapshot of what’s going on in the cell during an invasive staphylococcal infection.

The researchers are now hoping to understand better how various staph-infection therapies affect treatment.

The study is available online in PLoS One, the Public Library of Science’s online journal. (ANI)

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Dogs understand gestures as well as 2-year-old kids

July 14, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, July 14 (ANI): Dogs understand human pointing gestures as well as two-year-old children, according to two studies.

Also, the studies found that due to domestication, dogs appear to be predisposed to read other human visual signals, including head turning and gazing, reports Discovery News.

People often use baby talk, scientifically known as “motherese,” with both children and their pet dogs, allowing canines and kids to receive similar social stimulation.

Since chimpanzees and other non-human primates often fail to understand human pointing gestures, the studies suggest dogs may understand humans better than even our closest living animal relatives do.n the first study, Gabriella Lakatos, a researcher in the Department of Ethology at Eotvos University, lead author of the first study, and her colleagues used a combination of finger-, elbow-, leg- and knee-pointing gestures to help dogs locate hidden food and, for children, a favourite toy.

The researchers found that two-year-olds and dogs understood everything except knee pointing and when the experimenter’s index finger pointed in a different direction than the protruding arm.

For example, they were confused when the individual raised an arm in a certain direction, but used her finger to point the other way.

In the second study, Marta Gacsi, also of Eotvos University, and her team analyzed 180 dogs of various ages to see how development and individual differences affect their understanding of human pointing.

They determined “the dogs showed no difference in the performance according to age, indicating that in dogs the comprehension of the human pointing may require only very limited and rapid early learning to fully develop.”

Lakatos, however, warned in thinking that dogs are just like furry two-year-old children.

“Any behavioral similarity or similar performance between dogs and children should be investigated separately in each case,” she said.

“Just to give an example for a reverse case: nobody has tried to herd a flock of sheep with two-year-old (human children),” she added.

The study has been published in the current issue of Animal Cognition. (ANI)

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Can an individual’s bitter-taste sensitivity help determine diabetes risk?

July 11, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, July 11 (ANI): A research team at Kansas State University, including an Indian origin scientist, are studying whether an individual’s bitterness sensitivity can help predict his/her risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

Lead researcher Kathy Nguyen, senior in public health nutrition along with colleagues Koushik Adhikari and Mark Haub, are studying the genotypes of diabetic and non-diabetic individuals to determine the possible link.

For the study, Nguyen is collecting cheek cell samples from about 60 men and women between the ages of 40 and 70. The sample includes people with and without type 2 diabetes.

The researchers will later genotype two variations within a DNA sequence to determine whether the individuals are supertasters, tasters or non-tasters of bitterness.

Supertasters are more sensitive to bitterness than tasters, and non-tasters are not sensitive.

The team hopes that by understanding whether bitterness sensitivity is linked to type 2 diabetes, there is a potential to screen individuals for bitterness sensitivity, and to use that information as a predictive marker for the disease and other chronic disease such as heart disease and obesity.

“This is a preliminary stage with a small sample size,” Adhikari said.

“The study has to be repeated with a larger population of different ethnicities to arrive at any meaningful conclusions. However, Kathy will establish the protocol for this project,” he added. (ANI)

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Women can’t resist men with ‘Travolta like moves’ on dance floor

July 10, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, July 9 (ANI): Women cannot keep off of men who are able to pull off dance floor moves with the ease of John Travolta and found them to be more attractive and assertive, suggests a study.

The study, published in New Scientist magazine, found that men with stunning dance floor moves than those considered to have two left feet indicated to be physically stronger and bear the strength and ability to have strong kids.

Boffins taped video clips of 40 heterosexual male students, whose clothing, looks and body shape was disguised in overall white gear, shaking their legs to the song Let Me Entertain You by Robbie Williams.

Twenty-five members of the opposite sex then saw the video and rated the participants for attractiveness while another 25 marked their assertiveness.

Researchers found strong correlations between strength marks and both perceived attractiveness and assertiveness.

“We already know women use static cues such as facial and bodily characteristics in their assessments of men,” the Telegraph quoted Dr Bernhard Fink, an anthropologist of Gottingen University in Germany, as saying.

“This study shows dynamic cues such as dancing ability might also be used to assess male quality in terms of strength and dominance – traits which eventually signal status,” he added.

The study has also been published in Personality and Individual Differences. (ANI)

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Britain’s Got Talent schoolboy Jafargholi wins hearts at Jackson’s memorial

July 8, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, July 8 (ANI): Britain’s Got Talent finalist Shaheen Jafargholi moved fans around the globe to tears with his stunning tribute to Michael Jackson at the star’s memorial service in Los Angeles on Tuesday.

The 12-year-old from Swansea, who shot to fame after performing the Jackson 5 hit Who’s Lovin’ You on the talent competition, wooed fans with his perfect rendition of the track at the Staples Center.

The schoolboy went on to thank the late King of Pop for playing his musical muse, and making him a celebrity.

“I just want to say I love Michael Jackson and I just want to thank him so much for blessing me and every single individual with such amazing music. Thank you so much. I love you Michael Jackson,” The Sun quoted him as saying.

The Jackson family was said to have chosen the youngster amongst other singers to honour the Thriller hitmaker, telling him that the late star was a huge fan of his Jackson tribute act.

And the young lad’s jaw-dropping solo performance won him an applause, leaving mourners believe that Jackson himself was there with them.

Fan Erika Ivory, 29, from New York, said: “When that little boy started singing, Oh my God! It was like Michael was here, his voice was so powerful. It was the most moving part of the ceremony. It was such an uplifting, moving moment, it filled my heart with hope. That boy is incredible.”

Jafargholi performed alongside galaxy of stars, including Stevie Wonder, Lionel Richie and Mariah Carey, and stood with Jackson’s brother Jermaine as they sang a medley of We Are The World and Heal The World. (ANI)

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Family history may help predict severity of mental disease

July 8, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, July 7 (ANI): Researchers from Duke Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy (IGSP) have revealed that family history can play a vital role in predicting the severity of mental disorder.

They suggest that just 30 minutes or less of question-and-answer about the family history of depression, anxiety, or substance abuse is enough to predict a patient’s approximate risks for developing each disorder, and how severe their future illness is likely to be.

“There are lots of kids with behaviour problems who may outgrow them on their own without medication, versus the minority with mental illnesses that need treatment,” said Terrie Moffitt, a professor of psychology and neuroscience in the IGSP.

“Family history is the quickest and cheapest way to sort that out,” she added.

Co-researcher Avshalom Caspi, professor of psychology and neuroscience, added that researchers searching for genes responsible for mental disorders might also take advantage of the discovery.

During the study, the researchers examined 981 New Zealanders, who were a part of Dunedin Study.

They tested each individual’s personal experience with depression, anxiety, alcohol dependence and drug dependence in relation to their family history “scores” – the proportion of their grandparents, parents and siblings over age 10 who were affected.

The analysis shows that family history can predict a more recurrent course of each of the four disorders. It is also indicative of those more likely to suffer a worse impairment and to make greater use of mental health services.

Family history could be used to identify those in need of early intervention or more aggressive treatment.

The findings appear in the Archives of General Psychiatry. (ANI)

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Humans may have started feasting on fish about 40,000 years ago

July 7, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, July 7 (ANI): A new study by an international team of researchers has suggested that fish may have become an important part of the year-round diet for early humans in China as far back as 40,000 years ago.

Freshwater fish are an important part of the diet of many peoples around the world, but it has been unclear when fish became an important part of the year-round diet for early humans.

Chemical analysis of the protein collagen, using ratios of the isotopes of nitrogen and sulfur in particular, can show whether such fish consumption was an occasional treat or a regular food item.

Analysis of a bone from one of the earliest modern human in Asia, the 40,000-year-old skeleton from Tianyuan Cave near Beijing, has shown that at least this individual was a regular fish consumer.

This analysis provides the first direct evidence for the substantial consumption of aquatic resources by early modern humans in China.

Since this occurs before there is consistent evidence for effective fishing gear, the shift to more fish in the diet likely reflects greater pressure from an expanding population at the time of modern human emergence across Eurasia. (ANI)

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Why people use mobile device during meetings

July 5, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, July 5 (ANI): It’s not communication overload but peer behaviour that determines whether people use their laptops or smart phones during a meeting, say researchers at The University of Texas at Austin.

It was believed that the more people experienced communication overload, the more they would engage in electronic multitasking during meetings.

But the study on individuals from a diverse range of organizations-including engineering, finance, software, energy, marketing and health care-debunked that view.

It was found that the perceived opinions of peers and supervisors and observation of others using their mobile devices in a meeting was what influenced an individual’s tendency to multi-task.

“There’s no doubt the ubiquity of mobile devices is changing the nature of workplace meetings. What we’ve found is that simply feeling overloaded with messages coming from channels such as e-mail, texts and instant messages is not the primary driver for multitasking in meetings,” said Keri Stephens, assistant professor of communication studies in the College of Communication.

The study is particularly informative as organizational norms overshadowed individual-level predictors, which might be due to the unique nature of portable technology.

For decades, people have been using non-technology communication-pens and paper-to multitask in meetings.

The research suggests that employee behaviour is likely to change if organizations ban mobile technologies, and set new norms for how they can be used during meetings.

The research comes in line with the news that organizations are banning mobile devices or going lap “topless” in meetings to get participants’ undivided attention.

While banning mobile devices will likely eliminate unproductive behaviour, the researchers have warned that it can stifle legitimately productive behaviour that can enhance the meeting process.

One of the key findings of the study is that prior to a meeting, facilitators need to communicate clearly about whether using mobile devices is acceptable or not.

Meetings also need to include the right content for the right people, as well as engaging material.

The report, titled ‘The Social Influences on Electronic Multitasking in Organizational Meetings’, has been published in the August issue of Management Communication Quarterly. (ANI)

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