Sunday, July 4, 2004; Page BW07
May 16, 2008
In Brief Rams Will Be Rams
September 17, 2006
Today's youth has no time for love
Love Takes Time. Singles Say They Don't Have Any.
By Laura Sessions Stepp
Think romance is alive and well among young singles? That twenty-somethings are checking each other out in the office and cruising the bars at night, looking for someone to love? You might want to think again.
The major love story these days is this: maybe later.
It's not that they take relationships lightly, or that they don't want to become attached -- eventually. It's just, who has the time? They're working their butts off at college or in jobs that barely cover the rent and feel obligated to find fulfilling, well-paid careers. It will be easier to make their marks, they think, unfettered by relationships that, let's face it, can be so distracting.
This came as something of a surprise to researchers Lee Rainie and Mary Madden at the Pew Research Center when, in going over data in a larger dating survey, they discovered that among 18-to-29-year-olds, only slightly more than a third said they were in committed relationships. Among the remaining, more were not looking than looking.
The numbers do not astonish Pouya Dianat, 20, or Montana Wojczuk, 26, however.
"My job here is the most important thing I do," says Dianat, a staff photographer for the Diamondback, the student newspaper at the
Wojczuk breezed through jobs in advertising, retail sales and grant-writing before ending up as an assistant in a talent and literary agency in
Are they saying there's no use in starting to look until they're ready to stop looking? Not exactly, says Philip Morgan, professor of sociology at
Even flirting with the idea of a relationship requires effort, sometimes more than they're willing to give. "Sometimes I make plans to have a drink with someone, but I'm too tired," says Tiffany Sharples, 24, who works at a travel magazine in
All of this raises questions among those a generation or two older. Are our grown children simply afraid to love? Afraid of the potential for either being hurt or hurting someone else? Maybe. Many of them have been in at least one relationship that ended badly or dragged on longer than it should have. They've also observed a fair number of marriages fall apart, from those of their parents or friends' parents to their own friends.
Instead, their friends are their partners. "I go into most social situations just wanting to expand my circle of friends," says Kate Campbell, a senior and 21-year-old reporter for the Diamondback. "I'd rather do that than troll for guys."
Relationships, they say, imply commitment, and commitment can consume too much personal space and time. College students talk about couples they know who take courses together, eat all their meals together and sleep together. That togetherness continues after college, says Matt McFarland, a 25-year-old sales rep who lives in
McFarland works 65 hours a week. He also goes to the gym three or four times a week and spends Friday and Saturday nights in bars or clubs. He and his buddies aren't lonely, he says. "There's a lot of casual hooking up."
Hooking up, an uncommitted sexual encounter, has become synonymous with dating, says Ele Izadi, a 21-year-old senior and Diamondback writer. Easy to do and carrying no obligations, it's a convention that is tailor-made for the time-pressed. And it has turned Izadi off to any relationships at this time. "All guys want is the physical," she says.
Some singles still date occasionally. But after the second or third date -- or hookup -- with the same person, they find they must confront a question: "What are we?" Leah Veneziano, 25 and a sometime TV guest host in
"Why start something now that has no destination?" asks sophomore Brendan Lowe, 20, the Diamondback's deputy news editor.
Could it be that this generation takes relationships too seriously?
If so, we shouldn't be surprised. From their preschool days on, they've heard messages of boundless opportunity and high expectations: First the perfect school record, then the perfect job. Why settle, then, for anyone but the perfect mate?
The phrase "in time" is key, says Jeffrey Arnett, a research professor at
"We've given them the freedom to take their time to decide what their adult life is going to look like. We don't have the expectations anymore that they should be married at 21 and have their first baby at 22. Fifty years ago, that would have been normal, but now, what's the hurry?"
The researchers at Pew, a nonprofit initiative of the Pew Charitable Trusts, were pursuing a larger project about online dating when they came across the young-singles data: 38 percent in committed relationships and 38 percent neither in committed relationships nor looking for them. Twenty-two percent were not in relationships but looking.
Wojczuk, the agent's assistant in
And what kind of man would that be?
"Someone who's really smart and driven, but leaves work at work. Someone who goes out in the world, who likes the arts and doesn't take himself too seriously. Someone who gets my jokes, has a sense of humor and can get me out of my worry."
She admits she has "a lot of expectations. I'm sure I'll come to the point where I'm willing to compromise."
Until then, she's enjoying her girlfriends. "It's a lot safer just to hang out with them."
September 16, 2006
Studies on Sexuality are misleading
"Patterns of Deceit Raise Concerns About Teenage Sex Surveys"
by Eric Nagourney.
New York, May 10: Does signing a virginity pledge after you have had sex make you a virgin
again?
It hardly seems likely. But how else to explain a new study in which teenagers who said they had had sex in one survey then signed a pledge and told a different story in a survey a year later?
The study, which appears in the June issue of The American Journal of Public Health, was based on surveys by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development involving more than 13,000 students in grades 7 to 12.
The students were questioned two times, a year apart.
The most delicate questions were given through headphones, and the
students typed their answers into a computer.
Among the questions students were asked: "Have you taken a public or written pledge to remain a virgin until marriage?" They were also asked if they had had sexual intercourse.
In the first survey, about 13 percent of the students said they had taken a pledge of virginity. In the second survey, the study found, more than half of that group denied having taken one.
Those who reported having sexual relations for the first time in the second survey were three times as likely to retract a virginity pledge as those who did report having had sex then.
About a third of the students said in the first survey that they had had sex, but about 10 percent of them denied it when asked the second time.
Those who had newly made a pledge were four times as likely to retract reports of sexual activity.
Why did so many students change their stories? "We can't really get inside their heads and know what they're thinking," said the study's author, Janet Rosenbaum, a doctoral student at the Harvard School of Public Health. But the study raises questions about how much reliance
should be placed on surveys about sexual activity among teenagers, and how accurately experts can measure the results of programs that encourage them to abstain from sex to avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
"Survey respondents typically reconcile their memories with their present beliefs," the study said. "Respondents may recall only memories consistent with their current beliefs or report actions that did not occur but are consistent with their current beliefs."
Such behavior is not unheard of when it comes to surveys. Studies have found, for example, that people who tell survey takers before an election that it is important to vote are more likely to claim falsely later that they did.
But there is a big difference between what happens in the voting booth and what happens in the bedroom or the car.
"Self-reported voting can be verified with official voting records," Ms. Rosenbaum wrote, "but self-reported sexual abstinence cannot."
Apart from what it says about the reliability of the pledges and abstinence programs, the study also raises concerns about whether they may make tracking sexually transmitted diseases more difficult.
"I think all of this has public health implications, particularly with respect to S.T.D.'s, insofar as we are not getting a clear picture from teens' own report of their sexual activity," said Cynthia Dailard, a public policy analyst at the Guttmacher Institute, a research and advocacy group that studies reproductive rights.
September 15, 2006
Science and Crime, They're Young Men's Pursuits
Nature reports that scientist, like criminals, do their best work when they are young and single. Psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa of the London School of Economics and Political Science found that 65% of eminent scientists published their most significant work before they were 35. Similarly, criminals, do their most audacious crimes when they are younger than 30.
It seems that once you get a wife and settle down that old fire in the belly tends to reduce to a bit of a smoulder.
Of course this research has limited credibility as Satoshi Kanazawa was 40 at the time it was published.
(Source, the green man)
Men and Women Really Do Think Differently
Live Science
By Bjorn Carey, LiveScience Staff Writer
Men and women do think differently, at least where the anatomy of the brain is concerned, according to a new study.
The brain is made primarily of two different types of tissue, called gray matter and white matter. This new research reveals that men think more with their gray matter, and women think more with white. Researchers stressed that just because the two sexes think differently, this does not affect intellectual performance.
Psychology professor Richard Haier of the
"These findings suggest that human evolution has created two different types of brains designed for equally intelligent behavior," said Haier, adding that, "by pinpointing these gender-based intelligence areas, the study has the potential to aid research on dementia and other cognitive-impairment diseases in the brain."
The results are detailed in the online version of the journal NeuroImage.
In human brains, gray matter represents information processing centers, whereas white matter works to network these processing centers.
The results from this study may help explain why men and women excel at different types of tasks, said co-author and neuropsychologist Rex Jung of the
Scientists find it very interesting that while men and women use two very different activity centers and neurological pathways, men and women perform equally well on broad measures of cognitive ability, such as intelligence tests.
This research also gives insight to why different types of head injuries are more disastrous to one sex or the other. For example, in women 84 percent of gray matter regions and 86 percent of white matter regions involved in intellectual performance were located in the frontal lobes, whereas the percentages of these regions in a man’s frontal lobes are 45 percent and zero, respectively. This matches up well with clinical data that shows frontal lobe damage in women to be much more destructive than the same type of damage in men.
Both Haier and Jung hope that this research will someday help doctors diagnose brain disorders in men and women earlier, as well as provide help designing more effective and precise treatments for brain damage.
(Source: Live Science)
Men more fashion-conscious than women
HT Youth Survey
Namita Bhandare
Young Indians in cities across the country are extremely conscious about the brands they wear. Individualism has hit a low and Generation Now would rather wear the latest fashion and be part of a group than rebel and stand alone outside the circle of their peers, finds a five-city survey.
The survey commissioned by Hindustan Times and conducted by Taylor Nelson Sofres (TNS) Mode of young Indians in the age group 16 to 24 finds that Generation Now is anything but a bindaas, anything-goes generation.
On the contrary, this generation is concerned about the impression it makes on others and in being part of a group.
Contrary to general perception, men are actually more fashion-conscious than women. Predictably younger age groups (16 to 18 years) are the most fashion-conscious.
Where brands go, men are just as brand-conscious as women. Cutting across the age divide too, those in the 16 to 18 years age bracket said they were as brand-conscious as those in the 19 to 21 years age bracket.
Forty-seven per cent of our respondents in
A fourth of our respondents believe that you can tell a lot about a person by the brand he or she wears. Another 27 percent "agreed somewhat" with the statement. When we asked how important it was to wear the latest fashion, 32 percent said it was very important and another 30 percent said it was "some what important". Only 13 percent said it wasn't important at all.
We also asked young Indians how concerned they were about the impression they made on other people: 53 percent had no qualms admitting they were terribly concerned about the impression other people formed about them and another 29 percent said they are "somewhat concerned".
This generation is equally concerned about family and staying at home. Over half --- 59 percent --- said they'd rather live at home with their families than on their own.
For 32 percent of our respondents, spending a quiet evening at home with their family was more important than going out to party. However, given a choice, 30 percent said they'd opt to go to a party.
And, Generation Now certainly isn't short on ideals. A vast majority believes that job satisfaction is more important than making money.
While nearly 80 percent believe the standard of living is higher in other countries, only 54 percent would, given an opportunity, rather settle down abroad.
In a country where global brands are now readily available, perhaps there isn't as much need.
A friend can mend a broken heart
James Meikle, health correspondent
Guardian
Love seems to help mend a broken heart. Having a really close relationship with another person, whether they be close friend, lover or relative, can halve the risk of suffering ongoing heart attacks, researchers suggest today.
Doctors in
The link remained after taking account of the severity of the original heart attack, the previous history of heart disease, and age.
Those without a close relationship were more likely to drink heavily, use illegal drugs, and to have had a previous heart attack, suggested the research, reported in the medical journal Heart. They were also more than twice as likely to have been separated from parents during childhood.
The screening of the patients, three-quarters of them men and with an average age of 60, included patients' assessments of their mental health before their heart attack as well as their personal histories.
About one in four of those screened had been depressed before their heart attack, but, in contrast to the findings of some previous research, they were no more likely to have another attack or die.
The authors speculate that the loss of parents early in life may reduce the chances of forming intimate relationships in adulthood.
"Alternatively, those who do not have a close confidant may delay seeking treatment for myocardial infarction [heart attack] or may be less likely to adhere to treatment afterwards," the authors say.
However, heart specialists should not ignore depression, they say. Other research had shown that depressed people were less likely to give up smoking after a heart attack.
The researchers, from
Belinda Linden, head of medical information at the BHF, which provided £160,000 for the study, said: "A close relationship, whether it be lover, friend or relative, is obviously a potentially vital source of social support, which can play an important role in both preventing coronary heart disease and enhancing recovery from attack."
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
The Physics of human behaviour
What does this mean for the adoption of a new economics and complementary currencies?
FADS, fashions and dramatic shifts in public opinion all appear to follow a physical law: one of the laws of magnetism.
Quentin Michard of the
"Imitation is deeply rooted in biology as a survival strategy," says Bouchaud. In particular, people frequently copy others who they think know something they don't.
To model the consequences of imitation, the researchers turned to the physics of magnets. An applied magnetic field will coerce the spins of atoms in a magnetic material to point in a certain direction. And often an atom's spin direction pushes the spins of neighbouring atoms to point in a similar direction. And even if an applied field changes direction slowly, the spins sometimes flip all together and quite abruptly.
The physicists modified the model such that the atoms represented people and the direction of the spin indicated a person's behaviour, and used it to predict shifts in public opinion.
In the case of cellphones, for example, it is clear that as more people realised how useful they were, and as their price dropped, more people would buy them. But how quickly the trend took off depended on how strongly people influenced each other. The magnetic model predicts that when people have a strong tendency to imitate others, shifts in behaviour will be faster, and there may even be discontinuous jumps, with many people adopting cellphones virtually overnight.
More specifically, the model suggests that the rate of opinion change accelerates in a mathematically predictable way, with ever greater numbers of people changing their minds as the population nears the point of maximum change. Michard and Bouchaud checked this prediction against their model and found that the trends in birth rates and cellphone usage in European nations conformed quite accurately to this pattern. The same was true of the rate at which clapping died away in concerts.
(From issue 2498 of New Scientist magazine,
Expert fears problem for 1 in 3 couples fertility
James Meikle, health correspondent
Couples in
Bill Ledger, who runs a clinic in Sheffield, warned that a combination of women delaying having babies, a rising tide of sexually transmitted diseases, huge increases in childhood obesity and a decline in male fertility were ingredients for an alarming situation. Professor Ledger said that the infertility problem would double within a decade from its already significant levels.
About one in seven couples have problems with fertility now, and that would rise to as many as one in three to four "depending on what the population does".
About 6% of girls are thought clinically obese, a figure expected to grow unless action to improve exercise and diet is stepped up.
That could lead to problems years later when the women fail to ovulate or fall more prone to conditions such as polycystic ovary syndrome.
Chlamydia cases among young women have doubled in
A woman's fertility plummets after the age of 35. Prof Ledger, from the
The government in
Countries still needed the political will to allow women to have babies earlier by taking a break from their careers, and help them and their families look after their children. "This is part of a civilised society I think we should aspire to."
Prof Ledger, speaking to journalists attending the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology conference in
Fertility clinics saw the problems infertility brought on couples, including unhappiness and marital breakdown. Treatment was, he accepted, a luxury "compared with horrid cancers and heart disease but in a wealthy society, it is a luxury we can afford".
The one in seven statistic related to
Since April, the NHS in England has promised women under 40 one free cycle of IVF, which when offered privately can set couples back as much as £5,000 to £6,000 when all the costs are taken into account.
Thousands of people are travelling within
A fertility clinic in
Restrictions on fertility treatment in
Claire Brown, the chief executive of Infertility Network
"The treatment is extremely stressful and a holiday gives you something to get your mind off it a bit more and gives you the opportunity to relax a bit more."
Jean Paul Maytum, a spokesman for the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, said: "In the
Professor Guido Pennings, professor of ethics and bioethics at
Reproductive tourism was not a problem but "a safety valve that allows some degree of personal freedom for dissenting individual citizens on the one hand and democratic decision-making on the other hand. It contributes to a peaceful co-existence of different ethical and religious views in
Plastic may cause defects in baby boys
Researchers have long known that high levels of substances called phthalates have gender-bending effects on male animals, making them more feminine and leading to poor sperm quality and infertility. The new study suggests that even normal levels of phthalates, which are ubiquitous, can disrupt the development of male babies' reproductive organs.
The discovery poses a huge problem for the chemical industry, which is already embroiled in a battle with the government over EU proposals on chemical safety.
Several types of phthalates, which are used to make plastics more pliable, and have been around for more than 50 years, have been banned, but many are still produced in vast quantities.
The study was carried out by scientists from centres across the
The researchers measured the levels of nine widely used phthalates in the urine of pregnant women and compared them with standard physiological measurements of their babies.
Tests showed that women with higher levels of four different phthalates were more likely to have baby boys with a range of conditions, from smaller penises and undescended testicles to a shorter perineum, the distance between the genitals and the anus. The differences, say the authors, indicate a feminisation of the boys similar to that seen in animals exposed to the chemicals.
Shanna Swan, an obstetrician at the University of Rochester, and lead scientist on the study, said researchers must now unravel what kinds of products are most to blame. One way that phthalates get into the bloodstream is when they seep into food from plastic packaging.
"It's going to take a while to work out which of these sources is most relevant to human exposure," she said.
Although the observed differences in body measurements were subtle, they indicate that what is generally regarded as the most ubiquitous class of chemicals is having a significant effect on newborns.
"Every aspect of male identity is altered when you see this in male animals," said Fred vom Saal, professor of reproductive biology at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Levels of aggression, parenting behaviour and even learning speeds were affected, he said.
Andreas Kortenkamp, an expert in environmental pollutants at the School of Pharmacy in London, said: "If it's true, it's sensational. This is the first time anyone's shown this effect in humans. It's an indicator that something's gone seriously wrong with development in the womb and that's why it's so serious."
He added: "These are mass chemicals. They are used in any plastic that is pliable, whether it's clingfilm, kidney dialysis tubes, blood bags or toys. Sorting this out is going to be an interesting challenge for industry as well as society."
The work, which is to appear in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, is due to be presented at the Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals Forum in
Gwynne Lyons, toxics adviser to the WWF, said: "At the moment regulation of the chemicals industry is woefully inadequate."
She added: "Right now the government is looking at how the regulation of hormone disrupting chemicals could be made more effective under new EU chemicals law, but the chemicals industry is lobbying very hard to water down this legislation.
"Political agreement on this legislation is not expected until later this year so it remains to be seen whether the UK government has the guts to stand up to industry lobbying. If they don't, wildlife and baby boys will be the losers."
Movies move hormones towards romance
The next time you want your partner to feel more romantic, try watching a romantic movie with them. This is likely to send their progesterone levels, the hormone which controls the romantic feelings, soaring.
A study in an upcoming issue of Hormones and Behaviour says a person's hormones respond while they are watching movies and whereas a romantic movie makes you progesterone levels rise, an action movie like The Godfather will affect your testosterone levels.
Women and men reacted differently to the Godfather. After watching the movie, high-testosterone men saw their power motivat5ions and testosterone levels jump as much as 30 percent as their need for affiliation dropped.
High-testosterone women saw their testosterone fall.
ANI,
Train your brain and help it grow
The New York Times
If you hit the weights at the gym with iron regularity, your arms may get to look a little more impressive. The right kind of training, it now appears, can do much the same for the brain, though unfortunately the enlargement can be shown off only to observers with magnetic resonance imaging machines.
In a study conducted by Dr. Arne May and colleagues at the University of Regensburg in Germany, people who spent three months learning to juggle showed enlargement of certain areas in the cerebral cortex, the thin sheet of nerve cells on the brain's surface where most higher thought processes seem to be handled. They were then asked to quit juggling completely, and three months later the enlarged areas of the cortex had started to shrink.
The finding, which was reported in the current issue of the journal Nature, is similar to one in a study of
Both studies show how malleable the brain is under training, a finding already hinted at by the brain's own internal representation, or mapping, of body parts. In monkeys trained to use their fingertips for some task, the areas of the brain devoted to mapping the fingertips will enlarge, suggesting that the brain's various maps of the body are "plastic," in the parlance of neurology, not hard-wired.
The M.R.I. scans of jugglers and cabbies showed an enlargement of the gray matter, the brain areas rich in neurons, as opposed to the white matter, which consists mostly of the biological wiring that connects neurons. But the scanning machines can't see down to the level of individual neurons, so it's unclear what is causing the enlargement. Whether new neurons are ever generated in the adult brain has been a matter of fierce contention, the present consensus being that new neurons are created in the hippocampus and olfactory bulb but nowhere else.
Dr. May said the enlargement in the jugglers' cortex could be caused by new cells, whether created at the site or recruited from other areas, or by new interconnections. He favors the interconnection idea, he said via e-mail. Pasko Rakic, a brain expert at
The brain has about 100 billion neurons, each of which makes on average 1,000 connections with others, for some 100 trillion interconnections in all, none of them color coded. Learning to juggle, or navigate
(Source: Gene Expression)
Viagra's rival claims quicker effect
According to its developers, the effect lasts 24 hours. More interestingly, some patients who tested it stayed aroused for 36 hours, reports The Sun.
They also say that where Viagra can take over an hour to work and usually allow users to manage sex only once, the new drug gets men ready straight away.
Dr Richard Petty, an impotence specialist at the London Wellman Clinic, said: "My patients are over the moon about a pill that lasts so long. The main complaint about Viagra has been the lack of spontaneity."
"With Cialis a man takes his pill and knows there is a long period in which he can have sex. He can do it before he goes to sleep and again in the morning."
The launch comes amid an ongoing legal row in the
(websource: allrefer.com)
Men are better at driving!
The
MALE motorists are miles ahead when it comes to passing their driving test — needing 16 fewer hours in lessons than women.
Girls spend 40 per cent more time learning and pay £360 extra on tuition — but even then are more likely to fail.
Forty per cent of women slip up because they cannot reverse properly, an AA survey reports.
In fact, the only manoeuvre they perform better is checking their mirrors, the study shows.
Female learners take an average of 52 hours driving tuition over 14 months before qualifying behind the wheel — compared to 36 lessons in 12 months for men.
Men are also more likely to pass their test first time, with 46 per cent ripping up their L-plates after one attempt. Only 40 per cent of women manage the same.
Linda Hatswell, of the AA driving school, said: “Men have the edge when it comes to the number of hours they spend learning to drive before they pass their tests.
“They are also more likely to pass first time. But women prove safer drivers in the long run.”
Linda added: “Men are more technically minded and pick up practical skills more easily.
“Women interpret what they’re taught and develop their own technique when putting it into practice. This may take longer.”