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According to a report in The Times, the study, commissioned by the US Climate Change Science Program, said that the rises will substantially exceed forecasts that do not take into account the latest data and observations.

The adjusted outlook suggests that recent predictions of a rise of between 7 inches and 2 feet over the next century are conservative.

The study predicts that sea level rises will be far higher than the levels that were set out last year by the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change.

The research looked at prehistoric periods when the climate changed dramatically over the course of decades, and evaluated the mechanisms behind such rapid transformation.

Rising sea levels were one of the major elements involved in past episodes, along with faster glacial melting, droughts and changes to the Atlantic Ocean’s heat-driven circulation.

According to the study’s authors, they are “among the greatest natural hazards facing the United States and the globe today” and call for “committed and sustained” monitoring of the forces that could trigger abrupt climate change.

“If we don’t monitor the vital signs of the patient, then we’ll never be in a position to advise on the best course of action to take to ward off or prepare for the potentially devastating consequences,” said Peter Clark, a professor of geosciences at Oregon State University and a lead author on the report.

But, the report concludes that some changes will not be as bad as first thought.

For example, rapid releases of methane stored in permafrost and on the seabed may be less likely than feared.

Other forecasts include a severe and permanent drought in the American West.

http://in.news.yahoo.com/139/20081217/981/tsc-sea-levels-will-rise-much-faster-tha.html

It found that a belief in one weakens positive feelings for the other and this effect appears to be independent of a person’s religious background or views, said University of Illinois psychology professor Jesse Preston, who led the research.

Preston and her colleague, Nicholas Epley, of the University of Chicago, wanted to explore how information about science influences a belief in God, and how religious teaching can also cause people to doubt certain scientific theories. They conducted two experiments designed to manipulate how well science or God can be used as explanations.

In the first experiment, 129 volunteers read short summaries of the Big Bang theory and the “Primordial Soup Hypothesis,” a scientific theory of the origin of life. Half then read a statement that said that the theories were strong and supported by the data. The other half read that the theories “raised more questions than they answered.”

In the second experiment, which involved 27 undergraduate students, half of the study subjects had to “list six things that you think God can explain.” The others were asked to “list six things that you think can explain or influence God.”

All the subjects were then required to quickly categorize various words as positive or negative on a computer.

“What they didn’t realize was that they were being subliminally primed immediately before each word. So right before the word ‘awful’ came up on the screen, for example, there was a 15-millisecond flash of either ‘God’ or ’science’ or a control word,” Preston said.

A 15-millisecond visual cue is too brief to register in the conscious mind, but the brief word flash did have an effect. Those who had read statements emphasizing the explanatory power of science prior to the test were able to categorize positive words appearing just after the word, “science,” more quickly than those who had read statements critical of the scientific theories.

The researchers found that those who were asked to use God as an ultimate explanation for various phenomena displayed a more positive association with God and a much more negative association with science than those directed to list other things that can explain God.

Preston said that similarly, those who read the statement suggesting that the scientific theories were weak were extremely slow to identify negative words that appeared after they were primed with the word “God.”

“It was like they didn’t want to say no to God. What is really intriguing is that the larger effect happens on the opposite belief. When God isn’t being used to explain much, people have a positive attitude toward science. But when God is being used to account for many events – especially the things that they list, which are life, the universe, free will, these big questions – then somehow science loses its value,” she said.

“On the other hand, people may have a generally positive view of science until it fails to explain the important questions. Then belief in God may be boosted to fill in the gap,” she added.

Preston said that the most obvious implication of the research is that “to be compatible, science and religion need to stick to their own territories, their own explanatory space.”

http://in.news.yahoo.com/139/20081216/981/tsc-belief-in-god-weakens-positive-feeli.html

This new “enhanced” form of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT-E), developed by researchers at Wellcome Trust, builds on and improves the current leading treatment for bulimia nervosa as recommended by the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE).

CBT-E is the first treatment to be shown to be suitable for the majority of cases of eating disorders.

According to NICE, eating disorders are a major cause of physical and psychosocial impairment in young women, affecting at least one in twenty women between the ages of 18 and 30. They also occur in young men but are less common.

Three eating disorders are recognised: anorexia nervosa, which accounts for around one in ten cases in adults; bulimia nervosa, which accounts for a third of all cases; and the remainder are classed as “atypical eating disorders, which account for over half of all cases. In these atypical cases the features of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa are combined in a different way.

The three eating disorders vary in their severity, but typically involve extreme and relentless dieting, self-induced vomiting or laxative misuse, binge eating, driven exercising and in some cases marked weight loss. Common associated features are depression, social withdrawal, perfectionism and low self-esteem.

The disorders tend to run a chronic course and are notoriously difficult to treat. Relapse is common.

This new treatment derives from an earlier form of CBT that was designed exclusively for patients with bulimia nervosa. Both were developed by Professor Christopher Fairburn, a Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow at the University of Oxford.

In 2004, the earlier treatment became the first psychotherapy to be recognised by NICE as the leading treatment for a clinical condition and its use was recommended across the NHS.

Now, in a new study, Professor Fairburn and colleagues have shown that the enhanced version of the treatment is not only more potent than the earlier NICE-recommended treatment, but it can also be used to treat both bulimia nervosa and the atypical eating disorders, making it suitable for over 80 percent of cases of eating disorders.

“Eating disorders are serious mental health problems and can be very distressing for both patients and their families. Now for the first time, we have a single treatment which can be effective at treating the majority of cases without the need for patients to be admitted into hospital,” said Professor Fairburn.

The study is published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

http://in.news.yahoo.com/139/20081215/981/tsc-new-psychotherapy-effective-against.html

According to the experts, the chances of developing a malignant tumour are “significantly increased” for people who use a mobile for ten years.

The shocking finding is the result of the biggest ever study by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organisation.

The experts found a type of brain tumour called glioma is more likely in long-term mobile users.

French experts analysed data from 13 countries, including Britain.

Although researchers admit the cause is unknown, but according to them radiation from handsets could be the trigger.

“To underestimate the risk would be a complete disaster,” the Sun quoted study chief Professor Elisabeth Cardis, as saying.

However, a British expert insisted mobiles are not dangerous.

Professor Patricia McKinney of the University of Leeds said: “Reasonable use is unlikely to increase the risk of tumours.” (ANI)

http://in.news.yahoo.com/139/20081016/936/thl-mobile-phones-really-do-up-brain-can.html

The boffins found that individuals who ate the milk product saw their risk of suffering from the disease drop by 40 per cent compared to those who rarely touched yogurt.

Researchers reckon that bacteria in yogurt gives the protection.

To reach the conclusion, the experts looked at the diets of more than 80,000 volunteers over nine years and found that the 500 who developed bladder cancer were likely not to have eaten much yogurt.

The scientists said that having about two average-sized tubs of yogurt a day reduced the risk by 45 per cent in women and 36 per cent in men.

But not all dairy products were found to have the same benefit.

“Cultured milk products such as yogurt contain lactic acid bacteria and have been shown to suppress bladder cancer in rats,” the Daily Express quoted the researchers at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, as saying.

“Our research suggests a high intake may reduce the risk,” they added.

http://in.news.yahoo.com/139/20081017/936/thl-eating-yogurt-every-day-cuts-bladder.html

During the study, the researchers examined how strong memories are formed by creating new memories in the minds of mice while under sedation and monitoring their response to a memory-inducing stimulus afterwards, when they were awake.

“Our work is unique because it allows us to examine the cellular make-up of a memory, evaluate how the neurons change when a memory is formed and learn how that memory affects behaviour,” said Stephen Shea, Ph.D., the lead author of the study.

The researchers created memories by stimulating the release of noradrenaline – a chemical present in the body during strong emotional events ranging from excitement to fear.

Previous studies have established a link between noradrenaline and the formation of enduring memories, especially during intense social events such as mating and childbirth.

In mice and humans, the presence of noradrenaline also creates changes in the odour-processing center of the brain, called the olfactory bulb.

“When an animal forms a strong memory about another, it is reliant on odour cues and noradrenaline. Both need to be present at the same time in order for the memory to be formed. Long-term memories created under these conditions often result in a permanent change in behaviour,” Shea said.

The researchers administered anesthesia to a mouse and stimulated the release of noradrenaline with an electrode while wafting the scent of either food or the urine of another mouse under the nose.

“We wanted to see if these two elements – noradrenaline and odour – present at the same time were the key ingredients needed in the recipe for creation of memory – this is a concept that had not been directly tested before this study. In essence, we recreated the chemical reaction that would occur when the mouse experiences a social event, such as giving birth,” Shea said.

Researchers knew they could observe brain activity in more detail when the mouse was under anesthesia. If awake, the mouse would be forming memories from the surrounding environment.

“When the animal is asleep, you can watch neurons in the brain rewire to store a memory and once awake see what the mouse learned even though it was asleep when the memory was created,” Shea said.

Researchers saw an approximate 40 percent reduction in neuron activation after triggering the noradrenaline release – suggesting that a memory of the odour had been formed.

A day later, after the mouse was awake, the researchers observed changes in behaviour in response to the scents, showing that they remembered the smells from when they were asleep.

“This work may have implications for furthering our understanding of how long-lasting memories are formed that are important to social bonding,” said Richard Mooney, Ph.D., co-author and associate professor of neurobiology.

The study is published in the Journal of Neuroscience. (ANI)

http://in.news.yahoo.com/139/20081017/936/thl-how-scent-brings-back-memories-of-em.html

The science has already warned us in strong terms that mobile phone has adverse effect on our health for its emission of electro-magnetic radiation each time we receive a call signal. Just imagine if one single unit of mobile set can cause bad effect on our health in due course of time, then what would be the consequence of bombardment of signal impulses which lead to ceaseless emission of electromagnetic radiation in greater density by transmitting towers near our residences.

Yes, different groups of scientists in US, Germany etc have come up with startling findings that just can deflate our pride in having our building crowned with mobile phone towers. The studies have established that person staying near 500 meters of the tower is three times more prone to suffer from cancer than other staying further away from the tower. Besides cancer other illnesses that may appear in few years are fatigue, cataracts, reduction of mental concentration and immune system. Children are more sickness-porn due to this electromagnetic radiation than the adult. Yes, the noise is also another gnawing irritant caused by this tower unit.

Well, I wonder how nonchalantly cool are our mobile company that they keep on erecting towers by paying a few thousand rupees per month to the building owners. They never bother to take opinions or permission of the immediate neighbors whose health is equally at stake for that towering system. If I am not wrong the law must require the company to formally obtain the permission of the people residing within the radius of at least 500 meters prior to installment of the tower.

I guess a few thousand rupees as rent now but fatal sicknesses later is not a fair bargain between the company and the building owners.

http://shillong-2.sulekha.com/blog/post/2008/10/mobile-phone-towers-and-health-hazards.htm

http://subbumani.sulekha.com/blog/post/2008/10/investing-in-global-warming.htm

Professor Shomenath Bandopadhyay of Naihati is a 36 year old lecturer in Bengali at Jhargram College. He is also the editor of a monthly paper called Abomanob (Avmanav, literally meaning subhuman) that deals with the plight of the eunuch and seeks to abolish the “Hijra Pratha” of sex sale of the eunuchs.

Mr Bandopadhyay lives with his parents at his residence at Naihati. He wears colourful, unconventional clothes, has long, hennaed hair and uses make-up and jewellery. He has been active since two years trying to “make the intelligentsia aware of the plight of the Hijra” through his little magazine, he says, since according to him it is the intelligentsia that runs the society. He has also done some private social work trying to arrest the dropout of transsexual children from local schools by financing their education and also, in some occasions, even providing them with meals, but admits that he has not been very successful in these projects. Transsexuals continue to castrate themselves and enter the Hijra community due to social pressures as well as for the more easily available sex.

Are eunuchs asexual or hermaphrodite? What is the difference between an eunuch and a transssexual ? Mr. Bandopadhyay answers stating that only a minority of the eunuchs are clinically hermaphrodite having genital disfigurement disorders like hypospaedeus and ovotestes and are truly sexually handicapped by birth. Noone is asexual. And as for the rest, they are “simply transsexuals who are biologically male but psychologically female.” It is this section of people, he stresses, that he mainly works with and who also happen to form the bulk of the Hijras. SRS or Sex Reconstruction Surgery, he says, is the only hope of a solution to the problem of either group.

The eunuch has always formed a part of our culture and folklore since ancient times, he declares. The Mahabharata and the Ramayana contain individual as well as collective references of eunuchs in the form of Shikhandi, Brihannala and others. Even the Hindu god Vishnu is said to have gone trans­vestite as Mohini and even succeeded in enchanting the lord Shiva with his (her?) charms. With novels like Pourush (by Kabita Sinha), Shantaap (Manab Chakraborty) and The Invisible Tales of Eunuchs of India (Ziya Jaffrey) being written and films like Darmiyaan and Tamanna being screened as well as individuals like Kamala Jaan and Shahbano Bai winning elections and holding government posts and portfolio, does the condition of the average eunuch seem to be improving in the country? Banerjee replies that the upliftment of the eunuch has chiefly been an urban or more specifically, a metropolitan phenomenon in India as well as abroad, to some extent, due to economic reasons and stresses that the situation will improve only if society as a whole progresses.

Bandopadhyay talks about the various superstition that plague the eunuch and their origin. Their very sight is generally considered unlucky because people are afraid of their curses. What in reality they are afraid of is of possible retribution (divine or otherwise) for the cowardice of hurting a totally helpless individual. The custom of social ostracisation, Banerjee believes, started with the aforementioned minority group of eunuchs but later extended to the transsexuals as well, who started using the set up to find male partners for themselves, uncastrated transsexuals are known as Dhuraani in the community while the emasculated ones are as called Koti. Their male partners are called Parik and Giriya, respectively. The Hijra is a religious man. The customs of social ostracisation and general hatred being a chiefly Hindu origin, he feels more secure and accepted in Sufi festivals and mazaars and Baul fairs. Ghuntiari Sharif, South 24 Pgs. is one. such place where these people gather in large numbers for worship and celebration. Mr.Bandapadhyay also recounts a list of some socalled less unfavourable­ superstition about the Hijras like Marathi businessmen giving them money before the first sale of their day and families welcoming them at rituals of marriage and childbirth to gift them food and money and let them hold their babies. These practices, he says, though of humanitarian origin serve only to perpetuate the evi1 system of the isolation and prostitution of the eunuchs. Medical treatment in the form of alternative sex support is what he suggests as a step in the right direction. No he does not support castration as practised by the Hijras.

Yes he supports bi/homosexuality, mentioning that the WHO has approved of it as an alternative lifestyle and predicting that it is due to be socially accepted in India as well, in the very near future. No, he does not believe that homosexual marriages should be legalised : he does not believe in the institution of marriage. No, he does not believe that prostitution should be legalised: prostitution of any kind, male, female or eunuch. And yes, he distinguishes transsexuals from the male homosexual on the basis of their desire to be female. It is time, he says, for the eunuch to face reality about himself. As well as for society as a whole to confront the matter (that Bahuchara Maata, the traditional deity of the eunuchs of northern India is curiously a defeminised female although the eunuchs themselves are mostly castrated males is partly a result of psychological inversion and partly a deliberate attempt at a myth on the part of the eunuch, according to him, that serves to conjure an enigma in the minds of the ordinary man with regard to the eunuch’s sexual and social identity that the eunuch believes results in his protection from society as well as from himself).

An erstwhile exponent of Bharat Natyam, Shomenath is engaged in writing his very first novel, Proshitobhortrika, in Bengali. He admits it to be a semiautobiographical novel that will deal with contemporary society as a whole and “not only the minority groups.” Abomanab reflects his almost teenager-like exhibitionist exuberence and a remarkable freshness of outlook apart from an admirable command over his language. His novel, he says, is going to have sequels. At present, he is actively involved in promoting an NGO, LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transsexual) which features personalities like sociologist Bula Bhadra and transsexual poet Tista Mitra through talk shows (ETV Bangla, E-Shomoy) and documentaries (he, himself, has been recently shot by filmmaker Goutam Ghose).

A few basic questions still do remain. Manhood is a gift of Nature/God. Why should certain individuals choose to deny it and go for feminisation, especially when women are not particularly a superior class of people but just the sexual counterparts of men? Also, emasculation does not necessarity mean feminisation. The biological masculinity of the transsexual is a private affair, but their psychological femininity is certainly doubtful consisting of a mere fondness for makeup and jewellery, a slavish adherence to the patriarchal set-up of family (both of which are really general characteristics and not gender-specific, contrary to general opinion) and general homosexuality (which is supposed to be a genetic and/or psychological inversion which disproves the original assumption that the subject wants to be female). The cause of this identity crisis of theirs may be physical (hormonal/chromosomal-genetic) or psychological or even psychosomatic. It is certainly influenced and even tacitly “encouraged” by society. We need to promote more biological and medical research in this matter. We also need to review the laws with regard to corrective surgery which are at present carried out only highly secretively (viz. the case of Nrisinghaprasad Bhaduri of IIT Kanpur who desired a sex change but has been denied by law). We also need to research and reassess gender definitions, roles and status in society, not only for the benefit of the transsexua1, but a1so for the benefit of general human beings. And we certainly need bright individuals like Shomenath Bandopadhyay to help us along the way.

http://sucheta-dasgupta.sulekha.com/blog/post/2008/09/the-transsexual-question.htm