Traffic may cause premature births: Study

As famous for its traffic jams as it is for Hollywood star power, the Los Angeles, Calif. area has another dirty little secret: Air pollution is sickening pregnant women who live near roadways, more than doubling their risk of a premature birth, according to a new study.

Scientists have known for years that smog plays havoc with residents' health. Asthma, blood pressure and a host of cardiovascular diseases all get worse in people exposed to high levels of air pollution.

Now Jun Wu of the University of California, Irvine and a team of researchers have shown that the effects are amplified for pregnant women living within three kilometers (1.9 miles) of a major roadway.

Read more

The impact of yoga postures on tinnitus

A neurotransmitter of brain, GABA or gamma-aminobutyric acid, inhibits all the electrical activity to diminish tinnitus, anxiety, epileptic seizure and depression, which come under the neurodegenerative activities. Many studies indicate that the yoga substantially enhances the levels of GABA and there by reduce tinnitus. The deficiency in GABA worsens tinnitus and by extension leads to stress, emotional difficulty, depression, anxiety and fear.

The study published by the Rajasthan University of India too emphasis on the impact of yoga on the positive influence on tinnitus, and migraine headaches. When breathing techniques and yoga postures are practiced for five continuous months, they tend to reduce the intensified tinnitus, to a great extent.

Read more about this research here

Women more likely to avoid looking at abnormal babies than men

Puzzling new research suggests women have a harder time than men looking at babies with facial birth defects. It's a surprise finding.

Psychiatrists from the Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital, who were studying perceptions of beauty, had expected women to spend more time than men cooing over pictures of extra-cute babies. Nope.

Instead, the small study being published Wednesday raises more questions than it can answer.

Animal biodiversity keeps us healthy!

Maintaining the diversity of life on Earth does more than just keep the world interesting. It also keeps us healthy.

At a field site in Panama, scientists found that rates of hantavirus tripled in rodents as the number of rodent species dropped. Hantavirus is an often-fatal disease that can spread from rodents to people.

The new study strengthens a growing sense that reducing biodiversity increases the risk that diseases will jump from animals to people.

In the last few years, scientists have increasingly noticed that, when biodiversity dips, rates of Lyme disease, West Nile virus, SARS and other infectious diseases rise. Called zoonotic diseases, these illnesses also spread from animals to people.

Sceintific investigation of "Self Awareness"

Researchers presented to the test persons photos of their own face and of their partner (wife or friend) for comparison, in order to be able to control (“shorten out”) emotional reactions on known faces. For further comparison photos of unknown men and women were presented.

When looking at their own face broad areas of the right-hemispheric limbic system and the left frontal lope were activated, whereas when looking at the partner only a small area in the right hemisphere of the brain was activated.
The results show a dramatic difference in the neuronal processing of the own face in comparison to the one of an emotionally close person. In terms of brain evolution very young areas of the brain take part in self recognition: areas of the left frontal lobe, which are brought in connection with the ability of self reflection; but also the very old limbic system participates, which perhaps has to do with the diffuse feeling of “self” or “I”.

These studies could show for the first time, that “self-awareness” can be investigated by scientific methods. Through this, also completely new possibilities open up for studying frequent diseases as schizophrenia, which are accompanied by a fundamental disturbance of self-awareness.

After transplant, brain rewires left hand first

When patients had both hands transplanted, their brains re-established connections much more quickly with the left hand than the right, a team of researchers in France reports.

The sample was small, just two patients, but both had been right-handed before losing their hands, and both followed a pattern of reconnection with their brain that was quicker for the left hand.

The researchers said more study is needed to determine why the brain reconnected more efficiently to the left hand in these patients. Possibilities include a basically better connection to the left hand, factors in the way that the brain reorganizes itself during the process of the loss of a hand and its later replacement, or perhaps some pre-existing difference in brain organization.

In general, experiments have shown that the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body and many researchers believe it also dominates in such areas as spatial abilities, face recognition, visual imagery and music. The left side of the brain controls the right side of the body and is thought to dominate in language, mathematics and logic. However, many traits are shared by both sides, and if one side is damaged the other can take over many of its functions

Yoga on youtube

Thanks to those who have been preparing this stuff.

Active Meditation

Cancer

Constipation and Piles

Eyes

High Blood Pressure

Insomnia

Lifestyle

Musculoskeletal Disorders

Obesity

Pranayam

Skin Diseases

Vertebral Column and Spinal Cord

Yoga and Youth

Full-term pregnancy may not always be best

A study that shows the use of drugs to delay preterm labor may be harmful challenges the current view that "keeping the baby inside longer must be a good thing", say experts.

The opinion appears as an editorial in the latest edition of the British Medical Journal in response to a study that appears in the same edition.

According to the Dutch study, preterm labor is the main cause of perinatal illness and death in the developed world.

Drugs, known as tocolytics, are used to delay delivery for up to 48 hours.

This is primarily to give doctors time to administer steroids to speed up the baby's lung development, transfer the mother to a center with a neonatal intensive care unit, or both.

The researchers found the overall incidence of adverse reactions to a tocolytic drug was low. However, they found increased problems when the tocolytics were delivered in a multi-drug regimen.

Yoga may help one restore sense of smell

Jala Neti, or nasal cleansing using warm salty water, is a very ancient technique which has been passed on for thousands of years by the Yogis ("Researchers" is one of the meanings of "Yogis") for both physical as well as deeper spiritual benefits.

This is one of many videos available on youtube shortly explaining Jal Neti.

Those who take up Jala Neti find their sense of smell improves. To what degree and in what time frame this occurs would depend on the extent to which the olfactory nerves are damaged and how often one uses the technique.

Salt is a great neutraliser. It is one of nature's greatest remedies. But it may take a while for it to do its thing and for your smelling nerves to recover from years of medicinal abuse.

Neti is one possibility to help restore balance to the membranes and nerves of the nose. It is suggested to practice Jal Neti and, as the symptoms improve, begin lessening the use of medications followed.

Disgust, moral and physical Hard-Wired alike

Disgust over an unfair or immoral social situation is hard-wired into the human body as strongly as the reaction to a foul taste, according to research published in the journal Science.

By studying the electrical activity of a muscle in the upper lip in both physically and morally offensive situations, scientists determined that disgust is equally strong in both cases.

"People use the term disgust in terms of morally offensive situations," said Adam Anderson, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Toronto and a co-author on the study. "Our study looked at whether this reaction was genuine disgust or just a metaphor."

For both sexes the most active region was the parietal lobe that deals with visual perception, spatial orientation and information processing, but it was focused on the right side of the brain in men while both sides participated in women.

Yoga Nidra may help improve physical abilities

Visualization techniques from practises such as Meditation and Yoga Nidra used as strategies and interventions such as in Motor Imagery (MI) or mental rehearsal provide contrasting reports on the level of effectiveness of MI in learning new motor skills.

There is a consensus that MI can lead to improvement in performance used in combination with physical practise because it shares similar neural mechanisms with cortical preparatory processes used in motor control.

Functional brain imaging studies indicate several cortical and sub-cortical areas active during actual motor performance are also active during imagination or mental rehearsal of the movements.

Get and read the complete research paper here.

Discovery Could Help Adults Grow New Teeth

Ever wonder why sharks get several rows of teeth and people only get one? Some geneticists did, and their discovery could spur work to help adults one day grow new teeth when their own wear out.

A single gene appears to be in charge, preventing additional tooth formation in species destined for a limited set. When the scientists bred mice that lacked that gene, the rodents developed extra teeth next to their first molars -- backups like sharks and other non-mammals grow, University of Rochester scientists reported Thursday.

"It's exciting. We've got a clue what to do," said Dr. Songtao Shi of the University of Southern California School of Dentistry, who said the Rochester discovery will help his own research into how to grow a new tooth from scratch.

Read full

Men, Women admire beauty differently in brain

Scientists have known for a while now that men and women have slightly different brains, but they thought the changes were limited to the the part of the brain that controls sex drive and food intake. A few scientists may have admitted that men's brains were indeed bigger, but they would have tried to qualify this finding by telling you that it was because men were bigger. Because brain size has been linked with intelligence, it's very tricky to go around saying that men have bigger brains. Yet men do seem to have women beat here; even when accounting for height and weight differences, men have slightly bigger brains. Does this mean they're smarter? Let's keep going. "Differences in Male and Female Brain Structure" describes this further.

Though there are different opinions regarding whether beauty lies in mind, eyes or brain, scientists have found interesting results. Men process beauty using right part of their brain whereas women use whole brain to do the same job. It could be one of the reasons, why a beautiful photo for a man could be awful for a woman!

Uninostril breathing may increase Spatial Memory

Spatial memory deals with remembering location of things. If it is often difficult to find where you had put your keys or find address, some Yoga breathing techniques, especially, breathing through left nostril may be useful!

Scientific experiments were carried out to observe the effects of 1) breathing through left nostril, 2) breathing through right nostril, 3) breathing through alternate nostrils 4) normal breathing with awareness with both the nostrils and 5) automatic breathing. Researchers have found that Yoga breathing through a particular nostril increases spatial memory scores.

See more research papers on Yoga here.

What we hear is what Mosquitoes sing!

A new research finds that mosquitoes actually sing to each other to determine mating match. According to researchers, a female mosquito could use the harmonic matching as a fitness measure while selecting a male.

Scientists hope to use this information to control the population of disease spreading mosquitoes and match the buzz of mating mosquitoes to try and curb disease spread.

What would you do, if you hear them today (14th Feb)? :-)

Yoga and Bronchial Asthma

Increased muscle tension caused by psychological or emotional factors such as deep sense of dependency, anxiety, very high self consciousness etc. may lead to increased Asthma attacks.

According to researchers, Yoga may help reduce the Asthma attacks as it reduces the excitability of the nervous system!

More research papers on Yoga.

Brushing Teeth May Help Prevent Preterm Birth

According to researchers, previously undiscovered bacteria usually found in the mouth could be responsible for up to 80 percent of early preterm labors. See more here.

Also see Why is Oral Hygiene so Important During Pregnancy? to know more about pregnancy-gingivitis, one of the most common problems associated with the pregnancy for not having good oral hygiene.

Indian and Chinese children get better education than US's!

According to a documentary, Two Million Minutes, Indian and Chinese children get better education than their US counterpart.

Creator of this documentary, Bob Compton shares his idea behind creating this film and reasons behind his thoughts. As per him, high school education prepares students for their long term carrier aspirations. And India and China are doing that very well.

• But doing so, what happens to those highly aspired carrier oriented Indian students after high school?
• Why many a times their counterparts outperform them?
• Do we need to make those high-school-passed students more and more focused when they choose their course further?
• Do we need a change at higher levels of studies?
• Is syllabus also a reason for making them jack of all, master of none?
• How about cutting down the syllabus?