Mi Choza De Nipa

Posted: 10 October 2011 PARIS: If you are always seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, be warned -- it could be an oncoming train. So says a study published Sunday in Nature Neuroscience which concludes that our well-known penchant for donning rose-tinted glasses may be a failure to store risk awareness in a key part of the brain. Tali Sharot, a professor at University College London , was intrigued as to why so many people -- even when facing long odds or bleak prospects -- remain stubbornly, even pathologically, optimistic. To learn more, 19 volunteers were asked to take part in an experiment. Sharot and colleagues monitored subjects in a functional magnetic resonance imaging ( fMRI ) scanner as they were confronted with life situations ranging from unpleasant to catastrophic. Having their car stolen, getting fired from their job, developing Parkinson's disease or cancer were among 80 scenarios evoked. After each hypothetical disaster , the volunteers were...

Posted: 04 October 2011 PARIS: Women who use hormonal birth control are roughly twice as likely to become infected with HIV or pass on the AIDS virus to their partner, according to a study published on Tuesday. The research was carried out among 3,790 heterosexual couples in Africa where one partner had the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) while the other was uninfected. The findings, if confirmed, could have huge repercussions for policies on contraception and HIV prevention. The authors say it strengthens the need for safe-sex messages, in which the condom is promoted as a shield against the AIDS pathogen. The couples were monitored for an average of 18 months during which 167 individuals became infected, 73 of them women, according to the paper appearing in The Lancet Infectious Diseases . Transcribed into a benchmark of prevalence, HIV transmissions were 6.61 per 100 person-years in couples where women used hormonal contraception, compared to 3.78 per 100 person-...