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Stress link to financial squeeze


BBC
Mon, 17 May 2010 14:39 UTC
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British Telecom's indoor garden is designed to soothe staff
Work pressures during the recession have caused a big rise in mental health problems, the charity says.

A survey for Mind suggests that one in 11 British workers has been to the GP for stress and anxiety from the financial squeeze.

And 7% said they were prescribed medicines to help them cope.

The Confederation of British Industry said employers were improving at caring for workers' mental health, but it was important to increase understanding.

The last couple of years have been an anxious time, even for those who have not found themselves out of work.

Many have had overtime cut, worked longer hours, or worried about job security.
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Family

Toddlers who lie 'will do better'


British Broadcasting Corporation
Mon, 17 May 2010 13:42 UTC
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© Unknown
Researchers said most children lied
Toddlers who tell lies early on are more likely to do well later, researchers claim.

The complex brain processes involved in formulating a lie are an indicator of a child's early intelligence, they add.

A Canadian study of 1,200 children aged two to 17 suggests those who are able to lie have reached an important developmental stage.

Only a fifth of two-year-olds tested in the study were able to lie.

But at age four, 90% were capable of lying, the study found. The rate increases with age to a peak at age 12.
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Teen Brain Wired to Take Risks

Emily Sohn
Discovery News
Mon, 17 May 2010 12:09 UTC
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© Getty Images
Brain research shows teens may have higher incentive to take the leap.
The adolescent brain is extra sensitive to reward signals when pay-off for a risk is higher than expected.

Teenagers do crazy things, and the chemistry of their brains might explain why.

In a new study, scientists found that the adolescent brain is extra sensitive to the rewarding signals it gets when something better than expected happens. The discovery might help explain why teens take risks that don't seem worth it to adults -- from driving too fast to experimenting with drugs.

"Teenagers seek out these sorts of rewarding experiences, and this provides a little explanation for that," said Russell Poldrack, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Texas, Austin. "In the long run, it may help us understand how addictions start and develop."

To zero in on the neuroscience behind risk-taking behavior in adolescents, Poldrack and colleagues focused on a concept called prediction error, which describes the difference between what a person expects to happen and what actually happens.
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Sleep Apnea May Increase Insulin Resistance


ScienceDaily
Mon, 17 May 2010 01:00 UTC
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© Mayo Foundation for Medical Ed. and Research
Sleep apnea may cause metabolic changes that increase insulin resistance, according to researchers from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. The intermittent hypoxia associated with sleep apnea causes a distinct drop in insulin sensitivity in mice, even though chronic hypoxia, such as that associated with high altitude, did not.

The research was reported at the ATS 2010 International Conference in New Orleans.

To determine whether intermittent hypoxia (IH) and chronic hypoxia (CH) would have different metabolic effects, Dr. Lee and colleagues fitted adult male mice with arterial and venous catheters for continuous rapid blood monitoring of glucose and insulin sensitivity. They then exposed the mice to either seven hours of IH, in which treatment, oxygen levels oscillated, reaching a low of about 5 percent once a minute, or CH, in which they were exposed to oxygen at a constant rate of 10 percent, and compared each treatment group to protocol-matched controls.
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Feces and Body Fluids Detected on New Clothes Bought in Stores

David Gutierrez
NaturalNews
Mon, 17 May 2010 00:00 UTC
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© Examiner
Clothing purchased new off the retail rack may be contaminated with potentially disease-causing organisms from bodily secretions, according to an investigation conducted by Good Morning America.

The television program hired microbiologist Philip Tierno of New York University to culture 14 articles clothing purchased from three different high- and low-end chain stores in New York City. Several articles of clothing tested positive for bacteria indicating contamination with feces or other bodily secretions.

"On this black and tan blouse we found representation of respiratory secretions, skin flora, and some fecal flora," Tierno said.

Another jacket contained similar secretions, especially in the armpit and "buttocks" area, he said. One blouse even contained vaginal organisms and yeast in addition to fecal bacteria.

"Some garments were grossly contaminated with many organisms ... indicating that either many people tried it on or ... someone tried it on with heavy contamination," he said.
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Think Eating "Organic" Meat is Okay? Think Again

David Gutierrez
NaturalNews
Mon, 17 May 2010 00:00 UTC
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© The Daily Mail
Brutal: A slaughterman drives his knee into a sheep's body as he wields a bolt gun at the creature
An undercover investigation into an organic slaughterhouse has challenged the assumption that ethically certified meat is any better than the regular kind.

The British animal welfare organization Animal Aid secretly planted cameras inside a slaughterhouse operated by Tom Lang, whose facility had been certified for the "humane slaughter" of organic animals by the Soil Association. The organization chose Lang's slaughterhouse precisely because it is certified to the highest standard available in the United Kingdom.

Forty hours of secret footage uncovered tightly packed animals being driven up to the facility, where they were chased into the factory by men beating them with sticks. Inside the facility, the animals are beaten once more to be herded into place. In one case, a man is seen punching, kicking and kneeing a pig, then striking it with a steel stunning tong at least 20 times, as the animal screams.

Striking animals is a violation of Soil Association rules and national slaughtering regulations.
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Now Independent Thinkers are Considered Diseased by Psychiatry

Ethan A. Huff
NaturalNews
Mon, 17 May 2010 00:00 UTC
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© Pavlin
Psychiatrists have been working on the fourth revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and, in it, they hope to add a whole slew of new psychiatric disorders. Unfortunately, many of these disorders are merely differences in personality and behavior among people.

The new edition may include "disorders" like "oppositional defiant disorder", which includes people who have a pattern of "negativistic, defiant, disobedient and hostile behavior toward authority figures." Some of the "symptoms" of this disorder including losing one's temper, annoying people and being "touchy".

Other "disorders" being considered include personality flaws like antisocial behavior, arrogance, cynicism or narcissism. There are even categories for people who binge eat and children who have temper tantrums.

Children are already over-diagnosed for allegedly being bipolar or having attention-deficit disorder (ADD), which results in their being prescribed dangerous antipsychotic drugs. To categorize even more childhood behaviors as psychiatric disorders will only further increase the number of children who will be needlessly prescribed antipsychotic drugs.
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Life Preserver

Being Bad at Relationships is Good for Survival

J.R. Minkel
LiveScience.com
Sat, 15 May 2010 16:25 UTC
Feeling happy and secure in our relationships is a goal many people strive for, but in times of need the emotionally insecure partners may be doing us a favor by being more alert to possible danger.

Evolution may have shaped us to consist of groups of emotionally secure and insecure individuals, researchers write in the March issue of the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science.

When faced with threats to close personal relationships, people react in different ways according to their sense of whether the world is a secure place. The same reaction styles also cause people to be more or less attuned to dangers of all kinds.

Evolution would have favored a mix of these so-called attachment styles if mixed groups were more likely to survive than groups of only secure or only insecure individuals.

"Secure people have disadvantages," experimental psychologist Tsachi Ein-Dor of the New School of Psychology in Herzliya, Israel, told LiveScience. "They react slowly and then act slowly because they need to first get organized."

Comment: This article appears to be taking a scientific approach to the analysis of why some people are insecure, specifically those who are insecure in relationships. The claim that this is an evolutionary step and therefore beneficial over all is glossing over the reason that some people are insecure - as children they did not experience the proper emotional training at the hands of (usually neglectful) parents.

Insecurity of the type described in the article cannot therefore be called an evolutionary adaption to improve the chances of survival of the species. It is more likely to be an example of the downward trend of humanity and the erosion of the average human being's ability to truly know and express the more positive side of human nature and, as a result, to rear well-adjusted children.

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Cow Skull

The Very Unappetising Truth About McDonald's Chicken Meals

Tom Rawstone
The Daily Mail
Sat, 15 May 2010 07:02 UTC
chicken sandwich

McChicken Sandwich: Much of McDonalds' poultry comes from Brazil, where the animals live in cramped condition
A chicken squats in a shed the size of a football pitch somewhere in the outback of Brazil. And it's not alone.

One of tens of thousands, each bird is allowed the floor space equivalent to a sheet of A4 paper and will live for just 40 days before it hits its genetically-engineered slaughter weight. That's if it doesn't perish along the way.

Five per cent or so will be unable to cope with the conditions and die even before then.

Those that survive will be plucked and butchered in an industrial process the like of which this planet has never before seen.

Every year billions of chickens will live and die in this way. Of course, South America is a long way away. But your local McDonald's is not. And that is where a significant proportion of this intensively reared meat will eventually end up.
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Family

Tainted nuke plant water reaches major New Jersey aquifer

Wayne Parry
Associated Press
Fri, 07 May 2010 07:24 UTC
Lacey Township, New Jersey - Radioactive water that leaked from the nation's oldest nuclear power plant has now reached a major underground aquifer that supplies drinking water to much of southern New Jersey, the state's environmental chief said Friday.

The state Department of Environmental Protection has ordered the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station to halt the spread of contaminated water underground, even as it said there was no imminent threat to drinking water supplies.

The department launched a new investigation Friday into the April 2009 spill and said the actions of plant owner Exelon Corp. have not been sufficient to contain water contaminated with tritium.

Tritium is found naturally in tiny amounts and is a product of nuclear fission. It has been linked to cancer if ingested, inhaled or absorbed through the skin in large amounts.
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