“Playing violent video games is associated with an increase in physical aggression over time.” — Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ( PNAS ). Source : https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/healthline-ritesh-kumar/article25146885.ece
Read More »Daily Archives: October 7, 2018
Sunscreen exposed?
Shedding light:A study by the Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) has shown that an extensive amount of sunscreen chemicals in seawater that could pose a risk to human health. The study, a world-first in identifying the harm that can be caused by a combination of polluting chemicals in sunscreen, has …
Read More »A second look at dyslexia
October is ‘World Dyslexia Awareness’ month. Dyslexia is broadly described as difficulty in acquiring age-appropriate reading skills in spite of opportunity and instruction. Neuroscience has firmly established that dyslexia is due to neurobiological differences in brain wiring and structure; it also has a strong genetic basis. Individuals with dyslexia might …
Read More »Slow, but steady
A decline in running speeds may be less steep than many of us fear Most of us who are older competitive runners are not able to race at anywhere near the same speed as we did when we were 30. But we can perhaps aim to slow down at the …
Read More »How to review, and why
ding Like a Writer , says reviewers must be emphatic when they write a favourable review: “‘You’ve got to read this’ should be the first line of every positive book review.” What to Read and Why is made up in great part with Prose’s introductions to reissued classics but also …
Read More »The politics of populism
Or, why the Sensex doesn’t indicate voting patterns I must confess to feeling a little sorry for Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. The poor man had barely returned after a grievous illness when he was hit with the double whammy of a plunging rupee and soaring fuel prices. There was little …
Read More »Sea battles on land
For listeners of music, analytical perspectives are one way to assert our association to a song over a fellow listener In a podcast released last year, the Canadian writer, Malcolm Gladwell, explored the history of the legendary pop song called ‘Hallelujah’ which was written and composed by the great Canadian …
Read More »Happy squirrel days in a London October
We are stocking up for winter, pulling out woollens, keeping one eye on the football while stirring the first thick soup of the season Normally, I’m not a big fan of the autumn in England. Most years the summer that’s just ended leaves me with a feeling of having been …
Read More »Cutting corners on medicine
Consumption of poor quality medicines could be accelerating drug resistance. India has to share some of the blame It is common for patients to stop taking medicines as soon as they start feeling better. Doctors have blamed this particular habit — of not completing the entire dose of antibiotics — …
Read More »Misogyny in a modern idiom
The attacks on girls and women every day are symptomatic of a deep malaise Where curriculum designers fear to tread, film directors take relaxed, bold strides. Few will consider ghosts and witchcraft as suitable topics for a textbook. Killing of women on the suspicion that they are practising witchcraft occasionally …
Read More »DNA tool to assess disease risk from genome analysis
Scientists say they have developed a new DNA tool that uses machine learning to accurately predict people’s height and assess their risk for serious illnesses such as heart disease and cancer. The tool, or algorithm, builds predictors for human traits such as height, bone density and even the level of …
Read More »Eastern Ghats face loss of forest cover, endemic plants
The Eastern Ghats spread across Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, has lost almost 16% of its forest area over a span of 100 years, a recently published study shows. Researchers from the University of Hyderabad studied historical maps and satellite images from 1920 to 2015 to understand the …
Read More »Common ant pollinates rare wild jamun
This is interesting as ants are usually depicted as poor pollinators Bees might be the most well-known pollinators, but researchers have found that common white-footed ants are the best pollinators of a rare evergreen tree in the southern Western Ghats. Syzygium occidentale is a small, wild jamun tree that grows …
Read More »Neurodegeneration to neuroregeneration: Exercise helps!
Can exercise itself be replaced and substituted with biochemical treatment, thereby supplying patients with ‘bottled exercise’? Over the last 30 years, the longevity of Indians, on average, has shot up remarkably. It was 41 years in the year 1960 and has risen to 68 years of age in 2015. While …
Read More »JNCASR restores memory in mice with Alzheimer’s
A small molecule attached to carbon nanospheres could cross the blood-brain barrier Using a small molecule that activates two enzymes (CBP/p300 histone acetyltransferases), researchers from India and France have been able to completely recover long-term memory in mice with Alzheimer’s disease. Neuron-to-neuron connections that form the network were re-established leading …
Read More »Ford: an automaker at a crossroads, seeks cuts and partners
losing money overseas, it is working on a solution. Furthermore, he praised the ability and leadership of Ford’s chief executive, Jim Hackett, who he said was doing “a really good job.” “I don’t think it’s even close to a crisis,” he said. Not everyone shares his confidence. The automaker’s bottom …
Read More »Pompeo eyes progress over Trump-Kim meet
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he hoped to make progress on denuclearisation and a second U.S.-North Korean summit, as he kicked off an Asian trip on Saturday that will feature a meeting with Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang. Mr. Pompeo arrived in Tokyo on the first leg of a …
Read More »The rebel from the Supreme Court
One of the most brutal attacks on the Bangladesh government in recent times came from an unlikely critic: a former Chief Justice. Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha stacked a litany of allegations against the government in his book, A Broken Dream: Rule of Law, Human Rights and Democracy . The most …
Read More »The growing threat of far-right terror
Last week, German authorities arrested eight men in the State of Saxony who were part of a far-right “terrorist” ring, called ‘Revolution Chemnitz’. Chemnitz, the largest city in Saxony, was recently in the news when hundreds of neo-Nazis took out a protests against refugees and immigrants. According to police, the …
Read More »Breaching China’s glamour citadel
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign is now targeting the glamour icons of the entertainment industry. On Wednesday, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported that megastar Fan Bingbing, whose earnings are only second to that of Jackie Chan, will have to cough out $129 million in unpaid taxes and fines. …
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