Tuesday 13 March 2012

Aggressive Nature - Tips for control

Affected by Aggressive nature? (Self or those around you)

A Simple tip from Australian University. Use the unusual hand to do some difficult jobs. It will teach patience.

People who find it difficult to rein in their aggression and yell at others even for silly mistakes can benefit by simply using the wrong hand in daily life and thereby practice self control, suggests a study.


Pictorial representation onlyAccording to Thomas Denson of the University of New South Wales, right handers should get into the habit of using a computer mouse, stirring a cup of coffee or opening a door with their left hand and left-handers should do the opposite, the Daily Mail reported.

Training yourself to use the wrong hand seems to act as practice for other kinds of self control, such as being polite. Just two weeks of the exercises reduce the tendency to act on impulse, he says.

"Using the mouse, stirring your coffee, opening doors. This requires people to practice self control because their habitual tendency is to use their dominant hands," he said.

In studies, Denson asked people to try to use their non-dominant hand for two weeks to keep a lid on their aggression much better. So if they are right handed, they are told to use their left hand "for pretty much anything that is safe to do".

Denson, whose findings have been published in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science, said it is only self control that keeps us from punching queue jumpers or murdering conniving colleagues.

Thursday 8 March 2012

Exercise Effects on DNA

Scientists in Sweden, explain the positive effects of exercise on the DNA. (Exercise necessarily not only the workout in Gymnasium, but household chores would also qualify, we should not forget. Our forefathers were equally strong to walk for miles, carry water climb hills with head loads with Gym)

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When healthy but inactive people exercise for a matter of minutes, it triggers a rather immediate change to their DNA, which may ultimately make them stronger, a new study has revealed.

The underlying genetic code in human muscle isn’t changed with exercise, but the DNA molecules within those muscles are chemically and structurally altered in very important ways.

Those modifications to the DNA at precise locations appear to be early events in the genetic reprogramming of muscle for strength and, ultimately, in the structural and metabolic benefits of exercise.

“Our muscles are really plastic,” said Juleen Zierath of Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.

“We often say ‘You are what you eat.’ Well, muscle adapts to what you do. If you don’t use it, you lose it, and this is one of the mechanisms that allows that to happen.”

The DNA changes in question are known as epigenetic modifications and involve the gain or loss of chemical marks on DNA over and above the familiar sequence of As, Gs, Ts, and Cs.

The new study shows that the DNA within skeletal muscle taken from people after a burst of exercise bears fewer chemical marks (specifically methyl groups) than it did before exercise.

Those changes take place in stretches of DNA that are involved in turning 'on' genes important for muscles’ adaptation to exercise.

When the researchers made muscles contract in lab dishes, they saw a similar loss of DNA methyl groups.

Epigenetic modifications that turn genes on and back off again can be incredibly flexible events. They allow the DNA in our cells to adjust as the environment shifts.

“Exercise is medicine," Zierath added, and it seems the means to alter our genomes for better health may be only a jog away.

The study has been published in Cell Metabolism, a Cell Press publication.

Wednesday 7 March 2012

Positive Effects of Music

Listening to music daily can evoke positive emotions and bring down your stress levels, being a simple and effective way to enhance well-being and health.

The thesis is based partly on a survey study involving 207 individuals, partly on an intervention study where an group of 21 people listened to self-chosen music for 30 minutes daily for two weeks while a similarly sized group got to relax without music.

"To get the positive effects of music, you have to listen to music that you like," says Marie Helsing of the University of Gothenburg, who authored the thesis.

"But...it is important to remember that all people do not respond in the exact same way to a piece of music and that one individual can respond differently to the same piece of music at different times, depending on both individual and situational factors," Helsing added.

The study shows that positive emotions were experienced more often and more intensively in connection with listening to music, according to a Gothenburg statement.

Tuesday 6 March 2012

Disappearing Act - Explained


For Long Magicians held sway over spectators, when they had made a huge ship or the statue of liberty disappear. Even the then imposing world trade center of New York, was also invisible for few minutes. It remained their trade secret for long.
However, everyone knew that it is nothing but an optical illusion.
German Scientists, now exhibit the theory by making a Benz Card disappear.
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Using optical camouflage, technology experts at Mercedez Benz have figured out how to make an entire car disappear.
The researchers created the illusion that their new zero emissions F-Cell Mercedes Benz is not even there at all, the Daily Mail reported.
Taking the principal that to see through something you need to see what’s behind it, they covered the driver’s side of the car in mats of LEDs, and mounted a digital SLR camera on the opposite side of the vehicle.
The camera shoots video on the passenger side of the car and the video is displayed in real time on the driver side of the automobile.
This ingenious approach, originally pioneered by scientists at the University of Tokyo, works on the same principles of the blue screen used by TV weather forecasters and Hollywood filmmakers.
The idea also mimics the iPad 2 Halloween costume that seems to display a gaping hole in the human body.
In Mercedes’ promotional video, stupefied Muggles stare and fall about in shock as the team put the car through its paces along the highways of Hamburg and the bridges of Bavaria.
Meanwhile online, while some pessimistic YouTube users were wary, anticipating that invisible cars would no doubt lead to brutal crashes, others fantasised about being able to park anywhere at all, without getting a ticket.