 |
|
|
Long-nailed Cooks Spoil the Broth WASHINGTON: Long nails being a breeding ground for potentially harmful bacteria, cooks and chefs with long finger nails are more likely to pass on food bugs such as E-coli to consumers, a new US study suggests. The
researchers have revealed that even after thorough washing bugs such
as E-coli can remain under finger nails. The findings, reported in New
Scientist magazine, recommend the urgent need for tough regulations
to require catering staff to have short nails. New Water Filter to Combat Arsenic, Lead Poisoning (Go To Top) LONDON: Said to save millions of lives around the world, a new water filter assembled by a professor from Bangladesh is due to be formally launched. Containing a mixture of crushed bricks and ferrous sulphate heated together, the new filter will be showcased at the world conference on arsenic poisoning in the United States. Arsenic and lead extraction from tube-wells is the specific aim of the filter. And many feel that the filter could prove to be a major breakthrough in the battle against arsenic poisoning. According to World Health Organisation estimates, as many as 80 million people could be affected by naturally occurring arsenic in underground water supplies across the country, in Bangladesh alone, reported BBC. Costing a measly 3 dollars for each filter, it is designed for Bangladeshis, and can supply enough drinking water every day for a family of four. So highly acclaimed is the invention that the United Nations is helping to organise a campaign that will distribute the filter to every village in the country.
Already, the filter has been introduced on a trial basis to villages
across the country. "The people in our village know this filter can
save their lives. Many people who had the first signs of arsenic poisoning
have now been cured," Islam said. South Indian Temple Cures Mental Illness, Sans Prayers (Go To Top) LONDON: Though there are many advanced treatments these days to help alleviate the sufferings of people afflicted with mental illnesses, a new study revealed that traditional temple healing practices may be equally, if not more, effective, in treating mental illness. The study was conducted at the Muthuswamy temple in South India, known as a source of help for people with serious mental disorders. For the study, reported in this week's BMJ, a trained psychiatrist examined everyone who came for help, between June to August 2000, on the first day of their stay in the temple and again on the day they left to return home, using recognised psychiatric rating scale scores. Family care-givers were also asked to assess satisfaction with their experience at the temple. A total of 31 people sought help and stayed at the temple. Twenty-three were diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, six with delusional disorders, and two with bipolar disorder. No religious ceremonies to promote the recovery of patients were performed at the temple. Instead patients were encouraged to take part in the daily maintenance routines of the temple. The researchers later found a reduction of nearly 20 per cent in psychiatric rating scale scores, representing a level of clinical improvement that matches the results achieved by many psychotrophic drugs. Even
the family care-givers expressed that most of the patients got substantial
relief from the symptoms and improved their mental conditions during
their stay in the temple. According to the authors, in the absence of
any specific healing rituals, the observed benefits appeared to result
from a supportive, non-threatening environment. Such healing institutions
can play great role in providing community mental health care, the authors
say. Some
More Light on G-Spot (Go To Top)
WASHINGTON: Viagra, and allied drugs, as it turns out, is just not only about men and pneumatics, it might play a significant role in bringing about orgasms in women , especially with a bigger G spot, famed to be awash with the enzymes that these drugs act on, reported the New Scientist journal. The G spot has often baffled most scientists, researchers and men alike and the term was coined by Ernest Grdfenberg in 1950, referring to an area a few centimetres up inside the vagina on the side closest to a woman's stomach. Buried in the flesh here are the Skene's glands, the female equivalent of the prostate gland. In women, Skene's glands are thought to produce a watery substance that may explain female "ejaculation". The tissue surrounding these glands, which includes the part of the clitoris that reaches up inside the vagina, swells with blood during sexual arousal. Though the is-it-there, is-it-not-there debate still rages on, Beverly Whipple, a neurophysiologist who co-wrote a book about the G-spot in the 1980s says, "Not everyone has accepted this yet." So Emmanuele Jannini of the University of Aquila, Italy, and his team decided to look for biochemical markers of sexual function in the area where the G spot is meant to be. They picked PDE5, an enzyme that chews up the nitric oxide that triggers erections. Viagra works by blocking PDE5. Whipple and others suspect the glands may have been there but were too small to spot. Even so, the small size of the area should make a "G-spot orgasm" unlikely. The
findings, according to the report, suggest that Viagra and related drugs
should have the greatest effect on women who have large Skene's glands
and heaps of PDE5, though trials of Viagra in women have so far had
mixed results. |
|