Here are a few stories I am reading today!
“AS THE light at the end of the tunnel approaches, the need to belong to a group and be near loved ones may be among your final thoughts. So say Markus Quirin and his colleagues at the University of Osnabrück in Germany. The team prompted thoughts of death in 17 young men with an average age of 23 by asking them whether they agreed or disagreed with a series of statements such as “I am afraid of dying a painful death”. At the same time, the men’s brain activity was monitored using a functional MRI scanner.”
“The so-called reward center of the brain may need a new name, say scientists who have shown it responds to good and bad experiences. The finding, published in PLoS One, may help explain the “thrill” of thrill-seeking behavior or maybe just the thrill of surviving it, according to scientists at Georgia Health Sciences University and East China Normal University.”
Freshmen on the eve of finals and graduate students staring down a thesis committee may not feel this way, but the privilege of obtaining an advanced education correlates with decades of lower blood pressure, according to a study led by a public health researcher at Brown University. The benefit appears to be greater for women than for men.
“A sub-study of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) headed by Ms Posserud was conducted as part of the “Barn i Bergen” (Children in Bergen) project. The study shows that the diagnosis of ASD may apply to as much as one per cent of the population.”