A high IQ can do a lot of things for you, including reducing your risk of developing post traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, according to Harvard University researchers.
After adjustment for socioeconomic status and other factors, the lower a subject’s intelligence, the more severe was his PTSD symptoms, a study of 105 Vietnam combat veterans found.
“Cognitive variables may affect the ability to cope with trauma, thereby affecting whether a person develops chronic PTSD,” Dr. Richard McNally reported in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
SURGEON MAY SOON `SEE’ INSIDE PATIENT
Surgeons may soon be equipped with a type of X-ray vision that will enable them to see inside patients before they begin to operate, according to researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
First tested in patients with brain disorders, the imaging system can identify the precise locations of cancers and other diseased tissue while showing the positions of critical structures, such as blood vessels, that should be avoided. The device was developed by MIT professors Eric L. Grimson and Tomas Lozano-Perez and graduate student Gil Ettinger.
3D MIR images are made of the inside of the brain and a laser beam is used to show the shape of the patient’s head. Then the images are brought together on a screen in front of the surgeon who can make marks on the patient’s scalp to outline important features.
ALCOHOL, STARS GO TOGETHER
Twinkle, twinkle little star, you’ve booze enough to start a bar.
Astronomers at Ohio State University have found that alcohol is a key component in the formation of stars, and they’ve located an interstellar cloud containing the pure alcohol equivalent of a trillion trillion pints of beer.
This is the first solid evidence that ethyl alcohol is among the molecules in star dust, Eric Herbst and Frank De Lucia, both Ohio State physicists, said.
“It seems the ethanol molecule is found in relatively high concentations in regions where stars are forming,” said Herbst. “The current thought is that ethanol is formed on the surface of tiny sand-like particles in interstellar clouds. The heat from the star that is forming transforms the molecule to a gas and we are able to observe it.”
Herbst and De Lucia published their findings in the April issue of the Journal of Physical and Chemical Reference Data.
CLEARING THE AIR FOR NON-SMOKERS
Portable air cleaners that have a charcoal filter to remove vapors and a particle filter to get rid of tar can significantly relieve headaches, nasal congestion or runny noses in non-smokers exposed to cigarette smoke.
A study of 12 people who are sensitive to cigarette smoke showed that the cleaners cut the severity of headaches and runny noses by 50 percent, and reduced nasal congestion five-fold, said Dr. Rebecca Bascom of the University of Maryland Medical Center.
Cleaners must have both filters and be large enough to recycle the air in a room, she said. About 30 percent of healthy non-smokers have symptoms of nasal congeston, runny nose or sneezing when they are exposed to tobacco smoke, she said.
HUSBANDS, WIVES VIEW CHANGES DIFFERENTLY
When husbands decide to have a less traditional marriage in terms of male and female roles, their marriages improve, Pennsylvania State University sociologists found in a nationwide survey of 2,033 married persons.
But when wives seek the same easing of traditional roles by making more decisions, sharing child care and housework with their husbands and having a career, their marriages becomes less happy, Alan Booth reported in the American Sociological Review.
Why the paradox? Husbands who become more supportive of their wives’ career plans and decide that it is all right to do more housework and child care report greater marital happiness, more shared activities and fewer conflicts with spouses, he said.
“As women abandon traditional attitudes, some husbands resist. This resistance results in marital decline and even divorce.”
WALNUTS, CHOCOLATE AN UNHEALTHY MIX
Eating walnuts may help reduce the risk of stroke, but not if they’re found in chocolate bars.
A new study published in Stroke, a journal of the American Heart Association, illustrates the unfolding complexity of dietary effects on health. In that study researchers from the University of California at San Francisco looked at blood levels of different kinds of fat in 96 men who had suffered strokes and 96 healthy men.
They contrasted levels of alpha-linolenic acid, a form of fat derived from vegetable sources such as walnuts or canola oil, and at stearic acid, found mainly in animal fats and chocolate.
The scientists concluded that higher levels of stearic acid were associated with greater risk of stroke, but higher levels of alpha-linolenic acid lowered a person’s stroke risk.
They’re not sure why.
