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Can Drugs Make You Love
Someone You Don't?
 

From Alter-Net.com
I can just hear it now: "I’m sorry, I don’t love you anymore. It’s not my fault though. It’s a chemical imbalance in my brain."

"People often rationalize their inability to have long-term relationships with psychological reasons -- you know, they’re inadequate or whatever or they lack ego," Professor Car Wood of Melbourne’s Monash University tells me in an online interview. "But it may just be a problem in their brain chemistry and when they strike the right chemical mix they are able to bond and form long-term relationships.” According to Wood, research into the chemicals that control love, lust and attachment could eventually result in drugs that would make you fall in love and bond with another person.

But, before you run to your doctor to write you a prescription, we’re not quite there yet. Robert T. Francoeur, a professor of human sexuality and author of The International Encyclopedia of Sexuality says neuroscientists have been studying the chemical makeup of love, lust and bonding using something called functional magnetic-resonance imaging (FMRI) for years now. "We have some insights, but no complete explanations says," Francoeu

They do know, for example, why you suddenly become as excited as a schoolgirl, get butterflies in your stomach and can’t eat or sleep when you first fall in love. "Natural amphetamines are triggered in the brain and do what any natural or synthetic amphetamine does," explains Francoeur. "They give you that hyped-up feeling." So basically, you’re on speed.

If you’re lucky when your brain eventually comes down, endorphins kick in. "These are the natural opiates, like serotonin" says Francoeur, "these give us the feelings of relaxation and security that come with long-term love." Combine endorphins with oxytocin, otherwise known as the "bonding" or "cuddling" hormone, and, tah-dah, you’ve got a long-term relationship.

But Francoeur adds that while you can isolate the chemicals involved, it is harder to determine why amphetamine-fuelled lust turns into more relaxed long-term bonding in some cases and not others.

A lot of it has to do with our "love map" says Francoeur, "a unique, idiosyncratic sequence of events that determine who and what we are attracted to. Some of this is encoded in the brain before birth. Other things like sexual orientation and gender identity are part of it. Even the image of your first love can contribute to your ideal-lover template."

Organic Label Watchdog Takes on Target

From UTNE Reader --
Mark Kastel and the Cornucopia Institute are at it again, standing up for the organic food label and going after corporations who play loose with it. The organization co-founded by Kastel, recently named one of Utne Reader’s “50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World,” just fired a volley at Target stores, accusing the megaretailer of deceiving customers about soymilk.

In a press release, Cornucopia says Target advertised Silk soymilk as organic in newspaper ads by showing the carton with “organic” on its label, even though the soymilk was not organic. Cornucopia has filed formal complaints with the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture’s organic program and with Minnesota and Wisconsin officials. Cornucopia has previously criticized Dean Foods, the maker of Silk, for quietly switching to conventional soybeans in the core products of its White Wave soy division.

Was the image of the organic carton an honest mistake by a graphic designer, or an attempt to capitalize on the cachet of the organic label by implying that Silk is organic? Target isn’t saying much at this point. Spokeswoman Jana O’Leary tells Utne Reader that Target is investigating the matter and that the retailer sells both organic and nonorganic Silk at its SuperTarget stores.

Cornucopia has called foul on Target before, most notably in 2007 when it accused Target’s private-label food line, Archer Farms, of using milk that was produced in violation of federal organic livestock standards by the Colorado-based Aurora Dairy. Despite that the USDA found Aurora had willfully violated 14 federal organic regulations, the dairy was allowed to stay in business and Target stuck with Aurora as its Archer Farms milk supplier

 

Too Much Light Linked to Depression
 

from SpiritDaily.com --
Bright street lighting and office blocks that remain lit all night could be affecting our mental health, scientists have warned. Researchers said too much light at night can be linked to depression. Those living in cities have long complained that fluorescent street lights affect their ability to sleep and can alter their mood.
Now psychologists have confirmed that being unable to escape to the dark can have a harmful effect on someone's personality.

In tests on mice, the study authors found that those kept in a lit room 24 hours a day showed more depressive symptoms than those that had a normal light-dark cycle. Mice that lived in constant light, but could escape into a dark tube when they wanted showed less evidence of depressive symptoms than those who had no escape.

Laura Fonken, who led the study at Ohio State University in the U.S., said: 'The ability to escape light seemed to quell the depressive effects. But constant light with no chance of escape increased depressive symptoms.'

Co-author Professor Randy Nelson said the results suggested more attention needed to be focused on how artificial lighting affects emotional health in people.

He said: 'The increasing rate of depressive disorders in humans corresponds with the increasing use of light at night in modern society.

'Many people are now exposed to unnatural light cycles, and that may have real consequences for our health.'

The study, published in the Journal Behavioural Brain Research, involved 24 male laboratory mice.

Half were housed in light for 16 hours a day and darkness for eight hours, while the other half had 24 hours of light. Half of each group had dark tubes in their units that let them escape the light when they chose. The other half had similar tubes that were clear and let light in. After three weeks, the mice began a series of tests that are used to measure depression and anxiety in animals.

In all the tests, mice living in constant light showed more depressive-like symptoms than those with normal light- dark cycles. Miss Fonken said the results provide additional evidence that the use of artificial light at night may have harmful effects on health in humans. She said: 'This is important for people who work night shifts, and for children and others who watch TV late into the night, disrupting their usual light-dark cycle.'

The researchers pointed out that many hospital wards are brightly lit all night, which may add to the problems of in-patients.

Air Pollution Entering Waterways

from The New York Times --
For years, residents in Masomtowm. PA complained about the yellow smoke pouring from the tall chimneys of the nearby coal-fired power plant, which left a film on their cars and pebbles of coal waste in their yards. Five states — including New York and New Jersey -- sued the plant’s owner, Allegheny Energy, claiming the air pollution was causing respiratory diseases and acid rain.

So three years ago, when Allegheny Energy decided to install scrubbers to clean the plant’s air emissions, environmentalists were overjoyed. The technology would spray water and chemicals through the plant’s chimneys, trapping more than 150,000 tons of pollutants each year before they escaped into the sky.

But the cleaner air has come at a cost. Each day since the equipment was switched on in June, the company has dumped tens of thousands of gallons of wastewater containing chemicals from the scrubbing process into the Monongahela River, which provides drinking water to 350,000 people and flows into Pittsburgh, 40 miles to the north.

“It’s like they decided to spare us having to breathe in these poisons, but now we have to drink them instead,” said Philip Coleman, who lives about 15 miles from the plant and has asked a state judge to toughen the facility’s pollution regulations. “We can’t escape.”

Even as a growing number of coal-burning power plants around the nation have moved to reduce their air emissions, many of them are creating another problem: water pollution. Power plants are the nation’s biggest producer of toxic waste, surpassing industries like plastic and paint manufacturing and chemical plants, according to a New York Times analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data.

Much power plant waste once went into the sky, but because of toughened air pollution laws, it now often goes into lakes and rivers, or into landfills that have leaked into nearby groundwater, say regulators and environmentalists

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