Scientists have come up with a novel explanation to why women are more sensitive than men – they say it’s all in the fingertips
They have found that petite fingers have a more developed sense of touch, making them more sensitive.
This finding explains why women tend to have better tactile acuity than men, because women on average have smaller fingers.
"Neuroscientists have long known that some people have a better sense of touch than others, but the reasons for this difference have been mysterious," said Daniel Goldreich, of McMaster University in Ontario, one of the study’s authors.
"Our discovery reveals that one important factor in the sense of touch is finger size," he added.
To determine why the sexes have different finger sensitivity, the researchers first measured index fingertip size in 100 university students.
Each student’s tactile acuity was then tested by pressing progressively narrower parallel grooves against a stationary fingertip — the tactile equivalent of the optometrist’s eye chart.
The researchers found that people with smaller fingers could discern tighter grooves.
Ethan Lerner, of Massachusetts General Hospital, who is unaffiliated with the study, said: "The difference between the sexes appears to be entirely due to the relative size of the person’s fingertips. So, a man with fingertips that are smaller than a woman’s will be more sensitive to touch than the woman."
The study has been published in the Dec. 16 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. Other Post to Read 1.Loving Your Life
Restricting consumption of glucose can extend the life of healthy human-lung cells and speed the death of precancerous human-lung cells,
Calorie intake linked to cell lifespan, cancer development reducing cancer’s spread and growth rate, say researchers.
Boffins from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) conducted tests by growing both healthy human-lung cells and precancerous human-lung cells in laboratory flasks. The flasks were provided either normal levels of glucose or significantly reduced amounts of the sugar compound, and the cells then were allowed to grow for a period of weeks.
Principal investigator Trygve Tollefsbol, Ph.D., D.O., a professor in the Department of Biology, said: "In that time, we were able to track the cells’ ability to divide while also monitoring the number of surviving cells. The pattern that was revealed to us showed that restricted glucose levels led the healthy cells to grow longer than is typical and caused the precancerous cells to die off in large numbers.”
The expert added: "These results further verify the potential health benefits of controlling calorie intake.
"Our research indicates that calorie reduction extends the lifespan of healthy human cells and aids the body’s natural ability to kill off cancer-forming cells."
Findings of a latest trial confirm that women are more prone to wrinkling, especially in the perioral region, around the lips.
According to the study published by the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery
(ASAPS), women exhibit more and deeper wrinkles in the perioral region than men.
Details of the study
In order to determine wrinkle severity, researchers led by Dr. Emma C. Paes of the Department of Plastic, Reconstructive and Hand Surgery at the University Medical Center in Utrecht Netherlands used skin surface replicas of 10 male and 10 female corpses between the ages of 75 and 93.
Fresh cadavers were evaluated using the dermaTOP blue three-dimensional digitizing system, a 3D technology that assists analysis of roughness or smoothness of the human skin.
Observations by the researchers
Women exhibited more and deeper wrinkles in the perioral region than their male counterparts, researchers found.
Histological analysis unearthed several differences between the skin texture of men and women. Women had a fewer sweat glands and sebum secreting sebaceous glands in the perioral region than men.
Sebum is a waxy and oily substance which plays a key role in filling of the skin.
Women had fewer blood vessels supplying blood to the lip region, implying a lesser vascularized skin that allows wrinkles to develop more quickly. Also, the muscles around a woman’s mouth are packed closer to the skin, pulling the skin tighter thereby causing wrinkles, researchers stated.
While, the number of hair follicles were approximately the same in both genders, men scored more on sweat glands per hair follicle, leading to a more relaxed skin aging, researchers explained.
What can women do to avoid the onset of wrinkles?
While a series of treatment options namely Botox or Dysport, lasers, injectable wrinkle fillers, dermabrasion and chemical peels are available these days to combat wrinkles, the effectiveness of all is certainly doubtful.
Meanwhile, long known tips like avoiding direct sun exposure, quitting smoking and evading a drastic weight loss are certainly known to work wonders.
The findings re reported in the current issue of Aesthetic Surgery Journal.
Fish can help improve nervous system function
Omega-3 fatty acids, commonly found in fish, appears to play a significant role in improving nervous system function, reveals a new
Fish can help improve nervous system function
The researchers insist two omega-3 fatty acids – docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) have been found to avoid sensory overload, maybe by maintaining nerve-cell membranes.
The finding connects low omega-3s to the information-processing problems found in people with schizophrenia ,bipolar,obsessive-compulsive and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorders; Huntington’s disease; and other afflictions of the nervous system.
"It is an uphill battle now to reverse the message that ‘fats are bad,’ and to increase omega-3 fats in our diet," said Norman Salem Jr., PhD, who led this study at the Laboratory of Membrane Biochemistry and Biophysics at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
The body cannot make these essential nutrients from scratch. It gets them by metabolizing their precursor, á-linolenic acid (LNA), or from foods or supplements with DHA and EPA in a readily usable form.
"Humans can convert less than one percent of the precursor into DHA, making DHA an essential nutrient in the human diet," said Irina Fedorova, PhD, one of the paper’s co-authors.
EPA is already known for its anti-inflammatory and cardiovascular effects, but DHA makes up more than 90 percent of the omega-3s in the brain (which has no EPA), and nervous system in general.
During the study, the researchers fed four different diets with no or varying types and amounts of omega-3s to four groups of pregnant mice and then their offspring.
They measured how the offspring, once grown, responded to a classic test of nervous-system function in which healthy animals are exposed to a sudden loud noise. Normally, animals flinch. However, when they hear a softer tone in advance, they flinch much less.
It appears that normal nervous systems use that gentle warning to prepare instinctively for future stimuli, an adaptive process called sensorimotor gating.
The mice raised on DHA and EPA showed normal, adaptive sensorimotor gating by responding in a significantly calmer way to the loud noises that followed soft tones.
Experts are warning Internet users against Koobface computer virus targeting popular social networking sites in the run up to Christmas. It is said that Facebook users are most at risk from a variant of the Koobface virus, which comes in disguise as a festive greetings video, hosted on YouTube.
The new virus is “particularly nasty” and encourages victims to participate manually in creating a new Facebook account to help spread the worm. The attacks work by posting malevolent links on Facebook pages. It invites users to click on the Christmas card videos, which takes control of the PC to the attackers.
Internet security company Panda Security has been tracking the latest variant of the Koobface worm from its labs in Spain. “There is no doubting that this latest attack represents a serious threat to social networkers,”
Sky News quoted company's UK managing director Peter Lautin as saying.
“If someone runs the infected file on their Facebook or MySpace page, the worm will automatically log in to their account and several other social networking sites, sending malicious messages to all their friends,” said Lautin.
