Month: January 2014

Men who consume more than two alcoholic drinks per day while in middle age may speed up their memory loss in later life by up to six years, said a study Wednesday. However, there were no differences in memory or mental function between non-drinkers and those who drank less than two drinks, or 20 grams per day, said the findings in the journal Neurology. "Our study focused on middle-aged participants and suggests that heavy drinking is associated with faster decline in all areas of cognitive function in men," said study author Severine Sabia of the University College London. The mental abilities of heavy drinkers declined between one-and-a-half to six years faster than those who had fewer drinks per day.

BEIJING (Reuters) – China's Commerce Ministry said it had approved U.S.-listed laboratory equipment maker Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc's $13.6 billion takeover of Life Technologies Corp , subject to certain conditions. The conditions are that Thermo Fisher cut the prices of two types of its products sold in China, sell its cell culture and gene adjustment businesses, and its stake of 51 percent in China's Lanzhou National Hyclone Bio-engineering Co Ltd. (Reporting by Koh Gui Qing and Xiaoyi Shao; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) – Having an unusual personality structure could be the secret to making other people laugh, scientists said on Thursday after research showed that comedians have high levels of psychotic personality traits. “The creative elements needed to produce humor are strikingly similar to those characterizing the cognitive style of people with psychosis – both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder,” said Gordon Claridge of the University of Oxford’s department of experimental psychology, who led the study. “Equally, manic thinking – which is common in people with bipolar disorder – may help people combine ideas to form new, original and humorous connections.” The researchers recruited 523 comedians – 404 men and 119 women – and asked them to complete an online questionnaire designed to measure psychotic traits in healthy people. The same questionnaire was also completed by 364 actors – who are also used to performing in front of an audience – as a control group, and the comedians’ and actors’ results were compared to each other as well as a general group of 831 people who had non-creative jobs.