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Showing posts from November, 2009

Make your parents your friends

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Make your parents your friends My folks just don’t understand me.’ How many times have you heard that? Times have changed and so have the rules of parent-teenager relationships. Yet, the generational clash treads familiar grounds - be it on matters of dressing or issues like career and friendships. Your parents don’t approve of black nail paint, tattoo, belly piercing or Pink Floyd posters on your wall, don’t crib. Most parents believe, children cross the line in the name of experimentation. To handle this, undertake one change at a time. Do things differently. For example, if they have a problem with you sticking posters on the walls, frame them up. Also, instead of piercing your belly or sporting a tattoo, try out their fake alternatives. Do not be a rebel without a cause. If your parents frown upon your girlfriends or talking to women, win their confidence over by inviting your friends home. Once they get to know them, their apprehensions will reduce. You could also make them talk t

A Brighter Tomorrow

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A Brighter Tomorrow Knowledge, education and employment; it is fascinating how these three are intertwined. Gaining knowledge has been a coveted aim in India. In ancient India, only a select few had the right to learn and learning was often in the form of memorising. Today, in 'modern' India, the emphasis is still on cramming information and not on applying knowledge. If India is to take its place as a global superpower we need to be a powerhouse of original ideas, skills and thought-provoking leadership. India should revamp its education system to engender the application of theory. It cannot be said that Indian path-breakers like Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Azim Premji and Lakshmi Mittal have excelled because of the education system. They excelled despite it. As a country with over a billion people, we should have lakhs of leading entrepreneurs, inventors and researchers, but we are held back by the lack of encouragement and uncertain reward for this kind of originality. Leadership

Traumatic memories can be erased after all

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Traumatic memories can be erased after all Fear memories get registered in the brain forever. However, a new study has offered fresh hope after claiming that traumatic experiences can be memories can be erased after all wiped out . A recent paper in Science, evaluated by three Faculty Members for F1000, reports an extraordinary finding that supports the use of a drug to control recollections of traumatic incidents. The researchers demonstrated that, in mice, proteins known as extra cellular matrix chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans form ‘neural nets’ in the brain that protect against the erasure of memory. They also reported that, when these mice were given a drug called chondroitinase ABC, fear memories were more likely to disappear than for those mice in the control group. The finding has important therapeutic implications for sufferers of anxiety disorders, as it could allow doctors to erase the memories of patients who have had extremely traumatic experiences, such as survivors

Sit straight to boost your confidence

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Sit straight to boost your confidence Sitting up straight isn't just good for your posture - it also gives you more confidence in your own thoughts, says a new study. Want to boost your confidence? Sit straight! Researchers found that people who were told to sit up straight were more likely to believe thoughts they wrote down in that posture, regarding their fitness for a job. On the other hand, those who were slumped over their desks were less likely to accept these written-down feelings about their own qualifications. The results, based on a study of 71 students at Ohio State University (OSU), show how our body posture can affect not only what others think about us, but also how we think about ourselves, said Richard Petty, study co-author and OSU psychology professor. "Most of us were taught that sitting up straight gives a good impression to other people," Petty said. "But it turns out that our posture can also affect how we think about ourselves. If you sit up s