Takeru V. Maeda

Selecting a mate is a complex process that can have life-altering results. Some life counselors suggest taking a rational approach; make a shopping list of traits that float your boat (career, finances, education, looks) and start trying to fill it. Many evolutional biologists stand by their man, Darwin, who theorized that it all boils down to sexual selection. Tall, dark, handsome? Petite, bright eyes, great laugh? Go for it.

Colleen Morrison

Real men do housework

Alas, new research coming out of the Centre for Time Use Research atOxford suggests that other behaviors and characteristics may play an important role in the fateful decision. In particular, women may be most likely to choose a man who helps with the housework.

The study put together an equality rating for 12 "developed" countries, based on participants'  responses to questions about gender roles, including child care responsibilities and housework. It turns out that women who live in a country that scores high on the equality scale (Norway, Sweden, Great Britain, the USA) are more likely to be living with or married to a man than women in non-egalitarian countries.

The reasoning is simple: in a society that admits to some equality between the genders, it's okay for a man to change diapers, which means he's likely to step up and help. While a woman may be inclined to set up housekeeping with a man on the assumption that he will be a help around the house, though, a man is less likely to select an equal-work minded woman, perhaps because he fears she will be more likely to expect . . . equal work.

When the wedding bells stop

There is a bit of a gray lining to this golden cloud, however. Economists and divorce lawyers agree that recession can be hard on a marriage. A bad economy increases the risk for divorce as financial problems start to add pressure to an already-troubled marriage. And here's an interesting twist to the broken marriage saga: upside-down mortgages and dwindling savings, not to mention the cost of layering up, are forcing some couples to reconsider their planned split or at least to continue to live together while separated.

The numbers on marriage and divorce span a broad range. Information collected by the US Census Bureau in 2004 indicates that 68.8 percent of men in the US have ever been married and 20.7 percent of them have ever been divorced (out of a total population of 109,830,000). The same source says that 74.2 percent of women have ever been married and 22.9 percent of women have ever been divorced (in a total population of 117,677,000).

Takeru V. Maeda

Colleen Morrison

Drug Administration to reduce the recommended dosage of the common pain reliever acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol and other over-the-counter drugs.

Ouch -  Make it Stop

The human community has addressed pain and various ways to manage it for centuries. Archaeologists who study Incan society frequently find small holes drilled into ancient skulls, a practice they speculate provided an opening for pain to leave the body. The ancient Greek physician Hippocrates advised women in labor to chew willow leaves for their pain reducing properties. And many historic civilizations used herbs and plants to produce concoctions to manage pain, often to good effect.

More recently, studies in alternative medicine are demonstrating that we have access to other tools that may help us handle our body's response to painful stimuli. In particular, they say that two different emotional responses, laughter and cussing, may help us get on top of the physical sensation of pain, at least for a time.

Ding-Dang-It

TheOhio State University Medical Center advises that the distracting influence of humor and laughter is an effective way to manage pain when used in conjunction with pain relieving drugs. Other studies suggest that when we laugh, we release our own pain-controlling endorphins. Still others believe that when we laugh through pain, we remove the threat and fear associated with it, which allows us to control it.

Apparently, we get something of the same effect when we respond to an immediate and painful experience with colorful language. A few well-chosen swear words spoken (or shouted) in response to acute pain may actually help us contain the extent and duration of our pain. Researchers say it's too early to be certain, and more research is needed to understand and verify the phenomenon.

The FDA recommendation included a ban on prescription medications Percocet and Vicodin, drugs that combine acetaminophen with the opioids hydrocodone and oxycodone. Many people who suffer severe chronic pain believe this action will have negative consequences for them.

Pain, chronic or acute, is not a laughing matter. Anyone who has ever had to deal with long-term moderate or severe pain knows its debilitating effects. That explains the concern expressed by pain relief interest groups over the recent decision at the US Food and Drug

Got Pain? Get the Giggles

For just a few years, according to a baseball official, professional teams have conducted DNA tests on their foreign prospects to ensure their identity, age, and also to find any possible usage of performance enhancing drugs. After many cases in Major League Baseball where Latin players lied about their age and/or identity, the league decided to hire investigators to question potential foreign players. If the investigators were unsure of the results in the questioning, the prospect would be required to take a DNA test.

Just last week, the New York Yankees organization decided to void the signing of a Dominican prospect because the DNA test results showed that the player had lied about his identity. And this has been a bothersome case for MLB for years. Houston Astros player, Miguel Tejada, was even one of MLB's players to have admitted lying about his age. For officials, this is a growing concern for having players in the league that aren't who they say they are; so the league put fourth genetics testing.

The procedure requires the player to give blood, provide urine and fecal samples and will probably have to take a bone scan so that their age can be determined -- since in baseball, the difference between a 16 and 19-year-old is vast -- not to mention, the player's parents and/or siblings would also have to take these genetic tests to solidify the identity of the prospect.

While many believe this procedure to be helpful for the league, others think that these tests could also be used for immoral purposes in the long run and perhaps lead to genetic discrimination. Since DNA contains information about possible risks for future diseases, some worry that this kind of information will be used against a prospect. Other concerns surround the possibility of revealing that the player's father isn't his biological father and can lead to breaking families apart. There is obviously a big concern over the bioethics in these tests.

However, Congress passed a bill that will put a prohibition on employers from discriminating potential employees and by this November, the legislation will be in full effect, possibly hindering the tests done by the MLB.

"There are many instances where employers have acquired information for one reason and used it for another," said the president of the Council for Responsible Genetics. "Genetic information has incredible potential to reveal medical information that can be used for a whole spectrum of purposes that can be discriminatory against the individual. For MLB to be doing this with little to no understanding of ramifications is incredibly short-sighted and against basic employment principles."

Yet, for a professional sports league that has been plagued by recent cases of illegal steroid-use by big name players, can one blame the MLB for trying to secure the game's integrity?

Rob Plummer, an agent for one of MLB's foreign prospects being tested, believes that this is one of the only ways to protect the game from people trying to take advantage of the system.

"Unfortunately, the players who have taken advantage of the system have created a situation where there's no trust," said Plummer. "As a way to get the facts, measure like this might be necessary to have the players be paid what their skill level warrants. Based upon the number of frauds of identity, at least until there's a system in the Dominican Republic where identities are 100 percent foolproof, it's (DNA testing) necessary."

This seems straight out of the science fiction film, Gattaca, where in a world of the controlled gene-pool and DNA selection, only your blood will determine one’s validity.

MLB Conducts Genetic Tests on Prospects

Vietnam; Forty years ago, during the heightened time of the space race, the world stood still and witnessed Neil Armstrong taking his first step for humankind on our planet's only moon.

"I still recall sitting on my grandfather's shoulder when those capsules would land in the middle of the Pacific..." said President Obama. "And I remember waving American flags and my grandfather telling me that the Apollo mission was an example of how Americans can do anything they put their minds to."

Forty years ago in the US was a time of turbulence and inspiration when the fight for gay rights spilled onto the streets of NYC; when hundreds of thousands of people flocked to a three-day summer concert where some of the top rock musicians performed, forever known as the Woodstock Festival; when a nation watched itself divide over an "unwinnable war" in

Takeru V. Maeda

The Eagle has landed: Looking Back on Apollo 11