Now, pop a pill to fall in or out of love!

Scientists say it will soon be possible to fall in and out of love at whim - just like hopping into a bus and then getting off two stops later. They say that since falling in love is merely a chemical reaction in the human brain, a love pill may be invented soon to trigger this chemical reaction to make people in love.

And then there could be an anti-love pill to make people fall out of love.

According to an American neuro-scientist, researchers may soon find the right kind of chemical mixture to help people fall in and out of love.

Larry Young of Atlanta 's Emory University School of Medicine told a television network at the weekend that researchers may soon be able to show that emotions such as love are directly triggered by biochemical events in the human brain.

He said his research into prairie voles - which are short-tailed, mouse-like animals found in the prairies (fertile plains) of the US and Canada - has shown that sexual bonding can be triggered and blocked by the addition or subtraction of certain chemicals to the brain.

“(The voles) are monogamous. That is, they form a life-long bond with a partner. We have been studying the chemistry behind that,'' he said.

But when Young injected the chemical (hormone) oxytocin into the brain of a female prairie vole, she quickly abandoned her monogamy and fell for the nearest male.

But when the chemical hormone to her brain was stopped, her bonding with the new mate was over.

According to Young, “The hormone interacts with the reward and reinforcement system driven by the neurotransmitter dopamine - the same circuitry that drugs such as nicotine, cocaine and heroine act on in humans to produce euphoria and addiction.''

The happy news, said Young, is that his research has shown that ``there is an overlap between the brain areas involved in vole bonding and those associated with human love.

“What's more, the chemical oxytocin, which was observed to trigger bonding in voles, also changes human behaviour.

“People who inhale oxytocin become more trusting ... They engage in more eye contact ... (It) tunes them into the social world. Dopamine gives us a reward, so you feel good.''

Creating a cocktail of these two chemicals (oxytocin and dopamine) in the form of a love pill could create an attraction between two people, he said.

But if attraction could be chemically induced, he added, the opposite was also possible in the form of anti-love pills.

“You could block those chemicals when you're around this person. All drugs are just mimicking or blocking our own natural brain chemistry,'' Young said.

He said these chemical cocktails could help countless couples who spend huge amounts of money on marital therapy in future.

Beware of free access to SIMs in mobile phones

NOWADAYS, we, the general people of Bangladesh, are experiencing a revolutionary change in the telecommunications sector. In a decade we have got used to the latest communication system mobile phone. Undoubtedly, it has enhanced the total communication system.

But now the prevailing situation is leading to a hazard. The providers of the leading networking system of mobile phone have selected the young generation to increase the number of users. One has the access to different SIM cards. As a result, they are getting addicted to it. With different SIM cards they exchange banters with each other and waste their money and time. The free SMS, bonus talk time, etc., keep the students awake for long hours at night gossiping or chatting with anonymous boys and girls. Consequently, the attendance in the classroom has decreased alarmingly. Those who are found in classroom are sleepy and unmindful. They are losing interest in their studies and getting involved in crimes. This will makes us pay a lot in the long run.

It is already a big problem to be handled. I hope the guardians who are aware should come forward to solve the problem prevailing now. Otherwise, we will find the country into a situation where we will have to curse technology and science for its evil impact on society, especially, the youth.

The mobile telecommunication companies should change their business strategies. In my view, they should think, or else they will be the sufferers too.

Bikinis Make Men See Women as Objects, Scans Confirm

Sexy women in bikinis really do inspire some men to see them as objects, according to a new study of male behavior.

Brain scans revealed that when men are shown pictures of scantily clad women, the region of the brain associated with tool use lights up.

Men were also more likely to associate images of sexualized women with first-person action verbs such as "I push, I grasp, I handle," said lead researcher Susan Fiske, a psychologist at Princeton University.

And in a "shocking" finding, Fiske noted, some of the men studied showed no activity in the part of the brain that usually responds when a person ponders another's intentions.

This means that these men see women "as sexually inviting, but they are not thinking about their minds," Fiske said. "The lack of activation in this social cognition area is really odd, because it hardly ever happens."

Dehumanizing

Fiske and colleagues asked 21 heterosexual male volunteers to first take a test that scores people based on different types of sexist attitudes. The subjects were then shown pictures of both skimpily dressed and fully clothed men and women.

Most of the men best remembered headless photographs of women in bikinis, even if they'd only seen the image for two-tenths of a second, Fiske reported this weekend in Chicago during the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

And the men who scored higher as "hostile sexists"—those who view women as controlling and invaders of male space—didn't show brain activity that indicates they saw the women in bikinis as humans with thoughts and intentions.

Scientists have seen this absence of activation only once before, in a study where people were shown off-putting photographs of homeless people and drug addicts.

If a similar study were done with women, Fiske said, it would be hard to predict whether a woman shown a scantily clad male body would dehumanize him in the same way.

Stereotypically, women tend to look for mates who have wealth and power, so some of Fiske's colleagues have suggested running a similar test where women are shown pictures of men next to expensive cars or other affluent symbols.

But Fiske doesn't think such an experiment would work the same way, because women usually react to men they desire by "interpreting their minds, thinking about what they're interested in, and then trying to please them," she said.