Marriage thrills but divorce kills

Divorce apparently harms the cardiovascular health of women, but men's hearts appear to escape unscathed, a new study shows.

The ill effects are largely due to the economic consequences, as well as the emotional distress, of divorce for women, conclude Dr Zhenmei Zhang of Bowling Green State University in Ohio and Dr Mark D Hayward at the University of Texas at Austin.

Zhang and Hayward also found that while divorce didn't appear to affect men's cardiovascular health, divorced, widowed and remarried men were all more likely to die sooner of non-heart-related causes than men who had stayed married to the same person. The health effects of marriage are well established. People who have even once been married live longer than their never-married counterparts, and are less likely to suffer from mental health problems such as depression and anxiety. Few researchers, however, have looked beyond ever-married or never-married status to study the effects of divorce on health.

To investigate, the researchers studied data on 9,434 men and women between the ages of 51 and 61 in 1992 who were interviewed every two years and the results were reported in the Journal of Marriage and Family.

Women who had been divorced, widowed or remarried were more likely to develop heart disease during the course of the study than those who were married to the same person, the researchers found. They estimated that by the age of 60, assuming none had died, 31 percent of remarried women, 33 per cent of divorced women and 30 per cent of widows would have heart disease, compared to 22 per cent of women still married to the same person. No such difference was seen for men. In fact, men who remarried were actually 19 percent less likely to develop heart disease than those who had stayed married to the same person.

Hayward and Zhang noted that remarried women were more likely to have heart disease than women married to the same person, although their financial circumstances were not substantially worse. More study is needed to understand why, they conclude.

Men Love 4 Machines & His Gizmos!

Men love gadgets and insist on having the latest electronics, bikes and toys

The love affair between men and gadgets is a pure and eternal one, for which there are many and varied reasons. First of all, men like to be in control of their surroundings, and the gadgets give them an illusion of power over them. That's why men go for gadgets that have the most features. This craving doesn't come out of a love for achieving perfection. Men love to flaunt their toys as an extension of themselves: tough but sophisticated.

In fact, if there were such a device that can be inserted into a man's stomach that can tell when he gets hungry or needs a pint of beer, he would probably go for it. Men also view their machines as a tool to prove their status.

Communications gadgetry is a definite factor in proving or maintaining alpha-male status. They will not mind showing their new-fangled gadget to a total stranger at the park or the bus-stand, and if the strangers are men, they will show their sppreciation by comparing it with their own.

Another reason is the thrill in getting anything that is new. But what about the old stuff like the stereo, the telly, digital clock, etc? These exist so that men can say: "Don't touch that!" They're like this especially with children, but girlfriends and wives will enjoy some leeway. One thing to be said for the love of a gadget: it doesn't start wars.

Compatibility is what he's looking for...

Do men ever grow up and notice the inner woman? The fact is, that as men age, they do look for other qualities in a woman. But, like everything else in life, this process goes through many phases:

Twenty: Perfect 10 Matters

Most male twenty - somethings have one burning desire: to build a successful career. In terms of women, well, the more the merrier. Men in their twenties want a pretty woman, an ornament on their arm to show their boss and the world.

Thirty: Substance Counts

As he enters his thirties, a man's taste in women definitely changes. After the initial experimental stage where he dates a lot of people, he looks for a woman to fill certain roles, like wife and mother.

Forty: Caring 'N' Sharing

Men in this age want to be nurtured. They may have often been burned in a bad relationship earlier. Now, all they want is a steady person who will give them hope for the future.

Ask your man out...

Men definitely like it when women ask them out. Actually, what's not there to like? But, before you get busy with your phone and address book, there are a few things you should you know.

For starters, a part of the guy will wonder if you've called him up because you want to have sex with him. Guys are generally hoping to have sex whenever they go on a date, so this probably won't mean he'll behave any different, but you might want to set some limits early on. Unless that is why you called him.

Also, be prepared for lots of dating grey areas: Who'll drive? Who'll pay? Who'll decide where to go? The impetus is generally on the guy to control the flow of events on a date, but since you initiated things, how far will the initiative extend? Ideally, this will be part of the fun, but it can lead to baffled expectations on both sides.

Another thing to consider is something guys have been dealing with since time began - the answer might be 'no'.

How to ask a man on a date

When a woman can't help having a roving eye

If a woman finds a handsome colleague suddenly irresistible, it seems she can blame it on nature. Women at the height of fertility actively seek out sexy, good-looking men, research shows. The male partner is instinctively aware of this and tries harder to please.

The study followed the emotions and sexual desires of a group of American women who were in steady relationships. The women were asked to rate their partner's looks and sex appeal several times over the course of a month. They also underwent tests, which tracked their fertility. Analysis of the results showed that the women's desire for other men was strongest when they were most fertile.

During the days when their chance of conceiving was highest, they found friends, workmates, acquaintances and strangers increasingly attractive.

Those who rated their own partners as lacking in the looks department were the most likely to find other men more desirable, a journal reports. It seems however, that men are somehow aware of the phenomenon, with the study showing that weedier specimens turn on the charm on the days their partner is most likely to stray.

Previous studies have shown that women looking for the thrill of an affair or hoping to get pregnant are attracted to tall men. However, when they settle down, they tend to choose shorter types. It is a general phenomenon that women choose tall, good-looking men for flings. Their looks are a sign of good genes and their ability to sire healthy children. However, the initial attraction of the macho man soon wears off, with good looking men attracting more female attention and being at higher risk of having affairs. High testosterone levels could also make them moody and violent.

This means that women looking for long term relationships tend to be drawn to less attractive men, who assures commitment generally. Their lack of looks means they are less likely to stray and more likely to provide a stable home life.

Erotic images electrify brain

Event-related potentials begin firing the cortex region before a person
realises whether it's a good picture

It seems nothing excites the brain more than erotic images, as a new study has found that sensual pictures evoked the strongest response from the brain as compared to any other image. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis measured brainwave activity of 264 women as they viewed a series of 55 colour slides that contained various scenes from water skiers to snarling dogs to partiallyclad couples in sensual poses.

When study volunteers viewed erotic pictures, their brains produced electrical responses that were stronger than those elicited by other material that was viewed, no matter how pleasant or disturbing the other material may have been. This difference in brainwave response emerged very quickly, suggesting that different neural circuits may be involved in the processing of erotic images.

Classifying images

"That surprised us," says first author Andrey P. Anokhin, Ph.D., research assistant professor of psychiatry. "We believed both pleasant and disturbing images would evoke a rapid response, but erotic scenes always elicited the strongest response." As subjects looked at the slides, electrodes on their scalps measured changes in the brain's electrical activity called event-related potentials (ERPs). The researchers learnt that regardless of a picture's content, the brain acts very quickly to classify the visual image. The ERPs begin firing in the brain's cortex long before a person is conscious of whether they are seeing a picture that is pleasant or neutral.

Fast action

But when the picture is erotic, ERPs begin firing within 160 milliseconds, about 20 percent faster than with any of the other pictures. Soon after, the ERPs begin to diverge, with processing taking place in different brain structures for erotic pictures than those that process the other images. "When we present a stimulus to a subject - for example, when a picture appears on a screen - it changes ongoing brain activity in certain ways, and we can detect those changes," Anokhin says.

Women equally responsive

"Usually men subjectively rate erotic material much higher than women," he says. "So based on those data we would expect lower responses in women, but that was not the case. Women have responses as strong as those seen in men."

Because the electroencephalogram technology cannot specify brain structures involved in this visual processing. Anokhin says it's not clear which circuits are reacting to these visual scenes. Recent studies in primates recorded the electrical activity of single neural cells within the brain and have shown that the frontal cortex contains neurons that can discriminate between different categories of visual objects such as dogs versus cats.

Whether or not the human prefrontal cortex contains special neurons that are "tuned" for sex remains a subject for future studies.