Researchers in Germany discovered that stressed men made unconventional choices in sexual preferences.

Scientists at the University of Trier found that young men who were under pressure preferred erotic pictures of female nudes who were had the opposite facial expressions to themselves.

The study, reported in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, also found that other participants who were more relaxed were attracted to females who had similar features.

It could explain why some couples who look different, end up together for example Nicholas Sarkozy, the French President and his wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy – currently the subject of affair rumours – actors Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes and Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones.

Previous studies have found that men and women who fall in love tend to resemble each other in many ways, especially in facial characteristics.

“Our findings show that stress affects human mating preferences: unstressed individuals showed the expected preference for similar mates but stressed individuals seem to prefer dissimilar mates,” said Johanna Lass-Hennemann, a psychobiologist who led the study.

“Our results provide further support for facial self resemblance as a potential modulator of sexual attractiveness.

“Furthermore, our study is the first to show that stress influences human mating preferences, and provides further support for the influence of stress on mate choice and sexual behaviour.”

Acting on a hunch gained from experience with lab animals, the scientists explored whether a man responded differently to a woman when he was stressed.

They recruited 50 local students, all slim and healthy, and divided them into two groups.

The students were randomly asked to either place a hand in icy water or the more pleasant alternative of warm water at normal body temperature.

Their stress ratings were measured using saliva, heart rate and blood pressure tests.

All the students were connected to electrodes measuring tiny muscle movements around the eye, which are known as the “startle reflex” that we give when we look at an object of interest.

They were then asked to look at 40 computer images of young women – 30 of them erotic nudes of girls gazing at the observer and 10 of them neutral – while the “startle reflex” spies did their job.

Men who had not been stressed showed a marked preference to women whose faces most resembled their own.

But men in the stressed group bypassed the close-resembling women and showed a preference for women who were dissimilar to themselves.

Past studies suggest that people tend to find self-resembling faces more trustworthy than dissimilar faces.

This could explain why some men pursue a long-term relationship with more well built women who look like them.

But there is also evidence that people who are stressed have more short-term relationships than unstressed counterparts.

The more sexual partners you have, the more chances you have of extending your genetic lineage, which would explain why stressed men bucked the trend.

- Andrew Hough

© Telegraph.co.uk

The sign, which was first dismissed as an internet hoax, occupies a prominent spot by the I-35 motorway in Wyoming, Minnesota.
The sign was erected early last month and since then speculation has been mounting as to its provenance.

Both right and left-wing internet sites have been posting photographs of it – initially unsure whether it was a criticism or backing of President Obama.

But since then the firm that owns the advertising site, Schubert and Hoey, have revealed it was “paid for by a group of small businesses who feel like Washington is against them and want to remain anonymous”.

The stunt, which apparently hoped to capitalise on Obama’s growing unpopularity, has been the subject of media debate for the past month and the image has been viewed hundreds of millions of times.

On Tuesday the New York Times used it to illustrated a comment piece arguing that “more people miss him than don’t”.

National Public Radio was forced to prevent its website users from leaving “comments” about the poster, citing “personal attacks and name-calling”.

see more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/7412098/Miss-me-yet-George-Bush-advertising-board-stirs-US-public-debate.html

Rumours that French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy are both having affairs are gaining momentum in France.

The suggestion that the couple were both committing adultery first emerged onTwitter, the microblogging website. It was followed by a report in the Sunday newspaper le Journal du Dimanche.

The first ‘tweet’ claimed that Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy had become romantically involved with Benjamin Biolay, a musician and a winner at France’s recent Victoires de la Musique awards.

It then claimed that the jilted Mr Sarkozy had swiftly found solace in the arms of his 40-year-old ecology minister Chantal Jouanno, also a French karate champion.

French web magazine suchablog.com alleged that Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy had been a close friend of Biolay for many years and was now unofficially living with him at his flat in Paris.

The rumours were given extra weight after being reported in an blog on the website of Le Journal du Dimanche.

The paper wrote: “It’s the gossip of the moment that could become the story of the year.

“A romance is said to have started a few weeks ago between the First Lady of France and music award winner Benjamin Biolay.

“The rumour started on Twitter and is now on blogs and websites everywhere.”

The Journal du Dimanche added: “It says the presidential marriage is breathing its last breaths. Carla Bruni is in love with Benjamin Biolay and the president has found solace with Chantal Jouanno.”

The same story has also been reported by other established news sites including Yahoo News France, Le Post and Agoravoxtv, as well as TV news channel i-Tele.

It is the first time since Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy and Mr Sarkozy met at a Paris dinner party in November 2007 that there have been repeated rumours suggestions the marriage is in crisis.

For several months after their whirlwind romance and marriage three months later, regular reports predicted the marriage would only last as long as Mr Sarkozy remained president.

Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy’s now notorious remark that she is “easily bored by monogamy” is also frequently quoted by the media.

But now, for the first time, rumours of trouble in the marriage have reached the mainstream French media.

Mr Sarkozy and Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy have both reportedly had affairs in past relationships.

Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy – whose string of previous lovers includes Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton and Donald Trump – is said to have had a relationship with Jean-Paul Enthoven, before dumping him for his philosopher son Raphael, with whom she has a son, Aurelien. But the younger Mr Enthoven left the former model, saying he felt she was “uncommitted to the relationship”.

Mr Sarkozy is reported to have had an affair with Cecilia Ciganer-Albaniz, who eventually became his second wife, while still married to his first wife, Marie-Dominique Culioli, the mother of his two elder sons.

Mr Sarkozy and his second wife split during his presidential election campaign in 2007, when she started having an affair with Richard Attais, a US publicist.

Mr Sarkozy’s spokesman at the Elysee Palace in Paris said on Tuesday that he had “absolutely no comment” to make on the rumours of extra-marital affairs among France’s first couple.

see more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/7406909/Nicolas-Sarkozy-and-Carla-Bruni-both-having-affairs.html

The pictures were taken during an eclipse over the isolated Marshall Islands, near Papua New Guinea in the Pacific Ocean.

Ten times as dense as the centre of the sun, the corona only produces about one-millionth as much light – meaning that it can only be seen when ‘lit up’ during an eclipse.

The main radiation from the sun’s surface during a total solar eclipse is blocked by the passage of the moon enabling rare viewings of the corona.
Organised by the Brno University of Technology in the Czech Republic, the shadow-tracking expedition took these remarkable pictures to study changes in the plasma.

Professor Miloslav Druckmuller, 56, who took the pictures, said: ”Even though the reason for taking the photographs was science, the result shows the enormous beauty of nature.

”The expedition itself is a terrible stress. One single stupid mistake like pressing the wrong button on a keyboard may destroy everything.”

The mysterious corona has puzzled scientists for years – it extends more than a million kilometres from the sun yet is over 200 times hotter than the sun’s visible surface.

The source of the corona’s heat is still the subject of debate, but is likely to include the Sun’s magnetic field and sonic pressure waves from below the sun.

Prof Druckmuller will continue his research of the corona at the next solar eclipse in July.

see more:

Officials in Pecica, a village town about 13 miles from the Hungarian border in the country’s west, ordered the bright red signs, complete with the phrase “Attention – Drunks”.

The 10 road signs, which also show a person crawling on their knees while clutching a glass in one hand, were erected in popular nightspot areas close to the city’s bars and restaurants.

Peter Antal, the Pecica Mayor, said the idea came after he visited an unnamed town in Germany, which had installed similar signs.

He said officials took action after a “despairing” number of accidents in the town, which has a population of about 13,000, caused by drunken revellers, with some even resulting in fatalities.

He said it was not motorists’ fault but blamed the town’s pedestrians, many of whom were not able to look out for themselves as they walked around the town, which is more than 300 miles west of the Romanian capital Bucharest.

“We are a border town and have lots of cars thundering through here all the time,” he told local media.

“But we also have a very vibrant nightlife and the two don’t mix.
“We have to target the drivers because by the time they get to this state, the pedestrians are beyond caring.”

He added: “In recent years… some traffic accidents (have) resulted, in some cases, even with deceased (people).

“We have thought about different options (on how) we can stop this and we decided that first step was to mount these signs.

“We must warn drivers that sometimes people who have little control over their actions can suddenly appear in the road.”

He denied the signs would send out the wrong message to the town’s residents, claiming they were a “positive contribution”.

Residents said they found the signs amusing.

see more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/romania/7405695/Romanian-street-sign-warns-drivers-of-drunk-pedestrians.html

The ghosts, supposedly trapped inside two glass vials, were put up for bidding by Avie Woodbury from the southern city of Christchurch. She said they were captured in her house during an exorcism.
The spirits were trapped inside the vials with stoppers and then dipped in holy water, which she says “dulls the spirits’ energy.”

She said they were the spirits of an old man who lived in the house during the 1920s, and a powerful, disruptive little girl who turned up after a session with a spirit-calling Ouija board.

Since an exorcism at the property last July led to their capture, there has been no further spooky activity in the house, she said.

The auction attracted more than 214,000 page views and dozens of questions before the winning bid, Trademe auction site spokesman Paul Ford said. The name of the winning bidder was not released.

Woodbury said that once an “exorcist’s fee” has been deducted, the proceeds of the spirit sale will go to the animal welfare group the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

The auction drew derision from some quarters, with one posting on the site declaring: “I have two spirits in bottles at home.
“I think they are called Jim Beam and the other is Johnny Walker.”

see more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7403178/Bottled-ghosts-fetch-1300-at-New-Zealand-auction.html

The husband of a pregnant woman was remanded in custody today charged with attempting to murder her and her eight-year-old son after a car blast in a village.

Former bomb disposal expert Nicholas Fabian, 32, of Highview, Vigo, near Meopham, Kent, also faced a charge of unlawful possession of ammunition.

His wife, Victoria Fabian, also 32, was transferred to a London hospital for specialist treatment after suffering terrible leg injuries in the explosion in a residents’ car park.

Doctors believe Mrs Fabian’s unborn child escaped unharmed from the blast, which happened just after 1pm last Friday in Highview in Vigo.
Her eight-year-old son, who was also in the car at the time, was taken to hospital as a precaution but released after being kept in for observation.

Appearing in the dock with two security guards and wearing a blue jumper, Fabian confirmed his name, address and date of birth during a five-minute hearing at Dartford Magistrates’ Court.

There was no indication of plea and no bail application was made. Chair of the bench Margaret Lane remanded him in custody to appear at Maidstone Crown Court on March 22.

Yesterday relatives of Mrs Fabian said she had started ”her long road to recovery” as the first picture of her was released.
In a statement issued through Kent Police, they said: ”At the moment, all our energy and attention is focused on supporting Vicky and her children.”

Fabian’s mother, Kathleen Mitchell-Hewson, said he was due to be sent to Afghanistan shortly as a reservist, having left the Army in 2003.

The game Leadership involves directing a space ship between lines on a graph

Computer games disguised as Excel and Word documents which allow office workers to waste time without attracting the attention of their bosses are taking off on the web.

The suite of “hidden” games draw strong inspiration from early arcade and PC titles but are played against the backdrop of what appear to be genuine office applications.

In one game, called Leadership, the player must direct a space ship between two lines of a graph.

Another involves destroying blocks of the same colour before a wall of bar charts fills the screen, like the cult puzzle game Tetris.

A third game Breakdown is derived from the Atari classic Breakout – but with the bricks replaced by dry corporate text. Words in bold and italics must be hit twice to disappear.

The Flash games, which launch in plausibly bland pop-up windows, are available to play at the website CantYouSeeImBusy.com which was developed by four programmers in the Netherlands.

A tongue-in-cheek counter on the website estimates that the addictive games have already cost the world economy more than €4.5m in lost man hours.

A blurb on the website reads: “Let’s face it; we all want to relax every now and then, but still want to appear professional or busy.

“That’s why all the games at CantYouSeeImBusy.com are designed in a way that nobody can see that you’re gaming. In fact, your boss and colleagues will think that you’re working harder than ever before.”

But not everyone is convinced. Alexandra Kitty, a commenter on the popular community blog MetaFilter where the games were discussed, wrote: “This would never work because people would actually look intense and interested in what they saw on the computer screen which would obviously give them away.”

- Matthew Moore

© Telegraph.co.uk

THERE is honour among Lotto winners, one man proved yesterday, as he split his multi-million euro jackpot with his sister — just because he said he would.

Mark Furlong, from Morrisson’s Avenue,Waterford shared his €2,835,221 win with his sister, Michelle Sinnott, because the pair had always promised each other that if either of them ever won the lottery, they would split it between them.

And yesterday, both of them said their lives would not change dramatically as a result of their windfall.

Mark, who runs a baby accessories shop in Waterford, said he would be back at work as usual but that he and his partner of 10 years, Gillian Ryan, might “change the car or buy a house”.

Asked if the couple, who have two daughters, Holly (4) and Becky (3), might consider using some of the money to pay for their ‘big day out’, Mr Furlong joked: “At least she won’t say no now.”

He then added: “It’s nice money… but I won’t be moving toSpain or anything.”

His sister, Michelle, was equally unruffled by her good fortune. She said the €1.4m would help pay for college funds for her two boys, Kyle and Aaron, aged eight and four, and would finally enable the family to make a trip to Disneyland.

Mark said he got the winning numbers from a gypsy inBlackpool “years ago” and had played them every week since. Neither he nor Michelle have any plans to stop playing their numbers after their jackpot.

Their win was a half-share of the Lotto jackpot of €5,670,443 from the draw on February 27. The other share, which was bought in Loughrea, Co Galway, has yet to be collected.

Meanwhile, another winner from Waterford picked up her €100,000 prize after her local radio station announced that the winnings were about to go unclaimed.

Dumbfounded

Christine Coady was given a Millionaire raffle ticket as a Christmas present by her grandmother, Margaret Coady — but she was within days of missing out on her good fortune.

Fortunately, her nan heard the WLR announcement and told Christine to check her ticket.

Christine said she was so “dumbfounded” when she realised she had won that she had to sit in her car for 45 minutes.

“I even had to break my 24-hour Trocaire fast to have a cup of strong tea with sugar, just to try to calm my shaking hands.”

Christine, who works as a special needs assistant in Waterford, now plans to use the money to put down a deposit on a house, as well as buying a new car and looking after her family.

“I’d just like to say a very, very special ‘thank you’ to my nan for giving me this great start — I still can’t believe it’s happened to me,” she said.

- Grainne Cunningham and Conor Kane

Irish Independent

They love them so much that they dive right inside the shells to get the last tasty bit.

The squirrels are regular visitors to Jane Roberts’ garden in Fareham, Hampshire.

They often used to steal the food put out for the birds but now they are just crazy about coconuts.

Jane, 46, puts out two nuts a week and suspends them on pieces of string from the washing line.

She said: “I make a large hole in the coconut so that they can get into the flesh. The first time I saw them feeding I nearly died laughing, they looked just like a pair of spacemen.

“Even now I can’t stop chuckling every time I see them.”

see more:http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Strange-News/Squirrels-Just-Nuts-About-Coconuts-In-Fareham-Hampshire-Garden/Article/201003215569351?lpos=Strange_News_Second_Home_Page_Feature_Teaser_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15569351_Squirrels_Just_Nuts_About_Coconuts_In_Fareham_Hampshire_Garden