The Malaysian Insider :: Features

Self-control need a boost? Gargle sugar water, researchers say

Posted: 08 Nov 2012 07:30 AM PST

WASHINGTON, Nov 8 — A new study finds that you can give your self-control a boost simply by gargling sugar water.

Gargling sugar water may give your self control a boost, researchers find. — AFP/Relaxnews

A research team from the University of Georgia in the US enlisted 51 students to perform two tasks of self-control. The first involved students meticulously crossing out the letter E on a page from a statistics book. Then subjects endured another tedious task: they were asked to identify the colour of various words that flashed on a screen, with the words spelling out the names of other colours.

Half of the students rinse their mouths with lemonade sweetened with sugar for three to five minutes while performing the tests, while the other half rinsed with lemonade made with the artificial sweetener Splenda. Turned out, the students who gargled with sugar were "significantly faster" in their responses than the Splenda group.

Glucose boost

"Researchers used to think you had to drink the glucose and get it into your body to give you the energy to [have] self-control," says coauthor Leonard Martin, professor of psychology. "After this trial, it seems that glucose stimulates the simple carbohydrate sensors on the tongue." He adds: "This, in turn, signals the motivational centres of the brain where our self-related goals are represented." And it's these signals, he adds, that wake your body up and tell it to start paying attention.

Have to work late when you'd rather be heading home? Martin suggests gargling a bit of sugar water may not only help you focus better on the task at hand but help strengthen your resolve to do something you'd rather not be doing. "It is the self-investment," Martin adds. "It doesn't just crank up your energy, but it cranks up your personal investment in what you are doing."

Martin suggested that while more research needs to be done, gargling with sugar water might even aid those trying to lose weight or stop smoking, at least in the short run.

The study, announced yesterday, appears in the journal Psychological Science.

http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/10/19/0956797612450034 — AFP/Relaxnews

Ancient Thracian gold hoard unearthed in Bulgaria

Posted: 08 Nov 2012 05:51 AM PST

SOFIA, Nov 8 — Bulgarian archaeologists unearthed ancient golden artefacts, including bracelets with snake heads, a tiara with animal motifs and a horse head piece during excavation works at a Thracian tomb in northern Bulgaria, they said today.

Gold artefacts are seen after they were unearthed from an ancient Thracian tomb near the village of Sveshtari, some 400km (248 miles) north-east of Sofia, November 7, 2012. — Reuters pic

The new golden artefacts are dated back to the end of the fourth or the beginning of the third century BC and were found in the biggest of 150 ancient tombs of a Thracian tribe, the Getae, that was in contact with the Hellenistic world.

The findings also included a golden ring, 44 applications of female figures as well as 100 golden buttons.

"These are amazing findings from the apogee of the rule of the Getae," said Diana Gergova, head of the archaeologist team at the site of the ancient Getic burial complex situated near the village of Sveshtari, some 400 km northeast from Sofia.

"From what we see up to now, the tomb may be linked with the first known Getic ruler Cothelas," said Gergova, a renown researcher of Thracian culture with the Sofia-based National Archaeology Institute.

One of the tombs there, known as the Tomb of Sveshtari, is included in the World Heritage List of UN education and culture agency, UNESCO, for its unique architectural decor with half-human, half-plant female figures and painted murals.

The Thracians, ruled by a powerful warrior aristocracy rich in gold treasures, inhabited an area extending over modern Romania and Bulgaria, northern Greece and the European part of Turkey from as early as 4,000 BC.

They lived on the fringes of the Greek and Roman civilisations, often intermingling and clashing with the more advanced cultures until they were absorbed into the Roman Empire around 45 AD.

Archaeologists have discovered a large number of artefacts in Bulgaria's Thracian tombs in recent decades, providing most of what is known of their culture, as they had no written language and left no enduring records. — Reuters

Kredit: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com

Khamis, 8 November 2012

The Malaysian Insider :: Features

The Malaysian Insider :: Features

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