Is Sildenafil citrate, or Viagra as it is popularly known, the new aphrodisiac? Well, if the researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are to be believed, then, it is definitely so!

According to this study Viagra not only increases the blood flow to the sexual organs, it also helps the pituitary gland to produce more oxytocin. This “love hormone” or “cuddle hormone” as oxytocin is also known as, plays a very significant role in social relationships and reproduction. Do you know the hormone oxytocin is also released during orgasm?

Another study conducted by the researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) confirms that oxytocin is responsible for the maintaining healthy psychological boundaries and interpersonal relationships.

Rebecca Turner, PhD, UCSF said,

our results provide the groundwork for further studies looking at the way hormones may be affecting human attachment. We know that oxytocin is one of the hormones that can facilitate bonding in other animals, but this is the first step in exploring whether it plays a role in the emotional behavior of humans.

Isn’t this great news? Not only do these little magical blue pills (Viagra) help to treat impotence in males, it also acts as an agent to increase the sexual desire!

So, ladies now you know what to do if you want to spice up your love life! Instead of dishing up an oyster delicacy for your man, now, all you would need to do is to go buy some Viagra pills and gift it to him!

Wrong end of the snake or wrong end of the stick? The US (in particular) and the West (in general) has been waging out two most vital wars of the age, the ‘war on terror’ and the ‘war on drugs,’ but at different fronts and levels for almost a decade now. Unfortunately, both the wars don’t seem to dissolve and perhaps will continue to push the world further into the dark future, posing serious threats to the development and existence of life worldwide.

The disappointment at both the wars is more or less connected to each other. Failure of ‘war on drugs’ is largely responsible for the disappointment in the ‘war on terror,’ as the illegal drugs trade persist with its support to the Islamic insurgents, endangering the lives of millions of innocent civilians, together with military troops, in volatile Afghanistan.

In spite of billions of dollars of aid to cut the opium trade and the presence of international troops, opium production in Afghanistan has doubled in past two years, reaching a new high this year. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has come up with some staggering facts in its latest annual opium report that tells the tail of the failure of the ‘war on drugs.’

• The area planted with opium poppies in Afghanistan has risen to 193,000 hectares from 165,000 last year, a 17 per cent rise.
• With the number of heroin labs increasing, opium production jumped 34 per cent this year compared with last year in the nation.
• The report estimates the total opium harvest for the year at 8,200 tones, up from 6,100 tones last year.
• Afghanistan accounts for 93 per cent of the global opiates market.
• The southern province of Helmand (in Afghanistan) has become the world’s biggest source of illegitimate drugs, exceeding the output of entire nations.

What is driving farmers to flout the government’s ban and cultivate poppy?

One of the major reasons for soaring production of the illegal crop is indifferent attitude of the NATO umbrella that has by now shown little interest to hold back the illegal growers as well as traders of poppy in the region.

Moreover, the government has largely failed to provide employment or economic protraction to the poor workers and farmers who ultimately are left with no other option than to indulge in opium cultivation and trade, the major source of the livelihood for the larger sect of farmers and laborers across the nation.

High price or good returns for opium is another factor that easily outstrips any other agricultural product and attracts more farmers and workers into the black trade. In addition, corrupt officials in President Hamid Karzai’s government also play their part in flourishing the illegal but productive business.

The opium traders finance the Taliban and al-Qaeda insurgency, getting bigger day by day, for protecting their convoys smuggling opium into neighboring countries. The mutual growth of drugs and terrorism (narco-terrorism) has already killed thousands of innocent people and dispersed millions out of their homeland.

However, all isn’t hunky-dory with the opium trade in Afghanistan, as the UN report did note some positive development as well. While the opium boom has taken place in the troubled Helmand province in the Southern Afghanistan, which also is a stronghold of Taliban and al-Qaeda, on the other hand, the drugs trade in Northern provinces has marked a significant decline.

Problems cannot be resolved unless they are first understood. And it just looks that the Bush-Blair band has by and large failed to reach the root cause of the problem and tried to battle it senselessly at the shallow surface. They completely botched to address the relation between the two ‘wars’ and find an extensive strategy to resolve the problem.

Nevertheless, this is an alarming situation not just for the regional governments but the world community, as the production of poppy in Afghanistan directly or indirectly supports the terrorism and drugs trade (major threats for stability and peace) worldwide. Since it is almost impossible to battle the two vices at different scattered, such evils should be nipped in the bud. Furthermore, there should be some other work opportunities or economic backing for the people, largely earning their lives from poppy trade, because more employments and work options will automatically inundate the illegal trade in the volatile nation.

Teachers and students at a school in Wales are being offered anti-bird flu drugs after being in contact with a child suspected of contracting H7N2 virus.

The school staff is being treated with antiviral medication as a precaution, the National Public Health Service (NPHS) said in a statement. 12 persons have so far been reported infected with the strain.

Dr Marion Lyons of the NPHS fears,

Person-to-person spread would be very unusual but limited spread of this type has been seen elsewhere in the past in some cases of bird flu. As a precautionary measure the NPHS is continuing to offer people who have had contact with individuals with this illness antiviral medication to minimize the risk of spread. Experience of this particular bird flu virus in humans is limited so we are actively managing the public health response.

Authorities confirmed an outbreak of bird flu among chickens at a farm in North Wales last week. Fortunately, the virus has been identified as the low pathogenic H7N2 strain of bird flu, not the H5N1 strain, which is potentially deadly to humans and has caused scares everywhere around the globe.

Earlier this year, Europe’s biggest turkey producer Bernard Matthews was forced to scull 160,000 turkeys because of an outbreak of the H5N1 strain of bird flu in England. Since then, Britain has been on the watch for bird disease.

The World Health Organization (WHO) says a total of 186 people have died of the deadly bird flu since 2003. The virus has since spread throughout Asia, sporadic parts of Europe, and the Middle East and Africa.

But since it is a low pathogenic strain that has shown its face in Britain, it should not be treated lightly. Every necessary precaution must be taken to ensure safety of the people.

There is evidence that modern humans not only lived among Homo neanderthalensis but may also have interbred with them, says Roger Highfield

Long ago, the world was ruled by a different kind of a human, a squat and rugged sort who was adapted to the chill of an ice age. From 300,000 years ago, the land of the Neanderthals stretched from Asia to Western Europe, where they hunted with heavy spears in forests and grassland.

	A model head of Neanderthal man created by Maurice Wilson of the Natural History Museum, London

The beginning of the end came some 45,000 to 50,000 years ago, when they came across a band of modern humans. No one knows for sure what happened when our ancestors met their robust cousins except that, a few millennia later, the Neanderthal empire was no more.

Even today, the demise of the Neanderthals has the power to chill. The reason for this is that they were so human. What happened to them remains a mystery and will be one of the themes debated this week, as scientists meet at the International Union for Quaternary Research in Cairns, Australia.

The first Neanderthal specimen was recognised in the Neander Valley, outside Düsseldorf, Germany, hence the name. We have known for a long time that Neanderthals reached Britain but new evidence about their reign here is emerging all the time.

A jawbone, thought to be at least 31,000 years old and excavated from Kent's Cavern in Torquay in 1926, is being reassessed by an international team who believe that advances in analytical methods may help establish if it is more ancient than was first thought and is perhaps Neanderthal.

"If it does turn out to be Neanderthal, this would be the first proper mainland late Neanderthal from Britain," says Prof Chris Stringer, of the Natural History Museum, one of the research team and author of Homo Britannicus: The Incredible Story of Human Life in Britain.

Our ancient cousin, Homo neanderthalensis, was formidable. Using methods of manufacture dating back more than a million years, he fashioned weapons and probably hunted in packs.

His peace was disturbed when modern humans made an initial foray into Neanderthal territory some 135,000 to 115,000 years ago but that encroachment ended in the Levant a few tens of millennia later. However, at around the same time, according to one theory of human migration, another group of modern humans set out much further south, at the mouth of the Red Sea, and headed east.

By around 50,000 years ago, the group had pushed into the Levant. They moved on Europe, where they lived side by side with Neanderthals between 43,000 to 38,000 years ago. It was soon after the Neanderthals encountered this second invasion of modern humans that they disappeared from the fossil record.

What happened? To quote Prof Stringer: "When these populations met, did they regard each other as simply people, enemies, alien or even prey?"

One difficulty in working out how these ancient humans rubbed along is that there is a lack of clear evidence of close encounters. That changed two years ago when a paper was published by Prof Paul Mellars, of Cambridge University, and his student Brad Gravina, suggesting the two kinds of human lived together at Grotte des Fées at Châtelperron in France.

The study was criticised but the Cambridge team published a detailed rebuttal. "The importance of the new paper is that it confirms at least 2,000 years of coexistence/overlap between Neanderthals and modern humans in this one small region," said Prof Mellars. "This is the only direct, unambiguous evidence of this so far."

But if they coexisted there for many generations - and this is still subject to dispute - how can it be argued that modern humans wiped out Neanderthals? And if they did not make war, surely they made love?

One important clue comes from shreds of DNA from Neanderthal bone being studied by teams in America and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Although it will take a couple of years to reconstruct the entire genetic makeup - genome - of Neanderthals, interbreeding appears unlikely to have been significant, according to the latest findings from Svante Pääbo, head of the Max Planck team.

A paper published in last week's issue of the journal Nature reached a similar conclusion. The study of human genetic diversity by Dr Andrea Manica of Cambridge University was combined with measurements of more than 6,000 skulls. "There was no significant flow of genes from Neanderthal (or other ancient human species) to anatomically modern humans," he said.

Not everyone is convinced. Some, like Sarah Tishkoff, of the University of Maryland, point out that the pattern of inheritance of some human genes could be consistent with interbreeding. And there is tantalising evidence of apparent hybrids. Prof João Zilhão, of the University of Bristol, and Prof Erik Trinkaus, of Washington University, described one mosaic of modern and ancient features in a 40,000-year-old modern human cranium found in the Pestera cu Oase (the Cave with Bones) in southwestern Romania.

The reconstructed cranium - named Oase 2 - was flattened at the front and featured exceptionally large upper molars with a size progression found principally among Neanderthals.

Slightly younger bones found at another site in Romania, Pestera Muierii, also suggest hybrid features, along with the 24,500-year-old skeleton of a young boy from Portugal: his prominent chin was characteristic of early modern humans, while the stocky trunk and short limbs of this four-year-old arguably reflected Neanderthal origins. Most recently, a possible hybrid skeleton has been found in China and dated to approximately 40,000 years old by Prof Trinkaus and colleagues.

But there are sceptics who say we need more examples of early modern humans from Africa between 40,000-80,000 years ago to be sure of what really represents Neanderthal features. And it could have been that the hybrids were infertile or shunned by their peers, explaining why DNA studies suggest little interbreeding.

Another remarkable find has been of the last refuge of the Neanderthals, revealed in Gorham's Cave in Gibraltar by Prof Clive Finlayson, of The Gibraltar Museum. He believes there has been too much emphasis on Moderns versus Neanderthals. In the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution, he suggests there were a number of populations at different stages of becoming "modern", followed by extinction of many - including Neanderthals - with only one surviving: our ancestors.

The culprit for the demise of the last Neanderthals, he believes, was rapid climate change which triggered arid conditions. About 45,000 years ago, Europe's climate suddenly switched between warm, and cold and dry. Sediment cores drilled from the sea bed near the Balearic Islands show the average sea surface temperature plunged to 8C (46F), while the modern equivalent ranges from 14C (57F) to 20C (68F).

As a result of the retreat of the forests, the Neanderthals could only survive in ever smaller groups, becoming confined to bolt holes on the Mediterranean coast. They hung on until 28,000 years ago, perhaps even 24,000 years ago. As there is little evidence of our ancestors being present there, it seems that climate change could have delivered the coup de grâce. Here, at the southernmost tip of Europe, the last of the Neanderthals died, isolated and alone.

Factfile

『 RELIVE THE MOMENT』

——A Speech by James J. Bradley

The 55th Anniversary of the Battle of Iwo Jima

Marine Corps War Memorial, Arlington, Virginia

20 February 2000

Transcription courtesy of USMC 

(Introduction by Iwo Jima veteran Major General Fred Haynes, U.S. Marine Corps, Retired)

General Haynes: John Bradley is the second man from the right, the Pharmacist Mate, the only Navy man in this magnificent statue which represents everything that all of us here, our children, our grandchildren stand for. We have with us today his fourth child, third son, James Bradley, who will talk to us a little about what this represents. I present James Bradley.

   (Bradley rises from his seat and strides across the wet grass to the podium. Silently he turns away to gaze at his father's enormous bronze likeness. He turns back to the audience and begins.)

 James Bradley: So there's my dad in the tallest bronze monument in the world, but that's about all we knew growing up. He wouldn't talk about Iwo Jima; he would always change the subject. After he died, I phoned my mother and asked her to tell me everything that dad ever told her about Iwo Jima. She said, "That won't take long, because he only talked about it once -- on our first date. For seven or eight disinterested minutes and then never again in a 47 year marriage did he say the words, Iwo Jima."  

After his funeral, we were in for some surprises. My brothers and my mother were searching for his will in his office. They opened a closet door. In that closet were two large brown boxes. We were surprised that in those boxes he had secretly saved memories of 50 years of being a flagraiser.  

Then the next day we were in for another surprise. My father's Captain on Iwo Jima phoned my mother and asked her if she knew that my father had been awarded the Navy Cross for valor two days before the flag raising. She said no.  

My father had kept his heroism a secret from his wife, from his family, and his community for half a century.  

I burned with curiosity and went on a quest. I phoned mayor's offices and sheriff's departments all across the country, looking for the relatives of these six guys. I interviewed hundreds of you Iwo Jima veterans and I learned a lot.  

I learned how young you were. My dad is not the guy putting the pole in the ground; he's the next guy up. But behind him, obscured by him, on the other side, is Rene Gagnon.  

Rene Gagnon, at that moment, had a photo of his girlfriend in his helmet. He needed the protection because he was scared. He was 17 years old.  

Ira Hayes, the last man on the statue whose hands cannot reach the pole. Proud of being with you Marines, he wrote home from the boat taking him to Iwo Jima: "These boys I'm with are all good men. I would not take 1000 dollars to be separated from them."  

I learned how eager you boys were to serve. Harlon Block, at the base of that pole, enlisted in the United States Marine Corps with all of the senior members of his high school football team.

 I learned how determined you were on Iwo Jima. My dad wrote a letter home three days after the flag raising. He wrote, " I didn't know I could go without food, without water, or sleep for three days, but now I know it can be done."  

I learned about leaders. Ira Hayes is the last guy up there. The next guy you're looking at is Franklin Sousley. Behind Franklin, obscured by Franklin, is my hero -- Mike Strank.  

Where is Mike's right hand? Mike's right hand is not on the pole. Mike is behind his boys. He's the Sergeant. He's the Marine leader and his right hand is gripping the right arm of Franklin Sousley, a young boy. Mike is helping Franklin lift a heavy pole; a Marine leader caring for his boys.  

Three weeks before Iwo Jima, his Captain said that he wanted to promote Mike Strank. Mike turned it down on the spot saying, "I promised my boys I'd be there with them."  

And I learned about the heartbreak that you went through. Franklin Sousley, the second figure in. Franklin was fatherless at the age of nine. He was dead on Iwo Jima at the age of nineteen.

 His aunt told me that when the telegram arrived at the General Store in Hilltop, Kentucky a young, barefoot boy ran that telegram up to his mother's farm. The story is that the neighbors could hear his mother scream all night and into the morning.  

The neighbors lived a quarter of a mile away.   

I learned about the challenges that you faced. You did the impossible. You fought an underground, unseen enemy.  

I learned that the Air Force bombed Iwo Jima more than any spot in the Pacific and only rearranged the sand. 

I learned that the Navy lobbed shells the size of Volkswagens -- with the power to re-sculpture Mount Suribachi -- and didn't kill anybody.  

It took you guys to win a battle that historians describe as "American flesh against Japanese concrete."  

I have been to Iwo Jima. It's five miles long. If you're in a car going 60 miles an hour, it takes you 5 minutes to conquer it. It took you -- slogging, fighting, dying -- 36 days.  

I learned that my father's company, named "Easy" Company, had 84 percent casualties. Sixteen percent of my dad's buddies made it off unharmed.  

Bob Schmidt told me that when they buried the dead on Saipan, they buried by individual grave. When they buried on Iwo Jima they buried by row -- rows of a hundred boys. He told me that they needed surveyors to mark the lines. 

Corpsman Hoopes instructed me, "You tell your readers that my uniform was caked with blood and it cracked. And it was not my blood."  

I learned about the buddyhood and bravery that won the battle of Iwo Jima.  

Jack Lucas, here in the front row, jumped on the beach without a rifle. And the reason he didn't have a rifle is because he wasn't supposed to be there. He stowed away to go fight the battle of Iwo Jima. And a couple days later jumped on two grenades to save his buddies.  

Nurse Norma Crotty is in the audience and I interviewed her. She was an "Angel in the Air," flying down to evacuate the grievously wounded. She evacuated Navy personnel, Army personnel -- all over the Pacific. She was a nurse for 50 years caring to civilians and military.

 I asked, "Nurse Norma, was there anything different about those Iwo Jima Marines?" And she said, "Yes, I'll never forget them. It was their spirit. I evacuated boys from other battles that were beaten, but those Marines had Esprit de Corps. Those boys were burned. They were bruised. But I never saw a Marine who was beaten."

 I think it's time we Americans put this battle into perspective.

 This is not just a big battle of the Pacific, or an important battle of World War II.

 This is unique.

 This is above and beyond.

 This is "America's Battle."

 What else can you call a battle that in one day had more casualties than two and a half months at Guadalcanal?

 Normandy was terrible, but at the end of one day, at the end of 24 hours, you and I could have had a tea party on the beaches of Normandy. It was completely safe.  

Boys died on the beaches of Iwo Jima -- on the beaches -- for two weeks.  

America's Battle.  

What else can you call the only battle that when Franklin Delano Roosevelt saw the casualties he gasped, and he cried?  

TIME Magazine, March 5th, 1945, wrote, "no battle of World War II -- not even Normandy -- was watched with as much interest as the battle of Iwo Jima."  

America's Battle . . .  

(Bradley gazes at the Iwo Jima veterans in the audience and beckons to them . . .)  

Hey guys listen up! George Washington. Thomas Edison. Hank Aaron. You Marines and Corpsmen who won America's Battle. I would like to salute you guys, but I know how difficult that is because you are as humble as you are brave. 

Jessie Boatright said to me, "You know Bradley, you think we did something special out there in the Pacific, but we were just ordinary guys. Ordinary guys just doing our duty."  

Yes, well, I'm more in synch with the words of Tex Stanton.  

I often call Tex Stanton when I need advice with my writing. And he always picks up on the first ring. He doesn't leave his chair very often. Because Mr. Stanton has no legs.  

He left those on Iwo Jima 55 years ago.  

Mr. Stanton said to me, "You know Bradley, heroism on that island was a funny thing. You had to be observed, and you had to be written up, and if you got a medal your citation said that you did something "above and beyond." Well Bradley," he said, "I saw a lot of heroes on Iwo Jima and the way I figure it, if you got through one day on that island you were doing something "above and beyond" just to survive."

 I would like to salute you guys.  

You guys who won America's Battle.

 You ordinary guys.  

You heroes of Iwo Jima. 

(After a silent pause Bradley turns to gaze at the six bronze figures for a moment and then walks across the wet grass to his seat.) 

--------The End