Loneliness is 'hidden killer' of elderly

By Sean Coughlan BBC News education and family correspondent

Campaigners want to raise awareness of the link between loneliness and poor health

Loneliness is the "hidden killer" of elderly people, says a campaign group, which is calling for greater recognition of the link between isolation and ill-health.

A group of charities is launching the Campaign to End Loneliness.

It warns that lonely older people are at increased risk of depression, lack of exercise and bad diet.

The campaign says that almost one in 10 elderly people suffers from "intense" loneliness.

The campaign group wants loneliness to be recognised as a public health issue - and has published a survey claiming that fewer than one in five people is aware of the link between poor health and loneliness.

The campaign has been set up by Independent Age, Age UK Oxfordshire, Counsel and Care and WRVS and funded by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

Trapped

While people are aware of the emotional problems of loneliness, the campaign says few recognise the physical damage.

It warns of elderly people trapped in their own homes by a lack of mobility and the loss of family and friends.

A tenth of elderly people see their friends or families less than once a month, says the charity

A lack of social interaction can make old people more vulnerable to depression and to problems such as excessive drinking, poor diet and a reduction in exercise.

The campaigners say that "loneliness adversely affects the immune and cardio-vascular systems" and a lack of social interaction is linked to the onset of Alzheimer's disease.

"The problems of loneliness and isolation need to be put on an equal footing with any other condition associated with ageing. Ending loneliness should be part of the solution to the challenge of reforming care and support," said campaign director Laura Ferguson.

The campaign wants to highlight the importance of loneliness in the lives of the elderly.

More than half of people over the age of 75 are living alone - and about one in 10 says he or she suffers from "intense" loneliness.

According to the campaign, almost one in five old people sees family, friends or neighbours less than once a week - and about one in 10 of them experiences such social interaction less than once a month.

A spokeswoman for the campaign says that there is a need for informal and formal attempts to tackle such loneliness, either through organised befriending schemes or through neighbours helping one another.

She said that it was a problem that was often overlooked and which could manifest itself in other ways, such as health problems.

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Sony unveils NGP - successor to PSP handheld console

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Sony Computer Entertainment's Shuhei Yoshida and Kaz Hirai demonstrate the NGP's features at the company's strategy briefing event in Tokyo.

Sony has unveiled its new handheld games console the PSP 2.

At a special event in Tokyo, company bosses revealed what they are officially calling the NGP or Next Generation Portable.

There were no details on how much it is likely to cost but it is expected to be out sometime towards the end of 2011.

The NGP is being launched into an increasingly competitive market with Nintendo's 3DS out soon and a boom in mobile gaming on smartphones.

Dual analogue sticks

The device boasts a 5-inch OLED touch screen screen as well as Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity to enable people to download games and other content.

The oval design (182.0 x 18.6 x 83.5mm) also features a rear panel touchpad to control certain actions and a motion sensor.

There is a front and rear camera too plus the traditional navigation buttons and, for the first time, dual analogue sticks.

Sony hope the NGP can rival Nintendo's DS

Executives at Sony hope the new features will be good enough to win over gamers.

Its predecessor, the PSP, was launched in 2004 and to date has sold 65 million units.

But that is less than half the number of sales of Nintendo's DS (136 million).

Nintendo are also launching the world's first 3D handheld games console in March, the 3DS.

The 3DS has generated a huge amount of hype, partly because users don't need special glasses for the 3D content to work.

Meanwhile smartphones are also fuelling a boom in mobile gaming leaving some experts wondering whether specific handheld games consoles are becoming redundant.

PlayStation phone

A popular title like Angry Birds costs a fraction of the price of console games to develop and is also cheaper for customers to buy.

Yet with around 40 million downloads it has raked in millions of pounds for developers Rovio.

However, Sony is more than aware of the potential of mobile gaming.

The heavily rumoured PlayStation phone is expected to be unveiled at next month's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

It also announced its new PlayStation Suite application for Google Android phones at the Tokyo conference.

Out later this year, that will let users run video games with the same quality of the original PlayStation and be compatible with the NGP.

Follow our technology reporter Dan Whitworth on Twitter

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Financial crisis of 2008 avoidable, says US inquiry

Banks took excessive risks in the run-up to the crisis, the commission said

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US Economy

• US retail sales grew in February
• US unemployment rate falls again
• US tax cut fails to lift spending
• US home sales in January recovery

Regulators, politicians and bankers were to blame for the 2008 US financial meltdown, a report has claimed.

The US Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, tasked with establishing the causes of the crisis, said it was "avoidable".

Its report highlighted excessive risk-taking by banks and neglect by financial regulators.

Only the six Democrat members of the 10-strong commission, set up in May 2009, endorsed the report's findings.

"The crisis was the result of human action and inaction, not of Mother Nature or models gone haywire," the report said.

"The captains of finance and the public stewards of our financial system ignored warnings and failed to question, understand and manage evolving risks within a system essential to the well-being of the American public.

"Theirs was a big miss, not a stumble."

Ethical breaches

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

The greatest tragedy would be to accept the refrain that no one could have seen this coming and thus nothing could have been done”

End Quote Phil Agelides Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission

The damning report criticised the extent of the financial deregulation overseen by the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan.

It concluded that the crisis was caused by a number of factors:

• Failures in financial regulation, including the Federal Reserve's failure "to stem the tide of toxic mortgages"
• A breakdown in corporate governance that led to "reckless" actions and excessive risk taking by financial institutions
• Households taking on too much debt
• A lack of understanding of the financial system on the part of policymakers
• Fundamental breaches in accountability and ethics "at all levels".

It added that "collapsing mortgage-lending standards" and the packaging-up of mortgage-related debt into investment vehicles "lit and spread the flame of contagion".

These complex derivatives, which were traded in huge volumes by major investment banks, then "contributed significantly to the crisis" when the mortgages they were based on defaulted.

The report also highlighted the "abysmal" failures of the credit ratings agencies in recognising the risks involved in these and other products.

Blame game

Leading figures of the George W Bush and Obama administrations were not let off lightly:

• Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan was accused of "championing" financial deregulation during the credit boom that "stripped away key safeguards".
• Mr Greenspan was also indirectly criticised for the Fed's overly loose monetary policy and pronouncements that "encouraged rather than inhibited the growth of mortgage debt and the housing bubble"
• The Federal Reserve Bank of New York - then under the aegis of the current Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner - "could have clamped down on Citigroup's excesses in the run-up to the crisis"
• The government's handling of major financial institutions during the crisis - led by former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson - was inconsistent and "increased uncertainty and panic in the market"
• Goldman Sachs - initially under Mr Paulson's leadership - was singled out for its role in creating "synthetic CDOs" from 2004 that helped magnify risks by letting clients bet against the mortgage market.

However, the report did soften the blow, saying: "In making these observations, we deeply respect and appreciate the efforts made by Secretary Paulson, Chairman Bernanke, and Timothy Geithner... and so many others who labored to stabilise our financial system and our economy in the most chaotic and challenging of circumstances."

Establishing blame was essential in preventing future crises, the report said.

"Despite the expressed view of many on Wall Street and in Washington that the crisis could not have been foreseen or avoided, there were warning signs," said Phil Angelides, chairman of the commission.

"The greatest tragedy would be to accept the refrain that no one could have seen this coming and thus nothing could have been done.

"If we accept this notion, it will happen again."

The commission interviewed more than 700 witnesses and held 19 days of public hearings across the US.

Dissent

All four Republicans on the commission announced several weeks in advance of the report's publication that they would not agree with its findings.

Three of them published a separate report that insisted that blame should be attributed to Mr Greenspan's Federal Reserve.

The fourth produced his own report focusing on the role of government in creating the housing bubble.

Republicans have pointed to the giant government-sponsored mortgage agencies (GSEs), Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, whose subsidised lending they claim inflated the bubble.

They have also argued that legislation introduced by former Democratic President Bill Clinton had encouraged excessive and reckless lending to low income households.

In contrast, the report penned by the six Democrats on the panel said the evidence showed that the GSEs were not at the forefront of the riskiest sub-prime lending, but instead they followed the lead of Wall Street firms.

Nor was the "Community Reinvestment Act" a significant factor in subprime lending, the report said, although "community lending commitments not required by the [act] were clearly used by lending institutions for public relations purposes".

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Florida teenager 'put piano on Miami sand bar'

The piano sat unremarked upon for weeks

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Related stories

• Grand piano appears on sandbank

A 16-year-old boy has admitted placing an old grand piano on a sand bar in Miami's Biscayne Bay, ending a mystery that had gripped the city.

Nicholas Harrington said he had used the family boat to haul the piano to its lonely perch as an art project to boost his bid for university.

He said he was prepared to remove the instrument, an old movie prop.

"I wanted to create a whimsical, surreal experience," he told the Associated Press on Thursday.

Promotional video

Nicholas said he had hatched the plan after partiers at a raucous New Year's Eve party set the piano, which had sat gathering dust in a garage for years, alight.

On 2 January, he and his father Mark Harrington, a production designer for films, and others took the piano out to the sand bar, where it remained unremarked upon until National Geographic posted pictures of the piano on its website last week.

They filmed the process for a video that Nicholas intended to submit with his application to Cooper Union, a prestigious art and engineering school in New York City.

Florida authorities have disclaimed responsibility for moving the piano, and the US Coast Guard has said it will not move it unless it becomes a navigation hazard.

But Nicholas and his mother told the Associated Press they were prepared to remove it themselves.

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The Myth of Homegrown Islamic Terrorism

By Romesh Ratnesar

There is a specter haunting the U.S. It is "one of the things that keeps me up at night," Attorney General Eric Holder said last month. North Carolina Representative Sue Myrick, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, has warned President Obama that "there is no doubt" the problem has become "a global threat." The incoming chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Peter King, plans to convene hearings next month on the danger "that threatens the security of us all."

In the wake of the Tucson, Ariz., tragedy, you might think that such high-profile alarm would center on the shortcomings of America's mental-health system or the inadequacy of the country's gun laws. You would be mistaken. Instead, some members of the political class remain fixated on what they regard as a greater national emergency: the purported rise of "homegrown" Islamic terrorists. They point to a string of examples of jihadist activity by U.S. citizens of Muslim faith: the Somali-born Portland, Ore., man who tried to detonate a dud car bomb planted by the FBI at a December tree-lighting ceremony; last summer's failed Times Square bombing by a naturalized Pakistani; the 14 men charged last August with providing support to Islamist militants in Somalia. (See more about Portland's Christmas-tree-bombing plot.)

And then there's Anwar al-Awlaki, the Yemen-based Internet imam late of Falls Church, Va., who intelligence officials say now acts as a regional commander for al-Qaeda, with the charge of recruiting impressionable American Muslims to take up arms against their country. In the eyes of some, al-Awlaki and his ilk represent the vanguard of an even more sinister trend: the growing "radicalization" of the estimated 5 million Muslims living in the U.S. "Radicalization is taking place inside America," Myrick wrote in her letter to Obama. "The strikingly accelerated rate of American Muslims arrested for involvement in terrorist activities since May 2009 makes this fact self-evident."

Actually, it doesn't. Though acts of violent extremism by U.S. Muslims appear to have grown, their potency has not. American Muslims remain more moderate, diverse and integrated than the Muslim populations in any other Western society. Despite the efforts of al-Qaeda propagandists like al-Awlaki, the evidence of even modest sympathy for the enemy existing inside the U.S. is minuscule. The paranoia about homegrown terrorism thus vastly overstates al-Qaeda's strength and reflects our leaders' inability to make honest assessments about the true threats to America's security.

Those who beat the drums about the homegrown terrorism threat often gloss over one salient fact: for all the publicity that surrounds cases of domestic jihad, not a single civilian has been killed by an Islamic terrorist on U.S. soil since Sept. 11. (The killing spree by Major Nidal Hasan at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009 doesn't fit the standard definition of terrorism: his motives were not wholly ideological, nor did he deliberately target civilians.) That's due to a number of factors, including the military's assault on al-Qaeda's leadership, tougher homeland-security measures, smart policing and some degree of luck. But the fact that every homegrown terrorism plot has been foiled before it could be carried out also demonstrates the fecklessness of the terrorists themselves. In nearly every case — including that of Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square bomber, who came closest to succeeding — homegrown terrorists have been found to have acted almost entirely alone. There has been no vast conspiracy. Terrorist attacks may not require much money or ingenuity, but a lone wolf has little chance of pulling off the kind of mass-casualty strike that counterterrorism experts worry about most. (See more about the Broadway Bomber, Faisal Shahzad.)

Of course, violent individuals — from Hasan to Jared Loughner — are still capable of causing mayhem. But there's no evidence that large numbers of American Muslims are inclined to do so. Though alarmists point to the alienation of young Muslims in Western Europe as a sign of things to come for the U.S., the likelihood of that happening there is remote. A Gallup survey conducted in 2009 found that American Muslims report vastly higher rates of life satisfaction than do their counterparts in other Western countries — and higher rates than the populations in every Muslim-majority country except one, Saudi Arabia. In the past 10 years, fewer than 200 people in the U.S. have been indicted on suspicion of jihadist activities. A comprehensive report by the Rand Corporation last year concluded that just one out of every 30,000 American Muslims could be said to have joined jihad, "suggesting an American Muslim population that remains hostile to jihadist ideology and its exhortations to violence."

So why does the myth of homegrown terrorism persist? In part because, like every hardy political meme, it serves the interests of loudmouths on both ends of the ideological spectrum. To the right, the threat of homegrown terrorism helps to perpetuate the notion of a ceaseless, civilization-wide struggle against Islamic extremism. To the left, the prospect of American Muslims taking up jihad fits with the idea that the U.S.'s foreign policy is creating a new generation of terrorists. (See photos of a jihadist's journey.)

And yet al-Qaeda is weaker and less capable today than it was before Sept. 11; its appeal to mainstream Muslims around the world is shrinking, rather than increasing. The fact that Osama bin Laden wannabes like al-Awlaki have risen to such prominence is testament to the evisceration of al-Qaeda's leadership. The U.S. faces far bigger and immediate challenges to the welfare and security of its citizens, not least from the ease with which unstable individuals can legally obtain and use deadly firearms. Addressing that danger will do more to protect Americans than obsessing about the phantom threat of homegrown terrorism ever will.

Ratnesar, a TIME contributing editor-at-large, is a Bernard L. Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation and the author of Tear Down This Wall: A City, a President, and the Speech That Ended the Cold War. His column on global affairs appears every Monday on TIME.com.

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U.S. Diplomat Could Bring Down Pakistan Gov't

The scene could have been scripted in a Hollywood action thriller: For two hours at the end of last month in Lahore, U.S. diplomat Raymond Davis was closely pursued by two visibly armed men on a motorbike. He noticed them tailing him from a restaurant to an ATM, and through the crowded streets of Pakistan's second city. They were close by when, in a crowded intersection, Davis produced his own handgun and fired seven shots. The diplomat was apparently a crack shot, and all seven bullets found their mark, killing his two pursuers. Davis then called for back-up, and a four-wheel-drive vehicle raced onto the scene, striking a Pakistani bystander who was killed by the impact. But the people in the vehicle, whose identities remain unknown, escaped from the scene having failed to retrieve Davis, who was later arrested nearby. In custody, Davis has told Pakistani authorities that he acted in self-defense, and has invoked diplomatic immunity, an international convention that protects diplomats from prosecution in the countries where they serve.

Two weeks later, Davis remains behind bars, facing murder charges. And the incident has plunged the already troubled relationship between Washington and Islamabad to a new low. Pakistani officials say Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week canceled a meeting with her Pakistani counterpart and is considering withdrawing an invitation for President Asif Ali Zardari to a trilateral summit with Afghan President Hamid Karzai later this month. But at home, Zardari faces intense pressure to prosecute Davis. The hitherto obscure employee of the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad has now become a lightning rod for the fierce anti-American sentiments shared by an overwhelming majority of Pakistanis.(See TIME's Pakistan covers.)

For Washington, the matter is simple: Davis, officals say, acted in self-defense when threatened by the two armed men trailing him. His diplomatic passport entitles him to full immunity from criminal prosecution under the Vienna Convention. And that message has been firmly relayed to Pakistan. "The pressure is huge from the U.S. end," says a Pakistani official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "But the pressure in Pakistan, from the army and the public, is huge also."

Zardari's government, heavily dependent on U.S. aid, is keen to see Davis released. "We need them more than they need us," says the Pakistani official. But public sentiment in Pakistan makes it hard for the government to be seen bowing to U.S. pressure, and its foreign ministry won't unequivocally confirm that Davis enjoys diplomatic immunity. And the government's problem is its opponents' opportunity. Davis is being prosecuted by the state government of Punjab, run by the opposition party of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Sharif's party looks set to extract political mileage by striking a proud, nationalist posture. The case of Raymond Davis has become the new rallying point for the religious parties that drew tens of thousands of people onto the streets last month to support of the country's controversial blasphemy laws. And local media has amplified hostility, which has reached a new peak this week after one of the slain men's widow committed suicide this week, reportedly out of despair that her husband's killer would evade justice.

But the decisive pressure on Zardari in the Davis case comes from Pakistan's military, for reasons that are only now becoming apparent. Davis, they say, was no ordinary diplomat. They cite the skill with which he eliminated his pursuers as suggesting a familiarity with arms not common in the diplomatic corps. His fluency in Urdu and Pashto are also remarkable considering that he first arrived in Pakistan as recently as October 2009. A series of documents obtained by the Pakistani news channel DawnNews — some said to have been in Davis' possession but whose authenticity can't be verified — suggest that the 36-year-old Nevada native carried a diplomatic passport and was a member of the Embassy's "Administrative and Technical Staff". These documents reportedly also name him as a Department of Defense contractor, and co-owner of Hyperion Protective Services.(See photos of Pakistan beneath the surface.)

Equally misleading, say Pakistani officials, is the claim in Pakistani media that Davis' victims had been "ordinary men", or even as "robbers," as the State Department has suggested. "They were from the ISI," says a government official, referring to Pakistan's military intelligence agency. It isn't clear, the official says, whether they were full paid-up agents or local informants. The two men had been tasked with tailing Davis, Pakistani officials say. "He had been traveling to Waziristan and meeting with people that the army doesn't approve of," says a Pakistani official, implying that Davis had met with Pakistani militants. While U.S. contractors and intelligence agents operate in Pakistan with the military's approval and often in cooperation, it insists they operate within strictly circumscribed parameters. Davis, according to some Pakistani accounts, had crossed a red line, and was being shadowed in a crude effort at intimidation.

The loss of two men linked with the ISI has injured the Pakistani military's pride, officials say, and comes amid rising tensions with Washington. Last December, the CIA station chief in Islamabad was forced to leave Pakistan after his identity was compromised. Langley blamed the ISI for the leak, a charge that the Pakistanis deny. Relations between the two agencies are now viewed has having dropped to their lowest-level in years, even as they are forced to work together on shaping a settlement in Afghanistan.

As domestically rewarding as it may be, brinkmanship over Davis imperils the long-term fortunes of Pakistan's government. "There's no choke on aid yet," says a senior Pakistani official. But if the standoff continues, and especially if Davis is convicted, it could be reduced to a trickle. And that could have a potentially catastrophic impact on an economy threatened by hyperinflation and the devaluation of its currency in the coming months. But a brittle government under strong pressure from its electorate and military may struggle to survive if it frees Raymond Davis.

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Facebook and Love: Why Women Are Attracted to Guys Who Play Hard to Get

By John Cloud

On Valentine's Day, it's tempting to check your wall every 10 min. to see if that cute guy from the bar last week has poked you. But a recent Psychological Science study by researchers at the University of Virginia and Harvard says you will probably like him more if he ignores you than if he posts flirty messages.

The study complicates decades of research on the “reciprocity principle,” which says that people fancy others who show fondness for them. As psychologists Erin Whitchurch, Timothy Wilson and Daniel Gilbert explain the principle, “If we want to know how much Sarah likes Bob, a good predictor is how much she thinks Bob likes her.” (More on TIME.com: 5 Little-Known Truths About American Sex Lives)

But recent research on non-romantic attractions — how much consumers like a certain product, say — shows that there can be pleasure in uncertainty. If you discover that your lottery ticket is a winner, you feel happier when you don't yet know the precise amount of your coming treasure than you do when you instantly learn its value. Or take Christmas: kids (and adults) often enjoy the anticipation of Santa's visit more than the actual presents he brings.

As the authors write, “When people are certain that a positive event has occurred, they begin to adapt to it.” That adaptation makes it all less thrilling. By contrast, “when people are uncertain about an important outcome, they can hardly think about anything else.”

This expectancy can create a “self-perception effect,” a psychological phenomenon first described by the respected researcher Daryl Bem in the late '60s. Bem noted that people often form attitudes about themselves by observing their own behaviors. In this case, the self-perception effect would roughly translate to “I must like him if I keep checking my wall to see if he pops up.”

To test whether the uncertainty theory applies to romantic attraction, Whitchurch, Wilson and Gilbert devised a simple experiment. They recruited 47 women from the University of Virginia and told them they would be participating in a study exploring whether Facebook is a useful dating site. The researchers also said several male students from the University of Michigan and UCLA had viewed their profiles — which was a lie. The male students were fictional. (More on TIME.com: Texting Leads to Sex Sooner--And Easier Break-Ups Later)

Each participant was told she would see the Facebook profiles of four of the guys. Then the participants were randomly split into three groups. In Group 1, each woman was told that the four guys had all said they expected to like her best. In Group 2, each woman was told she would see profiles of four men who had given her average ratings.

Finally, the women in Group 3 were told that their four men might be those who liked them most and might be those who thought they were average. This was the uncertainty group.

Then all the participants rated the men according to how much they liked them, how much they wanted to work with them on a class project, and — cutting to the chase — how much they wanted to hook up with them.

The results confirmed the reciprocity principle — the women in Group 2 had less desire for the guys whose profiles they saw than the women Group 1, who saw the profiles of the guys who thought they were hot. But the women in Group 3, the uncertainty group, were even more attracted to their men — men whose feelings they didn't know. As the authors write, “Women were more attracted to men when there was only a 50% chance that the men liked them best than when there was a 100% chance that the men liked them the best.” (More on TIME.com: Will Facebook Steal Online Dating Sites' Girl?)

In short, guys, you're right to play hard to get. This Valentine's, you can spark her attention by not poking her.

***

Follow my psychology columns on Twitter @JohnAshleyCloud

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Pain reduced by changing what you look at

By Rebecca Morelle Science reporter, BBC News

This won't hurt... much: Patrick Haggard gives science reporter Rebecca Morelle a first-hand look at the pain experiments

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Related Stories

• Touching own injury 'cuts pain'
• Easing pain with virtual reality
• Action urged on 'pain suffering'

What you look at can influence how much pain you feel, a study has revealed.

Contrary to many people's compulsion to look away during a painful event such as an injection, scientists found that looking at your body - in this case the hand - reduces the pain experienced.

The team also showed that magnifying the hand to make it appear larger cut pain levels further still.

The study, published in Psychological Science, is shedding light on how the brain processes pain.

The researchers say that gaining a better understanding of this could lead to new treatments.

Look away?

The University College London (UCL) and University of Milan-Bicocca research, which was funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), was carried out with the help of 18 volunteers.

The scientists applied a heat probe to each participant's hand, gradually increasing the temperature. As soon as this began to feel painful, the probe was removed and the temperature was recorded.

Patrick Haggard, professor of cognitive neuroscience from UCL, explained: "This gives us a measure of the pain threshold, and it is a safe and reliable way of testing when the brain pathways that underline pain become active."

Many people look away during a painful experience like an injection

The scientists then used a set of mirrors to manipulate what the volunteers saw.

The team found that volunteers could tolerate on average 3C more heat when they were looking at their hand in the mirror, compared with when their hand was obscured by a block of wood.

Professor Haggard said: "You always advise children not to look when they are having an injection or a blood sample taken, but we have found that looking at the body is analgesic - just looking at the body reduces pain levels.

"So my advice would be to look at your arm, but try to avoid seeing the needle - if that's possible. "

Brain pain

In another experiment, the researchers used convex mirrors to enlarge the appearance of the participant's hand. They found that doing so meant the volunteers were able to tolerate higher temperatures.

Conversely, when the team made the volunteers' hands look smaller, their pain threshold decreased.

The studies are helping to show how pain is processed in the brain

The researchers said the fact that pain levels were directly proportional to the size the body was viewed at was helping them to better understand the neurological basis of pain.

Professor Haggard said: "We know quite a lot about the pathways that carry pain signals from the body to the brain, but we know rather less about how the brain processes these signals once they arrive.

"Our interest has been in the relationship between the experience of pain and the representation that your brain makes of your own body.

"And we've shown there is an interesting interaction between the brain's visual networks and the brain's pain networks."

The researchers hope that understanding more about the science that underpins pain could one day help to lead to new treatments for chronic conditions.

Dr Flavia Mancini, lead author of the paper, said: "Psychological therapies for pain usually focus on the source of pain, for example by changing expectations or attention.

"However, thinking beyond the pain stimulus, to our body itself, may lead to novel clinical treatments."

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

Increasingly there is an interest in what the brain does to pain signals”

End Quote Dr Paul Nandi University College Hospital

And doctors say this is vital.

Dr Paul Nandi, a consultant in pain medicine at University College London Hospital's Pain Management Centre, said: "Pain is an enormous problem in the National Health Service and in society generally.

"We do not have precise figures, but it affects several million people in the UK, and it has a huge impact on quality of life.

"It also produces a huge economic burden - if you look at chronic back pain alone, it is estimated that it costs £16bn per annum.

"But this is still widely under-appreciated, and hasn't received the same attention and resources as other areas perceived as 'exciting' in the medical profession."

However, he said that studies like this could help to drive more research.

Dr Nandi explained: "A lot of research in the past few years has focussed on identifying targets in the nervous systems that can be used for treatments.

"But increasingly there is an interest in what the brain does to pain signals, and I think this will be a very exciting field for research in the next few years."

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Do Denmark's immigration laws breach human rights?

By Chris Bowlby BBC Radio 4

The tough law on marriages involving a foreign-born spouse has led to satirical mock weddings

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Related Stories

• Denmark's refugees in legal limbo
• Denmark row: The power of cartoons
• Denmark's immigration issue

Critics of Denmark's tightening rules on immigration and integration say the country is violating European norms, including human rights legislation. How much has Denmark's approach to these issues been transformed under pressure from a right-wing populist party?

It looks, at first, like a familiar Scandinavian scene.

Outside the Danish parliament in Copenhagen, an international crowd mixing Danish citizens, immigrants from all kinds of backgrounds, is enjoying music and theatre.

"Afro-Danes" are here, reflecting Denmark's long interest in African developments and its past offers of asylum to those fleeing conflicts in Africa and elsewhere.

The crowd laughs as a couple stage a mock marriage. An official asks whether they are marrying "purely for immigration purposes" and "plan to live in a ghetto".

Behind the humour, there is serious anxiety. Denmark has recently tightened its immigration laws again, with a points system designed to make it more difficult for "family reunion" to bring foreigners into the country through marriage.

And the language of "ghettoes", warnings of a threat to "Danish values", are now heard routinely in political and popular debate.

Points system

There are new stricter requirements for would-be immigrants, and for those already in Denmark, who wish to marry a Dane. This is in addition to the already high minimum age of 24 for both the Danish and the foreign would-be spouse, proof of financial independence and an "active commitment to Danish society".

Opponents of the new points system made their feelings known outside the Danish parliament

The new points system had Thomas Miller, a Dane, and his Mexican wife Carolina so worried they might now have to leave Denmark, that they went to lobby MPs in parliament.

"We are both graduates, we have been living in Denmark for eight years, working and paying our taxes, with no debts to the public system. Despite this, she would get no points," says Thomas.

"It's as if they don't want Danes to marry foreigners anymore. It's very worrying," Carolina adds.

"I'm speechless, it's so unjust," says Thomas. "It's all about the stick, there's no carrot."

Human rights breaches

European and international bodies have pointed out that some of these laws and regulations could be in breach of human rights legislation.

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LISTEN TO THE PROGRAMMES

• The first part of Europe: Driving on the Right about Denmark and Sweden is available on the BBC iPlayer
• Part two about Austria and Germany is on BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday 15 February at 1600 GMT

• Listen to part one on the iPlayer now
• Listen to part two from 15 February

Professor Margot Horspool, a specialist in European law at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law, says that the restrictions on marrying foreigners "almost certainly breach European Union law in respect of discrimination as to ethnic origin, and possibly as to age".

She also believes the rules may violate EU legal protection of "the right to family life".

Another tightening of the rules prohibits state-funded hostels for the homeless from accepting foreigners who do not have permanent residency status. Reports say that this has led to people freezing to death in the sub-zero winter temperatures.

This, suggests Professor Horspool, breaks EU legal commitments not to subject individuals to inhuman or degrading treatment, laws that amount to an "obligation on the member state to ensure that humans are not left out in the street to freeze or indeed to starve."

Continue reading the main story

TO MARRY A FOREIGNER

• Both the Danish and the foreign partner need to be at least 24 years old
• The Danish partner needs to post a bond of £7,200 collateral ($11,600)
• The foreign partner has to pass a language and knowledge test
• Both need to demonstrate a combined attachment to Denmark greater than to any other country

The Danish government denies that its laws breach human rights, and says the 24-year age restriction is to prevent forced marriages.

Naser Khader, himself of Palestinian and Syrian descent, is now the immigration spokesman for the Conservatives, part of the governing coalition which depends on the votes of the DPP, the anti-immigration Danish People's Party.

He defends the toughened immigration policies: "We have a lot of people with an immigrant background who married cousins from their parents' villages, who came to Denmark with no language skills, education or work experience and became a great cost to Danish society."

"Denmark should welcome anybody who wants to contribute to this society, but we don't want people who don't want to contribute," he adds.

Populism

All this is part, say critics, of a decade-long transformation in Denmark's approach to immigration and integration, under pressure from the populist Danish People's party, the DPP.

DPP leader Pia Kjaersgaard enjoys holding the balance of power in parliament

The DPP is led by Pia Kjaersgaard, a former social worker in an old people's home. "We founded the party because of too many immigrants," she says.

She likes to present a homely, common sense image. "I am very powerful," she told me, "but I am also just a housewife and mother".

Denmark's Muslim population are the party's particular focus. There are many Muslims, its says, who are unwilling to integrate and hostile to "Danish values" such as free speech.

The "cartoons crisis" in 2005 boosted DPP support, when a Danish newspaper published cartoons satirising the Prophet Mohammed. Many Muslims in Denmark and abroad objected, some violently.

The party has yet to win more than around 15% of the vote in elections. But what has given it such influence is Denmark's coalition politics. For a decade ruling parties have depended on DPP MPs to get legislation through.

In return, the DPP has secured other parties' agreement to ever stricter rules on immigration and integration.

The late Toeger Seidenfaden regretted many Danish politicians' decreasing interest in human rights

This has "made everyone aware of [the DPP's] power," the late Toger Seidenfaden, Denmark's top political commentator, told me shortly before his death last month. The DPP has become "highly visible", and is seen as the "winner of the game", he said.

Mainstream parties originally tried to ignore the DPP or dismiss it as "not house-trained", unworthy of political attention.

But more recently several parties have abandoned that stance, accepting the DPP as permanent part of the political and parliamentary scene.

In Denmark, as in many other European countries, new populist parties and movements are moving from the margins and shaping the way immigration and integration is debated.

Source

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Commentary

Here is a better question:

Since when did the government have a right to restrict whom I can and cannot marry?

This question is absurd. Governments make people's lives easier. They do not step into them or on them.

This is a clear violation of every ethical mandate since the dawn of time til now.

I cannot marry my spouse because she/he does not meet your requirements? Shame on Denmark. How crazy a system, it's pathetic in it's idea let alone in trying to apply it to the real world.

It even has an arbitrary age guideline of 24....

Is it fair to pay bankers big bonuses?

Continue reading the main story

In today's Magazine

• Tree huggers
• Dinner table test
• 7 days 7 questions
• Your Letters

It's bonus season for bankers, including at banks bailed out by taxpayers. Is this just? Great thinkers like Aristotle have mulled such questions for centuries, says philosopher Mark Vernon.

Is it fair and just to pay bankers big bonuses?

You can seek an answer in three different ways, according to the three traditions of moral philosophy that dominate in our times, which are also explored in BBC Four's Justice: A Citizen's Guide to the 21st Century.

The first answer can be summed up in a word: happiness.

Continue reading the main story

Find out more

• Harvard's Michael Sandel wrestles with ethical dilemmas such as torture and bank bonuses
• Justice: A Citizen's Guide to the 21st Century on BBC Four, Monday 24 Jan at 2100 GMT

• More on the Justice season
• Watch Sandel debate the big society on iPlayer

It's associated with the British philosopher Jeremy Bentham, who argued that if you want to know the right thing to do, ask yourself what will increase the happiness of most people, and decrease pain.

Is it the size of the bonuses paid to bankers that so riles the public? The utilitarian could stress that growth, wealth and GDP contribute much to the happiness of all. These depend upon a functioning banking system.

And banks, in turn, need investment bankers to turn a profit. If those bankers are best incentivised by the promise of large bonuses, then so be it. Indirectly, that makes everyone happier.

Continue reading the main story

Jeremy Bentham, 1748-1832

The greatest happiness for the greatest number of people works well as a way of doing justice.

After all, who doesn't want happiness? Make it the subject of your politics and you don't have to worry if people are from the left or right, secular or religious.

But utilitarianism concludes that torture is right. One person suffers, but many live more happily as a result. Many are uncomfortable with this.

• Explore the ethics of torture

The utilitarian would also consider the amount of outrage and unhappiness that large bonuses generate in the population at large. There may come a point when the happiness generated by profitable banks outweighs the unhappiness of protests at the bonuses.

But then again, banks are so fundamental to our economy, and the economy is so fundamental to our happiness, that it seems unlikely this tipping point will be reached - as indeed the British government seems to have concluded.

The second tradition might come to a broadly similar view, but for different reasons.

The tax take isn't enough to head off protests

It too can be summed up in a word - dignity - and is associated with the German philosopher Immanuel Kant.

The starting point now is respect for the rights of investment bankers. They are protected by their contracts of employment, and those contracts state that they should be paid large bonuses when their efforts generate profits.

Further, the bankers secured their jobs in a free market, one that others are perfectly at liberty to enter too.

So, if you think bonuses are wrong because you miss out as a result - perhaps by having to pay more taxes - then one answer would be, change your career. The City awaits you too.

Continue reading the main story

Immanuel Kant, 1724-1804

Individuals have rights, he argued, a universal principle based on reason. After all, if I don't always and everywhere respect your rights, why should you treat me with the respect I'd hope for.

Nowhere does this matter more than when it comes to individual liberty, the exercising of free will.

Only this great strength is also a weakness. We are connected. If your community is crime-ridden or poverty-stricken, no amount of individual freedom will enable you to live well.

• Kant's concept of 'an end in itself'

Only that doesn't seem very satisfactory. Not everyone can be a banker.

Further, banks exist to serve the community. They are supposed to hold our money and lend it out, in order to facilitate the process of wealth generation - wealth that is for the good of all. This is to say that large bonuses offend our sense of the common good.

So this leads to the third answer, which is encapsulated in a word too: virtue.

The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle argued that justice is as much about the place you live in, and whether everyone can live in it well. It's called the common good. So, whether or not the common good is served by large bonuses is an issue to consider, according to him.

Another is to think of the virtues that bonuses instil in the bankers. Do bonuses make them better bankers?

Continue reading the main story

Aristotle 384-322 BC

By living well, he meant we all have the chance to achieve excellence in what we do and who we are.

This requires education, emulation of heroes, participation in your community, and contributing to the common good.

But we value our individual liberty. Doesn't caring for others mean giving things up? We also have to debate what the good life is about, and are bound to disagree.

• Aristotle on slaves and non-slaves

It could well be argued that excessive incentives cloud good judgement, which the good investment bankers needs. Rather, they breed greed, a fault that arguably contributed to the banking collapse of 2008. If you follow this logic, then bonuses should be cut.

Three arguments, then.

Does paying large bonuses increase everyone's happiness, because the banks do well? Should we respect the rights of the bankers, who are owed the cash?

Or do we need to think more about the common good, and what banks are for?

Mark Vernon, the author of Philosophy For The Curious and Ethics For The Curious, will tackle more modern dilemmas on this page throughout the week. Tomorrow, should Christian B&Bs accept gay couples?

Source

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Commentary

I'm surprised they choose Benthem to explain utilitarianism when John Stuart Mill could be said to be a more famous Utilitarian. It should also be noted Utilitarianism does not care what the intention of a person is, that as long as it causes good, it's good; even with an evil intention.(This is something Kant would be fervently against)

The answer this school of philosophy provides is always unacceptable because it allows the oppression of one group of people for the happiness of the majority. This is something I deem unacceptable and as a result I have no interest in discussing it's choice.


Then we move onto Kant whom was famous for asking us to derive maxims about ourselves, and to create laws based on those maxims. That we knew the common good and we should follow laws as we would want them imposed on us.

They seemed to ascribe dignity to him, but he himself would use the term Justice.
He asked us to make a rational decision on whether a law should be followed or not, based on if it were imposed on us.

Using that standard, no, even if I were a banker, I would not believe bonuses to be Just if it means the environment they create is dangerous to our whole economic system.

As far as Aristotle goes, his teacher Plato would choose the word harmony, or something similar most likely. He spoke about people living in a harmonious way. A way that did not infringe on the rights of others.

Plato, in his famous book The Republic, mentions that even 2 people who are unjust can destroy a society of Just people, and in order for harmony to take place, all people need to justly treat each other Justly, or as they deserve.

So for the sake of this harmony, as it seems these bonuses are so offensive, it would be clear that they would be disallowed.