TEXTO

Understanding Anxiety Disorder

Many of us worry from time to time. We fret over finances, feel anxious about job interviews, or get nervous about social gatherings. These feelings can be normal or even helpful. They may give us a boost of energy or help us focus. But for people with anxiety disorders, they can be overwhelming.

Anxiety disorders affect nearly 1 in 5 American adults each year. People with these disorders have feelings of fear and uncertainty that interfere with everyday activities and last for 6 months or more. Anxiety disorders can also raise your risk for other medical problems such as heart disease, diabetes, substance abuse, and depression.

The good news is that most anxiety disorders get better with therapy. The course of treatment depends on the type of anxiety disorder. Medications, psychotherapy (“talk therapy”), or a combination of both can usually relieve troubling symptoms.

“Anxiety disorders are one of the most treatable mental health problems we see,” says Dr. Daniel Pine, an NIH neuroscientist and psychiatrist. “Still, for reasons we don’t fully understand, most people who have these problems don’t get the treatments that could really help them.”

One of the most common types of anxiety disorder is social anxiety disorder, or social phobia. It affects both women and men equally—a total of about 15 million U.S. adults. Without treatment, social phobia can last for years or even a lifetime. People with social phobia may worry for days or weeks before a social event. They’re often embarrassed, selfconscious, and afraid of being judged. They find it hard to talk to others. They may blush, sweat, tremble, or feel sick to their stomach when around other people.

O texto a seguir é referência para aquestão.

Ancient dreams of intelligent machines: 3,000 years of robots

The French philosopher René Descartes was reputedly fond of automata: they inspired his view that living things were biological machines that function like clockwork. Less known is a strange story that began to circulate after the philosopher’s death in 1650. This centred on Descartes’s daughter Francine, who died of scarlet fever at the age of five.

According to the tale, a distraught Descartes had a clockwork Francine made: a walking, talking simulacrum. When Queen Christina invited the philosopher to Sweden in 1649, he sailed with the automaton concealed in a casket. Suspicious sailors forced the trunk open; when the mechanical child sat up to greet them, the horrified crew threw it overboard.

The story is probably apocryphal. But it sums up the hopes and fears that have been associated with human-like machines for nearly three millennia. Those who build such devices do so in the hope that they will overcome natural limits – in Descartes’s case, death itself. But this very unnaturalness terrifies and repulses others. In our era of advanced robotics and artificial intelligence (AI), those polarized responses persist, with pundits and the public applauding or warning against each advance. Digging into the deep history of intelligent machines, both real and imagined, we see how these attitudes evolved: from fantasies of trusty mechanical helpers to fears that runaway advances in technology might lead to creatures that supersede humanity itself.

A partir das informações apresentadas no texto, considere as seguintes afirmativas:

1. Descartes viajou para a Suécia com um robô escondido.

2. Os marinheiros abriram à força um baú que continha o simulacro de uma criança.

3. A tripulação fez uma apresentação do robô para os passageiros do navio.

4. Chocados com o que viram, os marinheiros jogaram o humanoide ao mar.

Leia o texto abaixo.

Birth control pills and blinking

In 1994, researchers found that women who take birth control pills blink more often than women who do not. Quite a lot more, actually; on average, the study found, women on birth control pills are blinking about 32 percent more than women not using this method of contraception.

Although this appears to be a strange side effect, it is worth noting that — according to Alexandra Pope and Jane Bennett’s 2008 book The Pill: Are you sure it’s for you? – birth control pills affect more than 150 of the body’s biological functions. Some of these changes, the authors note, are drastic, while others barely register.

TEXTO - How might obesity affect the brain?

The link between obesity and the brain is a fascinating topic that scientists have only recently begun to explore. New research adds important pieces to the puzzle. From the size and functionality of the brain to specific neuronal circuits, recent studies have brought to light important aspects of the connection between obesity and the brain. For instance, researchers published a study earlier this year that found a link between obesity around the stomach area and smaller brain size — specifically, lower gray matter volume.
The findings of another recent study showed that the brain's prefrontal cortex — an area that is important for complex thinking, planning, and self-control — is less active in people who tend to overeat, which may lead to obesity and weight gain.
Finally, research that appeared only last month identified an array of neurons that can curb overeating when they become active.
A new study now adds to this mounting body of evidence, shedding further light on the connection between obesity on the one hand and differences in brain structure and form on the other.
Dr. Ilona A. Dekkers, from the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, led a team of researchers who used cutting-edge MRI scanning technology to understand the link between obesity and brain structure.Dr. Dekkers and team reported smaller gray matter volumes in people with obesity, thus solidifying previous research findings. They also found connections with the brain's form and structure, called its morphology. The researchers published their findings in the journal Radiology

Read the cartoon below and answer the next question based on it.

Leia a propaganda a seguir e responda à questão.

The Atlantic Slave Trade, 1731-1775

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Eat: A Diet to Ward Off Breast Cancer

Eating substantial amounts of fruits and vegetables may lower the risk for breast cancer, a new study has found, and some kinds may be more effective than others.

Researchers used well-validated nutrition questionnaires to examine the association of dietwith the risk of invasive breast cancer in 182,145 women. They followed them with periodic examinations for an average of 24 years, during which there were 10,911 cases of invasive breast cancer. The study is in the International Journal of Cancer.

After controlling for many health, diet and behavioral variables, the scientists found that compared with having less than two and a half servings (about one cup) of fruits and vegetables a day, having five and a half servings or more was associated with an 11 percent lower breast cancer risk. The effect was especially significant with the most aggressive types of breast cancer.

''There are few potentially modifiable risk factors for breast cancer,'' said the lead author, Maryam S. Farvid, a research scientist at Harvard, ''and eating more fruits and vegetables would be a simple way to help lower the risk.''

The researchers found that cruciferous vegetables like cauliflower, brussels sprouts and kale were especially strongly associated with reduced risk, as were yellow or orange vegetables including carrots, winter squash, yams and sweet potatoes.

Scientists Make Meat

A laboratory in the Netherlands uses cow muscle and fat to grow meat, revolutionising what we eat. Currently, a little piece of meat costs around $12,500 to make, but professor Mark Post said that the laboratory has an investor from the meat industry, and he envisions that it will take about three years to get the first hamburger on the market. It will be still rather expensive and in small production, so it will target only specialty restaurants at a price of 12–14 dollars for a hamburger, but the price will inevitably come down in the years after that. The production will be more resource efficient and it will hit the supermarket seven years from now, according to the professor’s guess.
A butcher said that people are very skeptical and nervous about manufactured products as it is, and scientists agree that public acceptance is key to the success of this product.