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Redemptionsamuel.blogspot.com  Why do they do it? This is a question that friends and families often ask of those who are addicted. It’s difficult to explain how drug addiction develops over time. To many, it looks like the constant search for pleasure. But the pleasure derived from opioids like heroin or stimulants like cocaine declines with repeated use. What’s more, some addictive drugs, like nicotine, fail to produce any noticeable euphoria in regular users. So what does explain the persistence of addiction? As an addiction researcher for the past 15 years, I look to the brain to understand how recreational use becomes compulsive, prompting people like you and me to make bad choices. There are two popular explanations for addiction, neither of which holds up to scrutiny. The first is that compulsive drug taking is a bad habit – one that addicts just need to “kick.” However, to the brain, a habit is nothing more than our ability to carry out repetitive tasks – lik...

          Redemptionsamuel.blogspot.com         PARIS - France on Sunday (Sept 24) renews half of its senators' seats, in a vote that is important for President Emmanuel Macron's reform plans and will be a test of his declining popularity, just four months after his election in May. Macron's Republic on the Move (LREM) is not expected to win majority, both because of the electoral system - only mayors and regional councilors elected before 17-month old LREM even existed vote, not the general public - and because Macron has plans that are unpopular with many local councilors. What is at stake instead, is whether LREM and allies will win enough seats to give Macron a three-fifths majority vote in both houses of parliament, which he needs for constitutional reforms, including plans to overhaul parliament. There are 171 out of 348 senate seats up for renewal and the three fifth majority question may not be immediately clear on Sunda...

Redemptionsamuel.blogspot.com  Katherine Johnson, the mathematician whose calculations influenced some of the most important missions of the space age, on Friday helped Nasa open a new research and development facility that bears her name. The 99-year-old cut the ribbon for the  Katherine G Johnson Computational Research Facility  at the Langley research center in Hampton, Virginia, where she was honored as a trailblazing “human computer”. In a pre-taped video message, Johnson laughed when asked how she felt about a building being named in her honor. “You want my honest answer? I think they’re crazy,” she said. “I was excited at something new, always liked something new, but give credit to everybody who helped. I didn’t do anything alone but try to go to the root of the question and succeeded there.” In an extraordinary career, Johnson defied racial and gender constraints and was involved with many of the greatest achievements in space. “Today all of these ...

         Redemptionsamuel.blogspot.com  The US president Donald Trump has resumed his war of words with Kim Jong-un, this time referring to the North Korean leader as “Little Rocket Man” and suggesting he should have been "handled" by his predecessor Barack Obama. At an Alabama campaign rally for Senator Luther Strange on Friday, Mr Trump continued to throw insults at Pyongyang’s leader. During an address inside the Wernher Von Braun Centre that lasted an hour and 20 minutes, Mr Trump said: “I believe the best path to the most peaceful world are proud, independent sovereign nations that respect their people.” Warming to his theme, the US president said: “We can’t have mad men out there shooting rockets all over the place… And by the way, rocket man should’ve been handled a long time ago… This shouldn’t be handled now, but I’m going to handle it because we have to handle it.” Mr ...

         Redemptionsamuel.blogspot.com   ISTANBUL - The winner of Turkey's national beauty pageant was Friday (Sept 22) forced to hand back her crown hours after winning, over a tweet relating to the failed coup that was deemed offensive. Itir Esen, 18, was crowned Miss Turkey 2017 during a ceremony in Istanbul on Thursday night and was going to represent the country in the Miss World competition in China. But organisers said that would not be possible after they discovered an "unacceptable" tweet Esen sent around the first anniversary of the July 15, 2016 coup attempt aimed at ousting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In the tweet, she compared the blood shed in her menstrual cycle with that of the 249 people who lost their lives during the failed coup and are now celebrated in Turkey as martyrs. "I am having my period this morning to celebrate the July 15 martyrs' day. I am celebrating the day by bleeding on behalf of our martyrs' blood,"...

        Redemptionsamuel.blogspot.com   Is it an asteroid? A comet? Both? Observations by the Hubble Space Telescope are revealing new details about a strange binary asteroid that’s performing double-duty as a comet. It’s the first time scientists have ever seen such a thing. Back in 2006, Spacewatch discovered an asteroid named 300163 (2006 VW139). Astronomers using the Pan-STARRS telescope detected some comet-like activity coming from the object in 2011, so it was also given a comet designation of 288P. Now, things have changed yet again. When the object made its closest approach to the Sun last year, a German-led team of scientists used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to make observations, revealing not one but two asteroids. Which means it’s a binary system. The objects are almost the same size and mass, and they’re orbiting each other at a distance of 60 miles (100 km). But here’s the thing—the asteroids each have a coma (a bright halo of e...

Redemptionsamuel.blogspot.com  It was well past midnight when Michael Abrams, Claire Bedrook and Ravi Nath crept into the Caltech lab where they were keeping their jellyfish. They didn't bother switching on the lights, opting instead to navigate the maze of desks and equipment by the pale blue glow of their cellphones. The students hadn't told anyone that they were doing this. It wasn't forbidden, exactly, but they wanted a chance to conduct their research without their PhD advisers breathing down their necks. “When you start working on something totally crazy, it's a good to get data before you tell anybody,” Abrams said.  The “totally crazy” undertaking in question: an experiment to determine whether jellyfish sleep. It had all started when Bedrook, a graduate student in neurobiology, overheard Nath and Abrams mulling the question over coffee. The topic was weird enough to make her stop at their table and argue. “Of course not,” s...

redemptionsamuel.blogspot.com  Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), left, and Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) are two of four sponsors of a fresh effort to replace the Affordable Care Act. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP) A final GOP effort to dismantle the Affordable Care Act burst into view this week in the Senate, where leaders began pressuring rank-and-file Republicans with the hope of voting on the package by the end of the month. The renewed push comes nearly two months after the last attempt to overhaul the law known as Obamacare  failed in a dramatic, early-morning vote , dealing a substantial defeat to President Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and prompting many to assume that the effort was dead. The latest proposal would give states control over billions in federal health-care spending, repeal the law’s key mandates and enact deep cuts to Medicaid, the federally funded insurance program for the poor, elderly and disabled. It would slash health...

Nigeria can make a whopping N56billion in 3 years by reviving the coal industry, especially with the use of coal briquettes for industrial and domestic use, economic experts in the country have said. They told LEADERSHIP that the use of coal briquettes will help in the diversification agenda of the federal government, especially as the global market for oil and gas appears to be shrinking by the day. An industrial pharmacist and specialist in marketing new technologies, Mr Emmanuel Nwankwo, said Nigeria really needs to go back to basics, which is the use of coal since it has it in abundance, starting from Enugu State. He said, ‘‘Nigeria once invested in coal but when the issue of oil came up, the coal sector was neglected. Before the discovery of oil and gas, Nigeria thrived on coal. We ran our industries on coal starting from the Kalangri cement to rail roads to major factories, including breweries. When oil came, people got lazy and everybody went into oil which made the...