The key to leading a happy fulfilling life is to keep it stress-free.

However, it's a well-known fact that in this day and age, we all live under constant pressure of some form or the other.

This month, on the health section of The Munich Eye, Dominika talks about several ways to combat stress- the most important being to practice mindfulness, which is similar to meditation.

Many health institutions all over the world are promoting the necessity of a calm mind to increase human productivity.

But how can a mind stay calm given the distractions thrown at us? Well, never under-estimate the brain!

There's new research that suggests a unique way by which brains interpret sensory overload from the environment, in particular, sound information.

The study reveals that the brain uses "timing" information of inputs as opposed to depending on the level of sound decibels to understand and interpret sound patterns.

Sound is key to how we communicate, but imagine a condition where people are unable to follow or speak a language they have known for years.

Most common in patients, suffering from stroke or brain damage, aphasia can be debilitating.

In exciting news from the field of neuroscience, Rebekah reports that there is more hope for diagnosing speech defects in aphasia. She writes about a new study where scientists have made a "brain map" of language impairments in aphasia as an effect of stroke.

Furthermore, in the Health Section, Rebekah highlights the problems arising due to antibiotic resistance in worldwide healthcare. And all you need to do to counter that is have a pancake breakfast!

New research shows that good old maple syrup enhances the efficacy of antibiotics! Although the study is in primitive stages, there is hope for overcoming antibiotic resistance in the form of maple syrup extracts incorporated in capsules in future.

Talking about naturally occurring substances to counter infections, Jennie writes about how scientists show that bumblebees with parasitic infections use honey as a successful form of self-medication.

It seems Mother Nature provides us with natural remedies as arsenals to deal with various ailments!

But despite this, the cost of healthcare is something everybody has to grapple with! Lois reports an unsustainable rise in the cost of cancer drugs particularly in the United States.

An extensive discussion of this problem around the world has created a lot of awareness. Although it may be difficult to find an immediate solution, nevertheless, patients could be the strongest advocates by demanding better and affordable health care.

Expanding to the grander scheme, Karl highlights new discovery that large galaxy collisions reveal about the deep dark secrets of the universe, particularly dark matter.

Understanding this could help us understand what keeps the universe so perfectly poised!

While studying galactic collisions is not an easy affair, it turns out political collisions are no less difficult. But do not despair- here comes Math to the rescue, predicting election outcomes based on coalition politics!

That's it for this month.

But stay tuned for more news from the exciting world of Science, Technology and Health, all of which helps us to understand our environment and ourselves just a little bit more.

Happy reading!

 

 

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