‘Don’t you have a girlfriend yet?’

Old people’s proclivity for asking blunt but embarrassing questions may not be completely purposeful. New research at the University of New South Wales, in Australia, posits that their apparent lack of tact could be due to people becoming less inhibited as they age. Changes in brain function caused by the aging process may alter their ability to inhibit thoughts and actions-a key ingredient in socially appropriate behaviour. The study compared participants’ likelihood to question friends about health or family problems when in private or public settings. Although older participants (aged 65 to 93) were just as likely as the 18- to 25-year-olds to deem socially inappropriate public inquiries about private issues, the older group was much more likely engage in them. Youngsters were more likely to broach such matters with friends, but this mostly in private.

-Mike Ghenu

Source: Psychology and Aging

Getting loaded and smoking up

Scientists at the Brookhaven National Laboratory have linked alcohol abuse and marijuana use to the same receptor in the brain. Chemicals in marijuana, or Cannabis sativa, activate receptors in the brain termed CB1 receptors, causing the physical and psychological sensations of ‘getting stoned.’ In the study, mice with different numbers of CB1 receptors were repeatedly offered alcohol and assessed for alcohol dependance.The study showed that mice with inactive or blocked CB1 receptors are less likely to become dependent on alcohol, and that their degree of alcohol dependence depends on the number of CB1 receptors in the brain. This suggests a link between alcohol and marijuana abuse.

-Chris Damdar

Source: Behavioural Brain Research

The ball and chain effect

A study at the University at Buffalo’s Research Institute on Addictions involving 634 newlywed 20-something couples has found that husbands are much more likely to curb their marijuana habit during the first year of marriage if their wives do not smoke it. Not so in couples where the wives do, though. In fact, a wife’s marijuana use was more likely to drive up her husband’s puffing-but hardly ever the other way around. The study’s principal investigator, Kenneth Leonard, suggested that marriage may alter the relationship dynamic in couples, giving women more influence in the relationship than before it.

-M.G.

Source: Journal of Drug Issues

Correction

In our story on hydrogen fuel cells (“Hydrogen age ahead?,” Sept. 6), several words were regrettably left out. The missing text identified Hydrogenics Corp. as “a pioneer in the field of hydrogen energy.” The Varsity regrets the error.