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LY D © oF VE\N> participants nor their brain signals could distinguish between genuine and fake a” paintings. However, advice about whether or not an artwork is authentic alters the brain's response; this advice is equally effective, regardless of whether the artwork is genuine or not. Participants reported tha when viewing a supposed fake, they tried to work ou why the experts regarded i not to be genuine. Professor Martin Kemp, Emeritus Professor of the History of Art at Oxford University, said: “Our findings support what ar istorians, critics and the genera public have long believed: that it is always better to think we are seeing he genuine article. "Our study shows that the way we view art is not rational; that even when we cannot distinguish between two works, the knowledge hat one was painted by a renowned artist makes us respond to it very differently." Source: ScienceDaily.com, 20 December 2011, http://tinyurl.com/7ugsz4h) ASTHMA DRUGS KILL MORE PEOPLE THAN ASTHMA ITSELF Be Pharma has been accused of selling drugs hat are so dangerous they cause death, and drugs that cause the exact conditions hey're supposed to treat. The US FDA has known for years that formoterol umarate, found in Symbicort, Dulera and Foradil, and salmeterol, ound in Advair Diskus and Serevent Diskus, can cause asthma deaths, especially in children and = African- Americans. The FDA has heightened the warnings on the labels several times, but the drugs, called long- acting beta-agonists, or LABAs, are so lucrative (Advair was the fourth- best-selling drug in the US last year, making almost $5 billion) that they remain on the market—despite their estimated US death toll of 4,000 a year. That's equal to, or even more than, the number who die from asthma! (Source: AlterNet.org, 3 November 20n, http://tinyurl.com/7gpxvy8) BEING TOLD PAINTING IS FAKE CHANGES BRAIN’S RESPONSE Bors told that a work of art is authentic or fake alters the brain's response to the visual content of artwork, Oxford University academics have found. Fourteen participants were placed in a brain scanner and shown images of works by Rembrandt; some were genuine, others were convincing imitations painted by different artists. Neither the we 14,000 US DEATHS LINKED TO FUKUSHIMA FALLOUT n estimated 14,000 excess deaths in the USA are linked to the radioactive fallout from the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear reactors in Japan, according to a major new article in the December 2011 edition of the International Journal of Health Services. Authors Joseph Mangano and Janette Sherman note that their estimate of 14,000 excess US deaths in the 14 weeks after the Fukushima meltdowns is comparable to the 16,500 excess deaths in the 17 weeks after the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown. Just six days after the first of the disastrous meltdowns struck the Fukushima Daiichi reactors on 11 Somersy| le "Our decade-long study of the Sun has revealed an unsettling secret. It's actually made up of 50 gazillion LEDs." 6 * NEXUS FEBRUARY - MARCH 2012 www.nexusmagazine.com