The Balkan Chronicle

A group of scientists is pushing to publish research about how they created a man-made flu virus that could potentially wipe out civilisation.

The deadly virus is a genetically tweaked version of the H5N1 bird flu strain, but is far more infectious and could pass easily between millions of people at a time.

The research has caused a storm of controversy and divided scientists, with some saying it should never have been carried out.

Rae Padilla Francoeur, 63, of Rockport, Maine, has been in plenty of passionate relationships before but when she met her current mate, she fell head over heels. Who'd have thought it would take a terrible toll on her health?

Francoeur, the author of "Free Fall: A Late-in-Life Love Affair," says "the physical manifestations were extreme." During the lovesick phase she became lightheaded, lost weight, couldn't sleep for days, had butterflies and a quickened heart rate and couldn't concentrate or eat. "I was happier than ever emotionally, even though I couldn't eat and felt shaky all the time," says Francoeur who also ended up with a year's prescription for a prophylactic antibiotic for chronic urinary tract infections, too.

Annual checkups and tests such as colonoscopies and PSA assays are important, but it's not a good idea to rely on tests alone to protect you from cancer. It's just as important to listen to your body and notice anything that's different, odd, or unexplainable. (You should also listen to those close to you, such as a wife or partner, because others sometimes notice things we're unaware of—or don't want to admit.) You don't want to join the ranks of cancer patients who realize too late that symptoms they'd noticed for a long time could have sounded the alarm earlier, when cancer was easier to cure.

An ancient healing remedy comes to you from the Middle East and a 1400 year old spiritual tradition. The Black Seed, one remedy from this spiritual healing tradition, has been used successfully for over 1400 years. This ancient healing secret emerges from the rich tradition of Prophetic Medicine. Prophetic Medicine is the folk wisdom, herbal remedies and healing prayers that have been passed down from generation to generation by the followers of the Prophet Muhammad. One of the strongest and oldest of the remedies is black seed (Nigella sativa).

Cinnamon serves uses beyond bread pudding, french toast, and tea. In fact, Pliny the Elder referenced an unknown native people's guarding of a pricey cinnamon by "a terrible kind of bats," circa 77 AD.1 Both bark and flower have their practical application. Following are some important facts about cinnamon which should prove useful to you.

A new study should give women pause before filling their wine glass. Researchers found that women who regularly drink a small amount of alcohol — less than a drink a day — may increase their lifetime risk of breast cancer.

Dr. Wendy Chen, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital, and her colleagues report this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) that women who consumed as little as three to six drinks a week over several decades were 15% more likely to develop breast cancer than women who didn't drink at all. Heavier drinking, defined as at least two drinks per day, was associated with a 51% increase in risk.

Near-death experiences are simply "manifestations of normal brain functions gone awry", researchers say.

Psychologists from Edinburgh University and the Medical Research Council in Cambridge reviewed existing research.

They say phenomena such as out-of-body experiences or encounters with dead relatives are tricks of the mind rather than a glimpse of the afterlife.

One of the researchers, Dr Caroline Watt, said: "Our brains are very good at fooling us."

How to Let Go

In life, regrets are inevitable – kind of like paying taxes and dying. No matter how much you plan out your decisions, you will still have regrets. What could have been and what you can't know for sure will always be in the back of your mind, especially if you are disappointed with the outcome of your final choices. But for those of you who let regrets paralyze your present, it's time to accept what is instead of what could have been, and start constructively dealing with regret. Find out how.

First it was cutting the risk of depression, now skin cancer -- when it comes to the health benefits of coffee, the good news keeps rolling in.New research presented at an American Association for Cancer Research conference suggests daily joe consumption may help reduce the risk of basal cell carcinoma, the world's most common cancer.

Sometimes people come into your life and you know right away that they were meant to be there, to serve some sort of purpose, to teach you a lesson or to help you figure out who you are, or who you want to become.

You never know who these people may be, possibly your roommate, neighbor, coworker, long-lost friend, lover, or even a complete stranger, but when you lock eyes with them, you know at that very moment they will affect your life in some profound way.

"Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you'll start having positive results."

- Willie Nelson

Secrets of Happy People

Happiness is an age-old and sometimes elusive goal. Virtually all people want to be happy people, which is good, because happy people are better off, for reasons both obvious and subtle. Obviously, it feels good to be happy. But, looking deeper, happy people tend to enjoy benefits that unhappy people don't.

Spiders, heights, public speaking—we can often conquer (or at least cope with) these all-too-tangible fears. But unlike concrete phobias, our deeper worries—of losing those we love, of failure and even of success—can render us restless night after night. We asked Thom Rutledge, author of Embracing Fear: How to Turn What Scares Us Into Our Greatest Gift, to share his advice for managing the really scary stuff.

What is happiness?

Happiness isn't a subject that can be started by talking about how happy we all are, its characteristic symptoms and the impact these have on a person.

Popping pills has long been considered a rich country's response to treating depression. The United States, for example, last year spent more than $28 billion -- more than $90 per capita -- on antipsychotic and antidepressant drugs.

But pills are no longer the exclusive preserve of the rich. Increasingly, people in poorer countries are turning to pharmaceuticals for relief as well. And in Bosnia-Herzegovina, a country struggling with a painful war legacy and growing economic despair, residents say the problem is growing worse.

"There will be more and more of this. The situation is that bad," one woman says. "It seems to me that everyone is living in their own little world. There's a lack of socializing, a lack of money, a lack of everything. That's the situation in the entire country."

Women who are optimistic have a lower risk of heart disease and death, an American study shows.

The latest study by US investigators mirrors the findings of earlier work by a Dutch team showing optimism reduces heart risk in men.

The research on nearly 100,000 women, published in the journal Circulation, found pessimists had higher blood pressure and cholesterol.

Even taking these risk factors into account, attitude alone altered risks.

For a long time in my life, I never thought I could ever say this but now I am able to because I see it with such clarity and humility: There is great beauty in our darkness.

Whilst in the midst of my darkest moments – and there have been many – I was so invested in my sorrow and pain my mind could not have envisioned another perspective. Because I was so enmeshed in the illusions, which were all I knew at the time – it was my reality.

Some research in adults has suggested that exercise may help smokers quit, perhaps by easing withdrawal symptoms or taking the edge off cigarette cravings. The study, reported in the journal Pediatrics, looked at the effects of adding exercise advice to a teen-focused smoking cessation program.

Hospitals and specialist-consultative healthcare institutions in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia are to establish electronic waiting lists which will be in operation from 1 January 2012. The lists are intended to facilitate the transparent and controlled operation of healthcare facilities.

Health Minister Nikola Todorov made this announcement at a press conference. He said that every hospital will be responsible for publishing electronic charts for scheduling appointments and every health institution will have a list of medical interventions to be performed, and these will indicate when the appointments and interventions will occur. Patients' personal data will also be contained in the waiting lists as encrypted data, which the patient receives at the time of registering to use the health service.

Business leaders are four times more likely to be psychopaths than the general population, a study has found.

One out of every 25 company high-flyers is believed to have the mental disorder but disguises it through their high status, charm and manipulation in the workplace.

We've all read the signs of a heart attack listed on posters in the hospital waiting room. But what if there were other, earlier signs that could alert you ahead of time that your heart was in trouble?

It turns out there are. Researchers have done a lot of work in recent years looking at the signs and symptoms patients experienced in the months or even years leading up to a heart attack. "The heart, together with the arteries that feed it, is one big muscle, and when it starts to fail the symptoms can show up in many parts of the body," says cardiologist Jonathan Goldstein of St. Michael's Medical Center in Newark, New Jersey. Here are five surprising clues that your heart needs checking out. Any of these signs -- and particularly two or more together -- is reason to call your doctor for a workup, says Goldstein.