The question is not "What kind of person is likely to have an affair?" but rather "What kind of relationship is likely to have one?"
Affairs are far more common than most people realize and they happen for a wide variety of reasons. In over two decades of working with couples I've seen practically every kind of person and every kind of personality succumb to an affair, many of which I would never have anticipated would do so. What opened the door to the affair in the majority of these situations is not the character of the people involved but two other factors: Circumstance and Opportunity.
The Circumstance:
Our relationships are not static entities. Rather, the quality and strength of our bonds wax and wane naturally in response to the events, demands and circumstances of our lives. Anyone in a long-term partnership has gone through times in which they've felt angry and distant from their partners as well as times in which they've felt incredibly close and loving.
When couples are in period of greater emotional distance, when their couplehood is at 'low tide', their relationship becomes vulnerable to an affair.
The Opportunity:
When a relationship is going through a rough patch and is vulnerable to an affair, it is like a pile of kindling that is ready to ignite. All it takes to set the flame is the right opportunity. This is why the vast majority of affairs happen at work, because most affairs are opportunistic, not premeditated. Workplaces simply provide ample opportunities to meet and interact with potential partners.
When the circumstances in the relationship are just right and an opportunity presents itself, the affair ignites.
The warning sign that often points to an affair
The one sign that characterizes the vast majority of affairs is that the person having the affair has become emotionally disengaged from the relationship to one extent or another. We simply do not have enough emotional resources to invest in an affair without having to withdraw our emotional investment in our home lives.
At times the person having an affair can seem completely detached or checked-out but such obvious signs are not common. More typically, the feeling one person gets is that their partner seems physically present but emotionally absent. Things might seem normal on the surface but it feels as though the other person is merely going through the motions. In other words, it feels as though the other person has become emotionally disengaged.
To be clear, we all have days in which we feel slightly checked-out or preoccupied with other things. But when the drop in engagement persists over time it is reflected in various aspects of the relationship; changes in habits or small couplehood gestures that fall by the wayside, fewer efforts to initiate intimacy, less planning of mutual activities, less discussion of the future and other such indicators.
People often realize their partner has become disengaged only in hindsight, once the affair has been discovered. It is then they look back and realize something has been amiss for a while, that they had felt the lack of engagement on some kind of gut level but had made excuses for it by telling themselves their partner was preoccupied with work or worried about the finances.
Paradoxically, when couples go through a period in which they are angry at one another, the risk of an affair is not as high (although it does exist) because anger is actually a form of emotional engagement, albeit not a very pleasant one.
Affair Prevention
The best way to prevent an affair is for both members of the couple to monitor their couplehood and be aware when their relationship has entered a period of vulnerability. Rather than blame one another at such times (which will only create more distance) they should discuss the state of their union and do three things:
1. Acknowledge to one another they are going through a period of greater distance, one that is normal in relationships but one that needs handling nonetheless.
2. Take steps to communicate more regularly about their couplehood and assess what might be causing the distance at this time.
3. Decide on steps they can take to reconnect, such as taking time away as a couple, instituting date nights, reengaging in shared interests, or if necessary considering couple counseling.
You can read about how to voice concerns to your partner without starting an argument here.
ScienceDaily (Oct. 3, 2012) ? An unexpected discovery by an international team of astronomers is forcing scientists to rethink their understanding of the environment in globular star clusters, tight-knit collections containing hundreds of thousands of stars.
The astronomers, including Dr Tom Maccarone from the University of Southampton, used the National Science Foundation's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico, USA to study a globular cluster called Messier 22 (M22), a group of stars more than 10,000 light-years from Earth. They hoped to find evidence of a rare type of black hole in the cluster's centre called an intermediate-mass black hole, which is more massive than those larger than the Sun's mass, but smaller than the supermassive black holes found at the cores of galaxies.
However, they found something very surprising -- two smaller black holes, which is unusual because most theorists say there should be at most one black hole in the cluster.
Dr Tom Maccarone, a reader in Astronomy at the University of Southampton, developed the methodology for the study and the surprising result ties in closely to previous research by Tom. He says:
"I had actually suggested several years ago that there were probably black holes lurking among the X-ray sources that had already been seen in globular clusters, and that the one way to pick the black holes sucking gas in, apart from other types of faint X-ray sources, would be to look for the radio emission, but I didn't expect that this particular cluster would be the best place to look. It was still incredibly exciting to see this result and I'm optimistic that we will find more of these objects in other clusters in the future."
Black holes, concentrations of mass so dense that not even light can escape them, are left over after very massive stars have exploded as supernovae. In a globular cluster, many of these stellar-mass black holes probably were produced early in the cluster's 12-billion-year history as massive stars rapidly passed through their life cycles.
Simulations have indicated that these black holes would fall toward the centre of the cluster and then begin a violent gravitational dance with each other, in which all of them, or perhaps all but a single one, would be thrown completely out of the cluster.
"There is supposed to be only one survivor possible," says Jay Strader of Michigan State University and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. "Finding two black holes, instead of one, in this globular cluster definitely changes the picture," he says.
The astronomers suggest some possible explanations. First, the black holes themselves may gradually work to puff up the central parts of the cluster, reducing the density and thus the rate at which black holes eject each other through their gravitational dance. Alternatively, the cluster may not be as far along in the process of contracting as previously thought, again reducing the density of the core.
The two black holes discovered with the VLA were the first stellar-mass black holes to be found in any globular cluster in our own Milky Way galaxy, and also are the first found by radio, instead of X-ray, observations. Future VLA observations will help us learn about the ultimate fate of black holes in globular clusters.
Dr Tom Maccarone worked with Laura Chomiuk of Michigan State University and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory; Jay Strader of Michigan State University and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics; James Miller-Jones of Curtin University in Australia; and Anil Seth of the University of Utah. The scientists published their findings in the latest issue of the scientific journal Nature.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Southampton, via AlphaGalileo.
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Journal Reference:
Jay Strader, Laura Chomiuk, Thomas J. Maccarone, James C. A. Miller-Jones, Anil C. Seth. Two stellar-mass black holes in the globular cluster M22. Nature, 2012; 490 (7418): 71 DOI: 10.1038/nature11490
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
While many smartphones can notify you when you get a Facebook like with a cheerful ringtone or pop-up, this vest takes it a step further and actually gives you a friendly squeeze.
The "Like-A-Hug"?vest is a project by Melissa Kit Chow at the?MIT Media Lab. She wanted?to bridge the distance that separates people using social media ? after all, as much as you like or comment on someone's photo or post, it's not the same as being there.
Collaborating with MIT colleagues?Andy Payne and Phil Seaton, she made?this vest, which stays connected to the Internet (presumably through your smartphone) and inflates whenever someone likes something of yours on Facebook.
It's just an art project at this point and very unlikely to be made into a real project, but it's easy to imagine the concept being applied in a more subtle way: a jacket that taps you on the shoulder when you get a text message, for instance.
A little more info on the Like-A-Hug vest and Chow's other work?can be found at her site.
Devin Coldewey is a contributing writer for NBC?News Digital. His personal website is coldewey.cc.
Olympic legacy: Tackling the 'East London Diabetes Belt' is a major challengePublic release date: 4-Oct-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Katrina Coutts k.coutts@qmul.ac.uk Queen Mary, University of London
A study by Queen Mary, University of London researchers has shown the scale of the challenge facing those in charge of delivering the Olympic legacy. In three London boroughs they have found that, overall, as many as one in ten of the local population has a high risk of developing type 2 diabetes within the next ten years. In some areas close to the Stratford Olympic Park up to one in six adults are at high risk.
The study, published in the British Journal of General Practice [1], analysed half a million electronic records for all people without diabetes, aged between 25-79, and registered with a GP in the London boroughs of Tower Hamlets, Newham and City & Hackney.
Using a scoring system known as the QDScore, the researchers were able to predict the percentage of the population that were at high risk (a 20% chance or more) of developing type 2 diabetes within the next ten years. They then applied this information to a map of the boroughs to produce a geospatial map that showed the level of risk in different areas, with 'hot spots' in areas of high risk [2].
"We found the risk of diabetes is very high, with about one in ten people being at high risk overall, and in some parts, such as the north-eastern corner of Newham, rising to around one in six," said Dr Dianna Smith who created the map and is a lecturer at the Centre for Primary Care and Public Health, Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, part of Queen Mary, University of London (UK). "There is a geographical band of high risk across East London, which we've dubbed the 'East London Diabetes Belt' that runs near the Olympic Park and corresponds to some areas of deprivation and a high proportion of South Asian and Black ethnic groups."
The study found that approximately 50% of people with known cardiovascular disease or high blood pressure were at high risk. Other factors in the QDScore that increased the risk were: male gender, increasing age (20% of 40-79 year olds were at high risk), deprivation and obesity. Ethnicity affected risk, with more than twice as many people of South Asian ethnic origin at high risk (16.4%) compared to the White population (7.5%).
"Diabetes and obesity (one of the main causes of diabetes) are a major source of ill health and hospital admissions. The cost to the health service in the future will be extensive if we don't help people to control their risk. This is a gold medal moment at the start of the Olympic legacy period to prioritise tackling chronic disease and capitalise on the enthusiasm for physical activity generated by the Olympics," said Dr Douglas Noble, a public health doctor at the Centre for Primary Care and Public Health, who led the overall research.
Professor Trisha Greenhalgh, who was also part of the research team, said: "As a former national athlete [2], I can see few things more important than the health and wellbeing of the next generation. We know we've got an extensive problem in East London with lack of physical activity and poor dietary habits, which contributes to obesity and diabetes. Once diabetes has been diagnosed, it's an uphill battle to get it under control. It's far better to prevent it in the first place. Highlighting the risk of diabetes gives people a chance to make important individual choices to reduce their risk. Increasing physical activity and eating more healthily, which leads to weight loss, reduces the risk of diabetes regardless of ethnicity or deprivation."
The researchers say the study could be used to help policy makers and planners design effective public health strategies that are targeted particularly at the groups most in need. "Mapping risk revealed the 'East London Diabetes Belt' and this could help to plan actions at local and national level to reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes, particularly in regard to the Olympic legacy," concluded Dr Noble.
###
[1] "Quantifying the risk of type 2 diabetes in East London using the QDScore", by Rohini Mathur, Douglas Noble, Dianna Smith, Trisha Greenhalgh, and John Robson. British Journal of General Practice
[2] A jpg of the geospatial map is available to the media. Contact Katrina Coutts if you require it.
[3] Professor Trisha Greenhalgh was a member of the British Triathlon team between 1986-1988 and a national long-distance runner.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Olympic legacy: Tackling the 'East London Diabetes Belt' is a major challengePublic release date: 4-Oct-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Katrina Coutts k.coutts@qmul.ac.uk Queen Mary, University of London
A study by Queen Mary, University of London researchers has shown the scale of the challenge facing those in charge of delivering the Olympic legacy. In three London boroughs they have found that, overall, as many as one in ten of the local population has a high risk of developing type 2 diabetes within the next ten years. In some areas close to the Stratford Olympic Park up to one in six adults are at high risk.
The study, published in the British Journal of General Practice [1], analysed half a million electronic records for all people without diabetes, aged between 25-79, and registered with a GP in the London boroughs of Tower Hamlets, Newham and City & Hackney.
Using a scoring system known as the QDScore, the researchers were able to predict the percentage of the population that were at high risk (a 20% chance or more) of developing type 2 diabetes within the next ten years. They then applied this information to a map of the boroughs to produce a geospatial map that showed the level of risk in different areas, with 'hot spots' in areas of high risk [2].
"We found the risk of diabetes is very high, with about one in ten people being at high risk overall, and in some parts, such as the north-eastern corner of Newham, rising to around one in six," said Dr Dianna Smith who created the map and is a lecturer at the Centre for Primary Care and Public Health, Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, part of Queen Mary, University of London (UK). "There is a geographical band of high risk across East London, which we've dubbed the 'East London Diabetes Belt' that runs near the Olympic Park and corresponds to some areas of deprivation and a high proportion of South Asian and Black ethnic groups."
The study found that approximately 50% of people with known cardiovascular disease or high blood pressure were at high risk. Other factors in the QDScore that increased the risk were: male gender, increasing age (20% of 40-79 year olds were at high risk), deprivation and obesity. Ethnicity affected risk, with more than twice as many people of South Asian ethnic origin at high risk (16.4%) compared to the White population (7.5%).
"Diabetes and obesity (one of the main causes of diabetes) are a major source of ill health and hospital admissions. The cost to the health service in the future will be extensive if we don't help people to control their risk. This is a gold medal moment at the start of the Olympic legacy period to prioritise tackling chronic disease and capitalise on the enthusiasm for physical activity generated by the Olympics," said Dr Douglas Noble, a public health doctor at the Centre for Primary Care and Public Health, who led the overall research.
Professor Trisha Greenhalgh, who was also part of the research team, said: "As a former national athlete [2], I can see few things more important than the health and wellbeing of the next generation. We know we've got an extensive problem in East London with lack of physical activity and poor dietary habits, which contributes to obesity and diabetes. Once diabetes has been diagnosed, it's an uphill battle to get it under control. It's far better to prevent it in the first place. Highlighting the risk of diabetes gives people a chance to make important individual choices to reduce their risk. Increasing physical activity and eating more healthily, which leads to weight loss, reduces the risk of diabetes regardless of ethnicity or deprivation."
The researchers say the study could be used to help policy makers and planners design effective public health strategies that are targeted particularly at the groups most in need. "Mapping risk revealed the 'East London Diabetes Belt' and this could help to plan actions at local and national level to reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes, particularly in regard to the Olympic legacy," concluded Dr Noble.
###
[1] "Quantifying the risk of type 2 diabetes in East London using the QDScore", by Rohini Mathur, Douglas Noble, Dianna Smith, Trisha Greenhalgh, and John Robson. British Journal of General Practice
[2] A jpg of the geospatial map is available to the media. Contact Katrina Coutts if you require it.
[3] Professor Trisha Greenhalgh was a member of the British Triathlon team between 1986-1988 and a national long-distance runner.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Did you know that before Chris Hemsworth was Thor, he was an okay dancer on the Australian version of "Dancing with the Stars"? Well, he was, and he was fabulous. Also, summon kung-fu Dracula and learn the art of the drink slap in today's Dailies! » This pretty much sums it up. [Reddit] » There [...]
LONDON (AP) -Wigan manager Roberto Martinez has been fined 10,000 pounds ($16,100) by the English Football Association for criticizing a referee after his team's loss to Manchester United.
The Spaniard was unhappy about a penalty being awarded to United, as well as Danny Welbeck avoiding a red card in Wigan's 4-0 loss in the Premier League on Sept. 15.
Martinez admitted an FA misconduct charge for implying "that the match referee and/or match officials in general are motivated by bias and/or brought the game into disrepute."
The FA warned Martinez about his future conduct.
? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Chelsea, Man U?earn road points
PST: Chelsea and Manchester United had their share of obstacles on the road against Champions League minnows Tuesday, yet each earned a comfortable three points, vaulting them to the top of their UEFA Champions League groups.
AC Milan beats Zenit 3-2 in Champions League
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) -A late own goal by Slovak defender Tomas Hubocan spoiled Zenit St. Petersburg's comeback and handed AC Milan a 3-2 win over the Russian club in an action-packed Champions League match on Wednesday.
ScienceDaily (Oct. 2, 2012) ? A new type of antibiotic can effectively treat an antibiotic-resistant infection by disarming instead of killing the bacteria that cause it. Researchers report their findings in the October 2 issue of mBio?, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology.
"Traditionally, people have tried to find antibiotics that rapidly kill bacteria. But we found a new class of antibiotics which has no ability to kill Acinetobacter that can still protect, not by killing the bug, but by completely preventing it from turning on host inflammation," says Brad Spellberg of the UCLA Medical Center and David Geffen School of Medicine, a researcher on the study.
New drugs are badly needed for treating infections with the bacterium Acinetobacter baumannii, a pathogen that most often strikes hospital patients and immune- compromised individuals through open wounds, breathing tubes, or catheters. The bacterium can cause potentially lethal bloodstream infections. Strains of A. baumannii have acquired resistance to a wide range of antibiotics, and some are resistant to every FDA-approved antibiotic, making them untreatable.
Spelling and his colleagues found that in laboratory mice it was possible to mitigate the potentially lethal effects of the bacterium by blocking one of its toxic products rather than killing it.
"We found that strains that caused the rapidly lethal infections shed lipopolysaccharide [also called LPS or endotoxin] while growing. The more endotoxin shed, the more virulent the strain was," says Spellberg. This pinpointed a new therapy target for the researchers: the endotoxin these bacteria shed in the body.
Blocking the synthesis of the endotoxin with a small molecule called LpxC-1 prevented infected mice from getting sick. Unlike traditional antibiotics, Spellberg says, LpxC-1 doesn't kill the bacteria, it just shuts down the manufacture of the endotoxin and stops the body from mounting the inflammatory immune response to it that is the actual cause of death in seriously ill patients.
Spellberg says this is a direction few researchers have taken when exploring ways to treat infections but that it could make the difference in finding an effective drug. The results also highlight how important it is to find new, physiologically relevant ways of screening potential antibiotics for pathogens with a high degree of resistance, write the authors. Molecules like LpxC-1 that inhibit rather than kill bacteria wouldn't pass muster with traditional antibiotic screens that are based on killing effectiveness.
Liise-anne Pirofski of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and a reviewer of the study for mBio? says neutralizing virulence factors is showing a lot of promise as an alternative route for treating infections. "There's a growing movement in infectious disease therapy to control the host inflammation response in treatment rather than just 'murdering' the organism," says Pirofski. "This is a very elegant and important validation that this approach can work -- at least in mice."
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by American Society for Microbiology.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
Lin Lin, Brandon Tan, Paul Pantapalangkoor, Tiffany Ho, Beverlie Baquir, Andrew Tomaras, Justin I. Montgomery, Usa Reilly, Elsa G. Barbacci, Kristine Hujer, Robert A. Bonomo, Lucia Fernandez, Robert E. W. Hancock, Mark D. Adams, Samuel W. French, Virgil S. Buslon, and Brad Spellberg. Inhibition of LpxC Protects Mice from Resistant Acinetobacter baumannii by Modulating Inflammation and Enhancing Phagocytosis. mBio, October 2012; DOI: 10.1128/mBio.00312-12
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
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Public release date: 4-Oct-2012
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