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Swedish art student on trial for faking psychosis |
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Written by Ajay Gupta
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Monday, 24 August 2009 15:24 |
 Stockholm - A Swedish art student who feigned a psychosis and acted as if she was about to commit suicide went on trial Monday, charged with raising a false alarm.
Anna Odell, 35, risks a fine but could also be sentenced to two years in prison for the incident she staged in January as part of her final exam project at the University College of Arts, Crafts and Design.
Some people have defended her actions as a legitimate arts project, while others say she drained resources from the psychiatric health system that is severely stretched.
Odell filmed her actions on a bridge in Stockholm. She was so convincing that police alerted to the scene chose to take her to a psychiatric ward in central Stockholm, where she was admitted.
She also used her hospital records and other documents as part of the arts project. Odell resisted police officers and hospital staff, who gave her sedatives and were forced to strap her down to a bed.
In her testimony she said the pretence was necessary to offer a real view of how the psychiatric care system treats people.
"As an artist you have an opportunity to show the public something. They can see this, and consider 'should this be changed?'" Odell told the Stockholm district court.
She told the court she also had a history of mental health problems.
When it was disclosed that she had conned personnel and faked her condition, she was charged with abusing the psychiatric health system and has been told to refund some 12,000 kronor (1,700 dollars) for the costs she generated.
A court ruling was due early September. (dpa) |
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Last Updated on Monday, 24 August 2009 15:28 |
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Bodies of three recovered from Hudson River |
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Written by Heman Kothari
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Sunday, 09 August 2009 06:53 |
New York, Aug. 9 : The bodies of three of the nine presumed victims of a helicopter-plane collision over the Hudson River have been recovered, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said on Saturday.
NTSB chair Deborah Hersman says the recovery operations have been called off and will resume Sunday morning, due to compromising tides and low visibility.
The accident happened just after noon between Manhattan and Hoboken, N. J. when a small private plane collided with a sightseeing helicopter over the Hudson River, leaving debris scattered in the water and on the New Jersey shoreline, sending witnesses ducking for cover, reports the NYT.
The sight-seeing helicopter was carrying five Italian tourists and a pilot, and the plane was carrying a pilot and two passengers, one of whom is believed to have been a child, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at an afternoon press conference.
"This is not going to have a happy ending. This has changed from a rescue to a recovery mission. If anybody had survived, we would have been there," said Bloomberg.
Both craft are under water and may have sunk to a depth of 30 feet, he told reporters.
Though it was a crystal-clear summer day in New York, visibility is only about two feet in the water, making the recovery process extremely difficult.
The plane, a Piper PA-32, took off from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, and the helicopter was a Eurocopter AS 350 owned by Liberty Tours, a sightseeing and charter company, the Federal Aviation Administration said. (ANI) |
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Fewer highly educated black women getting married, having kids |
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Written by Heman Kothari
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Sunday, 09 August 2009 06:51 |
Washington, August 9 : A new piece of research has found that fewer black women with postgraduate degrees are getting married and having children.
"In the past nearly four decades, black women have made great gains in higher education rates, yet these gains appear to have come increasingly at the cost of marriage and family," said Hannah Brueckner, professor of sociology at Yale University.
"Both white and black highly educated women have increasingly delayed childbirth and remained childless, but the increase is stronger for black women," added the co-author of the study, to be presented at the 104th annual meeting of the American Sociological Association.
This is the first time that any study has reviewed longitudinal trends in marriage and family formation among highly educated black women.
The study has shown that black women born after 1950 were twice as likely as white women to never have married by age 45, and twice as likely to be divorced, widowed or separated.
The gap in the proportion of black and white highly educated women living with a spouse has grown over the decades, increasing from 9 percent in the 1970s to 21 percent in 2000-2007.
"Highly educated black women have increasingly fewer options when it comes to potential mates. They are less likely than black men to marry outside their race, and, compared to whites and black men, they are least likely to marry a college-educated spouse," Brueckner said.
The researchers observed that even though black women were more likely than white women to have children early in their academic careers, 45 percent of those born between 1955 and 1960 were childless at age 45 compared to 35 percent of white women born in the same time period.
Brueckner and the study''s lead author Natalie Nitsche, a graduate student in sociology at Yale University, analysed data from the U. S. Census Bureau''s Current Population Survey to uncover marriage and family trends among black women with postgraduate degrees.
The Current Population Survey has surveyed approximately 50,000 households monthly for more than 50 years to collect data on the American labour force. (ANI) |
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Dogs ''as smart as 2-year-olds'' |
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Written by Ajay Gupta
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Sunday, 09 August 2009 06:46 |
Washington, Aug 9 : Dogs'' mental abilities are close to a human child age 2 to 2.5 years, according to a new research.
Psychologist and leading canine researcher Stanley Coren, PhD, of the University of British Columbia has reviewed numerous studies to conclude that dogs have the ability to solve complex problems and are more like humans and other higher primates than previously thought.
Coren said that the intelligence of various types of dogs does differ and the dog''s breed determines some of these differences.
"There are three types of dog intelligence: instinctive (what the dog is bred to do), adaptive (how well the dog learns from its environment to solve problems) and working and obedience (the equivalent of ''school learning'')," he said.
Data from 208 dog obedience judges from the United States and Canada showed the differences in working and obedience intelligence of dog breeds, according to Coren.
"Border collies are number one; poodles are second, followed by German shepherds. Fourth on the list is golden retrievers; fifth, dobermans; sixth, Shetland sheepdogs; and finally, Labrador retrievers," said Coren.
As for language, the average dog can learn 165 words, including signals, and the "super dogs" (those in the top 20 percent of dog intelligence) can learn 250 words, Coren says.
"The upper limit of dogs'' ability to learn language is partly based on a study of a border collie named Rico who showed knowledge of 200 spoken words and demonstrated ''fast-track learning,'' which scientists believed to be found only in humans and language learning apes," Coren said.
Coren found that dogs could also count up to four or five. And they have a basic understanding of arithmetic and will notice errors in simple computations.
Other studies he examined looked at how dogs solve spatial problems by modelling human or other dogs'' behaviour using a barrier type problem.
Coren said that through observation, dogs can learn the location of valued items (treats), better routes in the environment (the fastest way to a favourite chair), how to operate mechanisms (such as latches and simple machines) and the meaning of words and symbolic concepts (sometimes by simply listening to people speak and watching their actions).
Coren said that during play, dogs are capable of deliberately trying to deceive other dogs and people in order to get rewards.
"And they are nearly as successful in deceiving humans as humans are in deceiving dogs," he said.
The study has been presented at the American Psychological Association''s 117th Annual Convention. (ANI) |
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United States
London - British government plans to curb alcohol-fuelled violence by introducing plastic beer glasses in pubs are unlikely to be popular, the pub industry warned Monday.