Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta chorradas. Mostrar todas las entradas
Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta chorradas. Mostrar todas las entradas
jueves, 15 de abril de 2010
lunes, 12 de febrero de 2007
Lo que hay que leer...
Ejque no tienen otra cosa que hacer?, no pasan cosas más importantes en España que esto?. Aunque pensándolo bien, el tema tiene tela marinera. Es esto cultura española ?
Spain Says Adiós Siesta and Hola Viagra
The New York Times
By DAN BILEFSKY
Published: February 11, 2007
MADRID — A few months ago a man walked into a pharmacy in Madrid, pulled out two toy guns and told the attendants to hand over all the Viagra in stock. Two hours later, in what was perhaps a show of gratitude, he returned with two bouquets of roses, before being arrested.
Such are the extremes to which men in this famously macho country will go to obtain the male impotency drug — nicknamed sexo azul, or blue sex, by Spaniards — which costs $104 for a box of eight blue diamond-shaped tablets and has become as popular with teenage clubbers as it is with men in their 70s.
“There has been a Viagra explosion in Spain,” says Dr. Carlos San Martín, the country’s leading sexologist, who counsels couples and has tried Viagra himself. “Some people are taking it for physiological reasons, but Viagra is also becoming a social phenomenon, a recreational drug that men of all ages are using because they want to be supermen.”
Women are demanding that their boyfriends get prescriptions. Young partygoers are buying tablets from dealers in discos for as much as $80 a pill, cutting them into pieces, and distributing them among their friends, even though doing so diminishes the drug’s effectiveness, specialists say.
Doctors here say that some men are even faking symptoms to try to get the tablets, whose main ingredient, sildenafil citrate, helps increase the blood flow to the penis and is effective for up to four hours.
Pfizer, the maker of Viagra, says Spain has moved into the vanguard of a European Viagra trend in part because economic prosperity has transformed the country from a relaxed Mediterranean culture, where the siesta was sacrosanct, into an Anglo-Saxon-style, workaholic nation.
This new stress, said Belén Alguacil Arconada, a Pfizer spokeswoman, is wreaking havoc with the Spanish male’s libido.
“We used to have a siesta, to sleep all afternoon, to eat well,” she said. “But now we have become a fast-food nation where everyone is stressed out, and this is not good for male sexual performance.”
Pfizer says it sold nearly one million boxes of Viagra in Spain last year, the equivalent of one box for every 17 men 18 and older. Globally, Pfizer earned $1.66 billion from Viagra sales in 2006.
Dr. San Martín, the sexologist, confirms that many couples complain they do not have enough time for sex and use Viagra as a sexual crutch.
“For me, it has become impossible during the week,” he said. “I talk about sex all day long, and when I come home at 11 p.m., it is very difficult to perform.”
Sociologists say that an increased willingness to address sexual problems reflects Spain’s sexual liberation after the repressiveness of the Franco years. Once one of the most conservative Catholic countries in Europe, Spain is now among the most liberal, with gay marriage, legalized abortion and one of the highest divorce rates on the Continent. The country’s freewheeling party culture also has played a role.
Dr. Eldiberto Fernández, a urologist who specializes in erectile dysfunction, says talking about sex has lost its taboo.
“In the past,” Dr. Fernández said, “men would come to see me and spend 40 minutes talking about their urinary output before finally whispering, ‘Doctor, I have a problem. Can you help me?’ Now they are no longer embarrassed.”
Dr. Fernández recalled that a woman recently urged her husband to seek Viagra but that the husband later begged him to stop writing prescriptions.
“My equipment works fine with my mistress,” the man said. “It’s my wife that’s the problem.”
The Internet has also played a role in creating a giant black market for Viagra, which was discovered by accident in the 1990s when Pfizer researchers noticed that a medication they were developing to fight high blood pressure had the unintended effect of inducing erections. Today, counterfeit Viagra is widely available on thousands of Web sites, without a prescription.
The quest for Viagra was apparent on a recent day at a packed disco in Chueca, a bohemian district of Madrid, where a group of young men said they took Viagra because it increased sexual confidence. Santiago, a 32-year-old travel agent, who declined to give his last name because he did not want his girlfriend to know he was taking Viagra, called the drug a “sexual security blanket.”
“No one wants to admit it, but everyone is taking it,” he said. “After a night of hard drinking or taking Ecstasy, I take Viagra to make sure I can perform.”
Medical experts here say they are alarmed by Viagra’s transformation into a party drug, which young men are combining with illegal designer drugs like Ecstasy to make a cocktail that young clubbers call sextasy.
Dr. Fernández, the urologist, said that Viagra generally had few side effects, but he warned that it could cause heart problems if mixed with illegal drugs like cocaine, amphetamines or Ecstasy.
The increasing sexual assertiveness of Spanish women has also contributed to the Viagra trend. Bárbara Alfonso, who last year opened Spain’s first escort service for women, in Barcelona, says Spanish men are struggling to adapt to sexual liberation among women.
She notes, however, that while many men think they need to take Viagra to satisfy women, what women really crave is companionship and good conversation.
“The new generation of women in Spain are less influenced by religion and tradition and are willing to do what it takes to have good sex, whether that means going to an escort service or giving their boyfriends Viagra,” she said.
One such woman is Carmen, a chic, twice-divorced 45-year-old information technology executive and Sophia Loren look-alike, who complains that her sexual ardor intimidates most Spanish men. Frustrated by her boyfriend’s sexual performance, Carmen insisted that he take Viagra, which he obtained by making a fake prescription on his home computer.
The Viagra worked, she says, but she decided anyway to leave her boyfriend, an urbane 55-year-old psychologist, for a 32-year-old unemployed student athlete.
“Viagra is not the solution many Spaniards think it is,” said Carmen, who declined to use her last name. “I came to realize that the problem wasn’t my boyfriend’s sexual prowess. The problem was him.”
Now, she added, “I have sex six times a day, but I do miss going to the opera.”
Not everyone here welcomes the country’s Viagra obsession. Nacho Vidal, Spain’s most famous porn star and something of an icon of Spanish male virility, complains that the widespread use of Viagra is destroying rather than strengthening Spanish male sexuality.
“Everyone is taking Viagra,” he said. “It is the new drug, and this is undermining Spanish men’s credibility. Before, you used to have to perform, but now all you need is a pill.”
Spain Says Adiós Siesta and Hola Viagra
The New York Times
By DAN BILEFSKY
Published: February 11, 2007
MADRID — A few months ago a man walked into a pharmacy in Madrid, pulled out two toy guns and told the attendants to hand over all the Viagra in stock. Two hours later, in what was perhaps a show of gratitude, he returned with two bouquets of roses, before being arrested.
Such are the extremes to which men in this famously macho country will go to obtain the male impotency drug — nicknamed sexo azul, or blue sex, by Spaniards — which costs $104 for a box of eight blue diamond-shaped tablets and has become as popular with teenage clubbers as it is with men in their 70s.
“There has been a Viagra explosion in Spain,” says Dr. Carlos San Martín, the country’s leading sexologist, who counsels couples and has tried Viagra himself. “Some people are taking it for physiological reasons, but Viagra is also becoming a social phenomenon, a recreational drug that men of all ages are using because they want to be supermen.”
Women are demanding that their boyfriends get prescriptions. Young partygoers are buying tablets from dealers in discos for as much as $80 a pill, cutting them into pieces, and distributing them among their friends, even though doing so diminishes the drug’s effectiveness, specialists say.
Doctors here say that some men are even faking symptoms to try to get the tablets, whose main ingredient, sildenafil citrate, helps increase the blood flow to the penis and is effective for up to four hours.
Pfizer, the maker of Viagra, says Spain has moved into the vanguard of a European Viagra trend in part because economic prosperity has transformed the country from a relaxed Mediterranean culture, where the siesta was sacrosanct, into an Anglo-Saxon-style, workaholic nation.
This new stress, said Belén Alguacil Arconada, a Pfizer spokeswoman, is wreaking havoc with the Spanish male’s libido.
“We used to have a siesta, to sleep all afternoon, to eat well,” she said. “But now we have become a fast-food nation where everyone is stressed out, and this is not good for male sexual performance.”
Pfizer says it sold nearly one million boxes of Viagra in Spain last year, the equivalent of one box for every 17 men 18 and older. Globally, Pfizer earned $1.66 billion from Viagra sales in 2006.
Dr. San Martín, the sexologist, confirms that many couples complain they do not have enough time for sex and use Viagra as a sexual crutch.
“For me, it has become impossible during the week,” he said. “I talk about sex all day long, and when I come home at 11 p.m., it is very difficult to perform.”
Sociologists say that an increased willingness to address sexual problems reflects Spain’s sexual liberation after the repressiveness of the Franco years. Once one of the most conservative Catholic countries in Europe, Spain is now among the most liberal, with gay marriage, legalized abortion and one of the highest divorce rates on the Continent. The country’s freewheeling party culture also has played a role.
Dr. Eldiberto Fernández, a urologist who specializes in erectile dysfunction, says talking about sex has lost its taboo.
“In the past,” Dr. Fernández said, “men would come to see me and spend 40 minutes talking about their urinary output before finally whispering, ‘Doctor, I have a problem. Can you help me?’ Now they are no longer embarrassed.”
Dr. Fernández recalled that a woman recently urged her husband to seek Viagra but that the husband later begged him to stop writing prescriptions.
“My equipment works fine with my mistress,” the man said. “It’s my wife that’s the problem.”
The Internet has also played a role in creating a giant black market for Viagra, which was discovered by accident in the 1990s when Pfizer researchers noticed that a medication they were developing to fight high blood pressure had the unintended effect of inducing erections. Today, counterfeit Viagra is widely available on thousands of Web sites, without a prescription.
The quest for Viagra was apparent on a recent day at a packed disco in Chueca, a bohemian district of Madrid, where a group of young men said they took Viagra because it increased sexual confidence. Santiago, a 32-year-old travel agent, who declined to give his last name because he did not want his girlfriend to know he was taking Viagra, called the drug a “sexual security blanket.”
“No one wants to admit it, but everyone is taking it,” he said. “After a night of hard drinking or taking Ecstasy, I take Viagra to make sure I can perform.”
Medical experts here say they are alarmed by Viagra’s transformation into a party drug, which young men are combining with illegal designer drugs like Ecstasy to make a cocktail that young clubbers call sextasy.
Dr. Fernández, the urologist, said that Viagra generally had few side effects, but he warned that it could cause heart problems if mixed with illegal drugs like cocaine, amphetamines or Ecstasy.
The increasing sexual assertiveness of Spanish women has also contributed to the Viagra trend. Bárbara Alfonso, who last year opened Spain’s first escort service for women, in Barcelona, says Spanish men are struggling to adapt to sexual liberation among women.
She notes, however, that while many men think they need to take Viagra to satisfy women, what women really crave is companionship and good conversation.
“The new generation of women in Spain are less influenced by religion and tradition and are willing to do what it takes to have good sex, whether that means going to an escort service or giving their boyfriends Viagra,” she said.
One such woman is Carmen, a chic, twice-divorced 45-year-old information technology executive and Sophia Loren look-alike, who complains that her sexual ardor intimidates most Spanish men. Frustrated by her boyfriend’s sexual performance, Carmen insisted that he take Viagra, which he obtained by making a fake prescription on his home computer.
The Viagra worked, she says, but she decided anyway to leave her boyfriend, an urbane 55-year-old psychologist, for a 32-year-old unemployed student athlete.
“Viagra is not the solution many Spaniards think it is,” said Carmen, who declined to use her last name. “I came to realize that the problem wasn’t my boyfriend’s sexual prowess. The problem was him.”
Now, she added, “I have sex six times a day, but I do miss going to the opera.”
Not everyone here welcomes the country’s Viagra obsession. Nacho Vidal, Spain’s most famous porn star and something of an icon of Spanish male virility, complains that the widespread use of Viagra is destroying rather than strengthening Spanish male sexuality.
“Everyone is taking Viagra,” he said. “It is the new drug, and this is undermining Spanish men’s credibility. Before, you used to have to perform, but now all you need is a pill.”
viernes, 7 de octubre de 2005
Science
Bueno, lo he estado repitiendo estos ultimos años. Si algo he aprendido durante mi periplo profesional, es que no se puede generalizar sobre una cultura o país en estereotipos como vagos, listos, responsables, románticos... aunque sí te haces una idea del contexto y la educación bajo la cual han evolucionado. Y entiendes muchas cosas.
Esta semana ha salido un artículo en Science sobre ello. Hay un resumen del estudio en EL PAIS.
También hay un comentario de Richard W. Robins muy interesante, aunque un poco técnico. La conclusion general es que los estereotipos muchas veces son erróneos e incluso peligrosos.
Esta semana ha salido un artículo en Science sobre ello. Hay un resumen del estudio en EL PAIS.
También hay un comentario de Richard W. Robins muy interesante, aunque un poco técnico. La conclusion general es que los estereotipos muchas veces son erróneos e incluso peligrosos.
viernes, 23 de septiembre de 2005
Ciencia ficcion
Dentro de poco ya no podremos ni pensar, las grandes tecnologias pretenden leernos la mente, y por supuesto utilizarlo para la "lucha contra el terrorismo"... ejque...
News
Nature 437, 457 (22 September 2005)
Brain imaging ready to detect terrorists, say neuroscientists
Jennifer Wild
MRI scans can pick up lies, but raise ethical issues.
Brain-imaging techniques that reveal when a person is lying are now reliable enough to identify criminals, claim researchers.
Critics maintain that the technique will never be useful for such investigations, arguing that, as with traditional polygraph detectors, liars could learn to fool the tests. And researchers in the field have previously admitted that the approach needs more work. But neuroscientists from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia have now told Nature that they believe their test is ready for real-life scenarios.
Daniel Langleben and his colleagues use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to track people's brains when they lie and tell the truth. By analysing brain activity during both scenarios, they have developed an algorithm that can detect lies from truth with 99% accuracy.
Team member Ruben Gur points out that, unlike the polygraph, fMRI does not rely on controllable symptoms such as sweating or a fast heartbeat. Instead it monitors the central nervous system. When someone lies, their brain inhibits them from telling the truth, and this makes the frontal lobes more active. "A lie is always more complicated than the truth," says Gur. "You think a bit more and fMRI picks that up."
In the latest study (C. Davatzikos et al. Neuroimage, in the press) the team gave volunteers an envelope with two cards and $20; subjects could keep the cash if they lied convincingly in the tests. Once they were inside the fMRI scanner, each person had to press a button to indicate whether a card flashed on the screen matched one of theirs. They were asked to be honest about having one of the cards and to lie about having the other.
Langleben has previously warned that fMRI is a research tool, not a way to spot liars. But the latest research has changed his tune. "We can't say whether this person will one day use a bomb," he says. "But we can use fMRI to find concealed information. We can ask: is X involved in terrorist organization Y?"
The main advance is being able to distinguish lies from truthful statements in a given individual. Although previously scientists could see how the brain lit up when people lied, results were based on the averaged brain activity of a group of people and did not look at individual fibs for each person. "Now we can tell when an individual lies on a specific question," says Gur. "This is a major step forward."
Critics argue that lab experiments do not equate to real-life situations. Getting a reward for concealing a lie is not the same thing as losing your job or getting a criminal conviction for being found out, which is a far more likely consequence, says Jennifer Vendemia, an expert in lie-detection research at the University of South Carolina, Columbia. "There is nothing you can do in the lab that would mimic job loss, the death penalty, or public humiliation."
But the biggest concerns about using fMRI to detect lies, says Vendemia, are over ethical issues, such as whether individuals have the right to keep their thoughts private.
Critics and researchers agree that more funding is needed to standardize the method and iron out ethical concerns before the approach is used routinely. The team's next step is to expand its studies to include women, people of different cultures, and psychopaths.
News
Nature 437, 457 (22 September 2005)
Brain imaging ready to detect terrorists, say neuroscientists
Jennifer Wild
MRI scans can pick up lies, but raise ethical issues.
Brain-imaging techniques that reveal when a person is lying are now reliable enough to identify criminals, claim researchers.
Critics maintain that the technique will never be useful for such investigations, arguing that, as with traditional polygraph detectors, liars could learn to fool the tests. And researchers in the field have previously admitted that the approach needs more work. But neuroscientists from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia have now told Nature that they believe their test is ready for real-life scenarios.
Daniel Langleben and his colleagues use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to track people's brains when they lie and tell the truth. By analysing brain activity during both scenarios, they have developed an algorithm that can detect lies from truth with 99% accuracy.
Team member Ruben Gur points out that, unlike the polygraph, fMRI does not rely on controllable symptoms such as sweating or a fast heartbeat. Instead it monitors the central nervous system. When someone lies, their brain inhibits them from telling the truth, and this makes the frontal lobes more active. "A lie is always more complicated than the truth," says Gur. "You think a bit more and fMRI picks that up."
In the latest study (C. Davatzikos et al. Neuroimage, in the press) the team gave volunteers an envelope with two cards and $20; subjects could keep the cash if they lied convincingly in the tests. Once they were inside the fMRI scanner, each person had to press a button to indicate whether a card flashed on the screen matched one of theirs. They were asked to be honest about having one of the cards and to lie about having the other.
Langleben has previously warned that fMRI is a research tool, not a way to spot liars. But the latest research has changed his tune. "We can't say whether this person will one day use a bomb," he says. "But we can use fMRI to find concealed information. We can ask: is X involved in terrorist organization Y?"
The main advance is being able to distinguish lies from truthful statements in a given individual. Although previously scientists could see how the brain lit up when people lied, results were based on the averaged brain activity of a group of people and did not look at individual fibs for each person. "Now we can tell when an individual lies on a specific question," says Gur. "This is a major step forward."
Critics argue that lab experiments do not equate to real-life situations. Getting a reward for concealing a lie is not the same thing as losing your job or getting a criminal conviction for being found out, which is a far more likely consequence, says Jennifer Vendemia, an expert in lie-detection research at the University of South Carolina, Columbia. "There is nothing you can do in the lab that would mimic job loss, the death penalty, or public humiliation."
But the biggest concerns about using fMRI to detect lies, says Vendemia, are over ethical issues, such as whether individuals have the right to keep their thoughts private.
Critics and researchers agree that more funding is needed to standardize the method and iron out ethical concerns before the approach is used routinely. The team's next step is to expand its studies to include women, people of different cultures, and psychopaths.
Suscribirse a:
Entradas (Atom)
