True love’s a chore

WIPE that martyred look right off your face: putting yourself out for your partner by performing those onerous little tasks, such as washing-up or taking out the bins, only strengthens your relationship if you look as if you really want to do them, says a new psychological study.

Professor Heather Patrick’s report is bad news for those of us who like to look pained beyond physical endurance when doing our loved ones the most trifling of domestic favours.

But Patrick, of Rochester University, New York, reveals that her study of 266 men and women has found that people really appreciate their partners’ small sacrifices only if they are done in a spirit of generosity and enjoyment. Being all grudging simply doesn’t cut it.

She will report to a conference of psychologists at Toronto University this weekend that partners who develop an altruistic approach to chores also get much more out of doing them.

Spouses who wash the dishes because they want to, not because they felt they were pressured, were more satisfied in their relationships, more committed to them, and felt closer to their partners.

Patrick says that her study offers a handy insight into why some relationships aren’t fulfilling even though they look perfectly OK on the surface: “It’s important to understand what makes positive relationships positive and what may undermine positive experiences.”

Hello, Mr Chips Death’s doorways

TINY implantable computers that monitor your cells for diseases such as cancer and then repair them are now a step closer to reality, reveal Harvard University scientists.

They report in Nature Biotechnology how they are on track to implant genetic plans into our bodies that would tell our cells to construct the DNA biocomputers. These would monitor cellular information and edit genes if they go wrong. DNA holds data digitally, like a silicon chip.

Yaakov Benenson, one of the developers, says: “Give your body a genetic blueprint of the machine and your own biology will do the rest.” This week the team revealed how it has proved that biocomputers can work in human kidney cells in lab cultures.

Yoga power

THAT walking-on-air feeling you get after an hour’s yoga is not just placebo – the postures give your brain a big blast of a calming neurotransmitter, says an MRI-scanning study.

Boston University scientists scanned 19 volunteers’ brains before and after they spent an hour doing yoga. The people who spent 60 minutes in warrior and downward-dog poses had a 27 per cent boost in their levels of gamma-aminobutyric acid. This is thought to induce relaxation and calm emotions. The study, in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, says that yoga may effectively treat depression and anxiety.

Death's doorwarys. THE July 1 public smoking ban will bring another new health hazard. It’s doorways, caution American investigators.

Georgia University health researchers report that since Georgia banned indoor public smoking, knots of committed puffers crowding outside bars and restaurants have sent air pollution soaring to several times above the legal limit. Even brief exposure to this may be harmful, the American Thoracic Society report says.

Under a vest

A VEST that diagnoses mental illness has been invented by Californian psychiatrists.

The LifeShirt, which looks rather like a bullet-proof vest, continuously monitors the wearer’s movements for rapid and repetitive actions. Its maker, VivoMetrics, says that people with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia are hard to tell apart if their illness is at its height. But people with bipolar disease tend to be detectably more hyperactive.

Seeing double

DNA paternity testers like to claim that their systems are 99.9 per cent accurate. But that’s no help for Richard and Raymon Miller, who went to court in Missouri this week to see which is the father of a 3-year-old girl. The men are identical twins who were both sleeping with the mother. Now neither twin wants to pay child support. But their DNA is legally indistinguishable.

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