Migraine attacks leave people completely incapacitated and makes them want to curl up in some darkened room and wish that the spasms of pain would just go away. But that it appears is not the right. The right approach is to move one’s body and have sex —and presto, the migraine is gone. Yes, sex is the cure for migraine. Or so claim neurologists from Muenster University in western Germany.
Migraine attacks, says the scientific journal Cephalagia (a medical-neurological journal in the field of headache), eased the symptoms for 60 per cent of the patients who had sex at the same time as a migraine. The scientists studied the symptoms of 350 migraine patients and the strategies they deployed against the pain. The study was first published in the German newspaper Die Welt. The researchers told the newspaper that migraine sufferers — who make up 14 percent of German women and eight per cent of German men — found sex to be a particularly effective cure as 60 per cent said it helped with the pain. However, 33 per cent said that sex made their headache worse.
But one has to wonder at the multitasking capacity of the respondents. That they had the energy and passion to have sex while other sufferers would have curled themselves into the foetal position and hoped that the throbbing pain would just go.
Now, one just has to wait for the next study, which would probably claim that sex and other extra curricular activities which are rather strenuous in nature lead to migraine attacks.
Go India!
Find what you seek is the new slogan that the Indian Tourism Ministry has come up with in its efforts to promote tourism in Germany. India has seen a rapid rise in the number of tourists travelling to enjoy the sights and signs of the country.
last year, 6.65 million foreign visitors travelled the Indian sub-continent, 5.4 per cent more than in 2011. They spent close to $18 billion, an increase of 7.1 per cent. But for Dr K Chiranjeevi Minister of State with Independent Charge for Tourism that is not enough. He wants to make India a destination that tourists can visit throughout the year including during the monsoons — that is a time when lot of western tourists choose to stay away.
So the former southern superstar turned politician is pushing for monsoon tourism along with rural and film tourism. Chiranjeevi’s wife Surekha lit the lamp at the Indian pavilion at this year’s International Tourism Börse (ITB) in Berlin. The Minister said that the Government is mulling on a proposal to extend visa on arrival facility to German tourists.
“Germany is an important source market for India. During the year 2011, over 2.4 lakh German tourists visited India and we are looking forward to further increasing the tourist traffic between the two countries,” he said.
The ITB is one of the largest international events that the Indian Tourism Ministry takes part in. More than 58 participants along with some State tourism Ministries from India attended this year’s exhibition.
This year’s contingent had a large Andhra Pradesh representation and was much more colourful and had many more cultural troupes than one is used to from the Indian pavilion and was one of the attractions at the exhibition grounds. Maybe a visiting Tourism Minister is the mantra that makes the difference.
EU catch
The EU is a large behemoth and like all large behemoths it attracts opposition. And even Germans (who it is claimed profited from the project) are not so enamored by Project EU. According to a new survey, one in four Germans would consider voting for an anti-euro party and such a party could end up attracting 26 per cent of
The magazine Focus published the results from a survey done by the polling company Emnid last week. The survey showed that the most likely supporters were aged between 40 and 49, with four out of 10 voters of this group wanting to see Germany leave the euro. It seems most of the respondents were middle-class people and the person most likely to be damaged by support for an anti-euro party would be the Chancellor Angela Merkel as supporters of her centre-right christian Deomcractic union (CDU) gravitate to such a party.
But the anti-euro feeling is to be found in all political parties, with 17 per cent of CDU supporters expressing the view that Germany should leave the common currency. Nearly a third of those who support Merkel’s coalition partner the Free Democratic Party, will also be tempted by an anti-euro party. Of those identifying themselves as Social Democratic Party supporters, 15 per cent said they would be tempted by an anti-euro party, while 27 per cent of Green supports might follow suit.
And so a new anti-Europe party can shuffle the political cards here, what with general elections to be held in September.
The survey results were followed by announcements of the formation of a new party Alternative for Germany (AfD). The group plans to harvest this resentment against the costs to Germany of the euro and is confident of gathering the 2,000 or more signatures in each of Germany’s 16 States needed to become a recognised party by mid-April.
Tapir story
Germans have a new exotic baby animal to moon over. Zookeepers in leipzig were delighted to announce the birth of a baby tapir four weeks back. They decided to ask fans to suggest names for the baby and have been overwhelmed by the response on the zoo’s Facebook page. The page is constantly updated with photos of the baby tapir. Tapirs are endangered and few tapirs are born in captivity and this baby is one of the few success stories
The animals which are found in Southeast Asia are most closely related to horses and rhinos, while their noses and upper lips form a prehensile snout a little like an elephant’s nose. The zoo has extended the deadline for name suggestions from March 17 to March 27 to give fans worldwide a chance to use their little grey cells and come up with a name that suits the little one.
But the zoo in eastern Germany is not new to celebrity animals. They also had Heidi, a cross-eyed possum who was overweight and constantly on diet. Heidi entered the world of Paris when she correctly tipped the Oscar nominees in 2011. But she died last year. All those extra pounds proved dangerous to her and she had forgotten the ‘A’ rule of celebrity — to remain thin. And now the leipzig zoo has a baby tapir as replacement.