Sun of the Demiurge

I.

Land breaking
under the sum
of patent fear,
catacombs cluttering
his wayward walk,
a reprimand upon
his unwarmed heart
and a swear on his breath:

the Angel of Mastemoth
treads his path.
Promulgating murk like mustard,
he plants his plasmatic
handmark
upon the milk-white purity
of the remnant,
ruby-black palmprint
smearing the holy swath
like mud
on albinic suede.

II.

The land cracks
beneath his burning feet;
it blisters with iniquity.

III.

The luciferous visage
blinds starbright disciples.
They bear the blight
of blasphemy, their eyesight
clinging
with rapacious lust
to the bulbous landscape.
The Angel of Mastemoth
leads them down
the broad and broken road,
their soles burnt from walking
such roughshod, reddened stone.

demented aromatherapy

Lemon and Lavender Could Help Dementia Patients

"Aromatherapy and bright light treatment seem to be safe and effective and may have an important role in managing behavioral problems in people with dementia," said Alistair Burns, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Manchester, England.

In an editorial in The British Medical Journal, he and his colleagues said three trials done in the past year have shown the benefit of aromatherapy, particularly the use of lemon balm and lavender oil, for dementia patients.

The oils contain compounds that are absorbed into the body and seem to improve some of the symptoms of the illness.

Studies have also shown that bright light therapy, which involves sitting in front of a light box, can also ease the restlessness and sleeping and behavioral problems which accompany dementia, according to the researchers.

Whoa! (This may be TMI for the guys.)

Bacterial Infection Raises Late Miscarriage Risk

A common bacterial infection in women increases the risk of a late miscarriage and raises the risk of a premature birth, doctors said on Friday.

But bacterial vaginosis (BV), an imbalance between good and harmful bacteria in the vagina, is easily detected and can be treated with antibiotics.

"We didn't find a significant association with miscarriage between 10-13 weeks but there was an association with miscarriage between 13-16 weeks," Phillip Hay, of St George's Hospital Medical School in London, said in an interview.

"It kicks in at about 13 weeks as a major risk factor for miscarriage," he added.

BV develops when there is a change in the balance of bacteria but doctors do not know what triggers it. It is very common and many women may not know they have it. It can clear up on its own or with medication.

[...] The researchers are planning further studies to determine whether treating BV will reduce the risk of miscarriage. They suspect the bacterial imbalance triggers something in the womb that causes the loss of the child.

Born ready for words

Young Baby Brain Already Primed to Learn Language

New research shows that babies' brains are primed to learn language long before they utter or understand their first words.

Dr. Ghislaine Dehaene-Lambertz of the Center National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris and her colleagues found that while 3-month-old babies are read to in their native language, they show brain activity in some of the regions of the adult brain that specialize in language. Much of that activity disappears when sentences are read to the babies backwards, the authors report in the December 6th issue of the journal Science.

[...] Dehaene-Lambertz and her colleagues obtained their findings from imaging scans of 3-month-old babies' brains as they listened to sentences read in their own language, and as the speech was pronounced backwards. Dehaene-Lambertz explained to Reuters Health that backward speech has many similarities to forward speech, but lacks certain overall cues babies likely use to determine whether the words are in their own language or not, such as dips at the end of sentences and other qualities.

The authors found that babies showed more activity in brain regions associated with speech in adults when hearing words in their own language than when the words were read backwards.

In an interview with Reuters Health, Dehaene-Lambertz explained that one of the baby brain regions active during speech is the left angular gyrus, which, in adults, is more active when people listen to words than to non-words. The other region active in baby brains is the right prefrontal region, an area that shows more activity in adults when they hear words that had been said to them moments before, but not when listening to other words.