Machiavellianism is the use of the general principle of 'the ends justifying the means'. This means the Machiavellian person considers their goals to be of prime importance and that any method may be used to achieve them. The more extreme the Machiavellianism, the greater the harm the person will be ready to indirectly (or perhaps directly) inflict on others to achieve their own goals.  The Machiavellian approach includes using deception, manipulation, theft and, in the extreme, even physical coercion or murder.   Niccol Machiavelli (more fully, Niccol  di Bernardo dei Machiavelli) wrote 'The Prince' (Il Principe) in 1513, during the turbulent days of the Renaissance Medicis, as a set of pragmatic instructions to a new prince on how to gain and retain power. The originality of his ideas has been challenged and shown to go back at least to the Athenians, yet the influence of Machiavelli's words still rings around the world. Machiavelli separates public and private morality. People in public office often need to appear to have high morals, yet to succeed they may have to use questionable methods. While many have viewed it as immoral (and hence evil), Machiavelli's views are more amoral. The approach is pragmatic, doing what is necessary to achieve goals, and is an honest description of what many people do. What is described now as Machiavellianism is more about individual action rather than that of a person in political office, although politicians are often still described as being Machiavellian.

Jane* has not slept for more than two weeks, has barely eaten, and still shakes from the trauma. She will not stay any longer in what her children call the “scary movie house” in west Dublin.

Last Thursday, she took a four-hour bus journey to Donegal to bring her children to safety, while she now seeks refuge in a friend’s attic in Dublin.

When two men came to her house in Clondalkin in the middle of the night, a week ago, and sprayed “Blacks Out” across her front window, she was left with no choice.

“I thought it was horrible,” Jane, a single mother, tells the Irish Examiner. “I didn’t know what I was going to do. I called the guards and they came and they stayed here for about two hours. I was so scared, so, so scared. The graffiti attack came on the back of two incidents of having her car tyres slashed, both in the space of a fortnight.

Last Friday, two days after the graffiti attack, her tyres were slashed for a third time. Jane has gone to the council and the homelessness service, but said she was turned away by both. They say that, as she is in private rented accommodation, although on rent allowance, they cannot help her.

“After that, I couldn’t think of anything. I didn’t know where I was going to bring the children,” Jane says.

“I was driving around and around for ages. I was in a state. The boy was crying, I was crying. My girl said, ‘mommy, I am not going to that street’.

“They said they were not going to ‘the horrible house’, ‘the scary movie house’. I didn’t know what to do. We had nowhere to go.”

She reached out to a friend, staying there on Wednesday night. The next day, she brought her children to a friend in Donegal while she returned on Friday.

“It is very hard to be separated from my children, but I have no idea what is going to happen,” she says.

Her son, aged 12, and her daughter, 8, were born in Ireland and are Irish citizens. Now they feel alien.

“They do not feel part of Irish society anymore,” she says.

Jane is exhausted from it all: “Since two weeks I am not sleeping, I don’t feel hungry, I am shaking when I think of it.”

She pointed out, however, that she has many good neighbours.

Local People Before Profit councillor Gino Kenny said the “distorted individuals” behind the attacks did not speak for the community. Both the gardaí in Clondalkin and South Dublin County Council said they are investigating Jane’s case.

Sex is primarily the process of combining male and female genes to form offspring, however over the past billion years complex systems of behaviour (and the motivation and reward circuits that root such behaviours) have evolved around this process and no where is this complexity more elaborately represented than in the human brain. At some point in their life, everyone will engage in sexual behaviour or at least experience sexual desire. Ultimately the brain is the largest sex organ controlling the biological urge, mediating all thoughts, experiences and physiological responses to sex, so 'Where Does Sex Live in the Brain.  Sexual desire is defined as the behavioural drive that motivates individuals to fantasize about or seek out sexual activity. In contrast, sexual arousal is defined as the autonomic physiological processes that prepare the body for sexual activity (Toledano, Pfaus., 2006). It is important to make clear distinctions between the two definitions as confusion can occur due to, the often simultaneous occurrence of both mechanisms.  Sexual desire is the culmination of several different neural mechanisms, each is controlled in different areas of the brain and is activated at different times of the sexual experience. The euphoric and pleasurable experience of sex stems primarily from the limbic system. The colloquial term for areas including the amygdala, hippocampus and limbic lobe (dentate and cingulate gyrus). This area is common to all mammals and is considered one of the oldest areas of the brain. It regulates emotion and encourages the avoidance of painful of aversive stimuli and the repetition of pleasurable experiences. From a physiological perspective sexual arousal is controlled by the parasympathetic portion of the autonomic nervous system and manifests itself as vasodilation in sexual organs along with several other physiological phenomena including an increase in heart rate. An orgasm and in particular male ejaculation is controlled by the sympathetic portion, this is also accompanied by deactivation of many areas in the brain relating to external stimuli in particular fear, allowing the mind to focus on the task at hand.  Sexual desire is initially modulated by the release of sex hormones, for males testosterone and for females oestrogen, our levels of these hormones are understood to affect our behaviour. Recent studies how found that male testosterone levels increase by approximately 7.8% in males even though they do no consider her attractive. 

Testosterone, a member of the androgen family of steroids, is secreted in the testes of males and the ovaries of females as well as small amounts from adrenal glands. Arousal causes the cerebral cortex to signal the hypothalamus to stimulate the production of testosterone, the production is regulated by a complex chain of events known as the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis; Gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) is secreted by the hypothalamus, via the hypophyseal portal system, it travels to the anterior pituitary which then releases luteinizing hormone (LH) in order to stimulate the production of testosterone in the testes. Production levels are controlled by negative feedback. Luteinizing hormones also stimulate the production of oestrogen in the ovaries, some oestrogens are also produced in other tissues such as the liver and adrenal glands. In females, oestrogen synthesis begins in cells in the ovaries by the synthesis of androstenedione, this compound then travels into the surrounding granulosa cells of the basal membrane where it is converted to oestrone or oestradiol, testosterone is also converted to oestradiol at this point. 

Several studies have reported that older black and Latino adults have lower cognitive function test scores than older white adults, but few have comprehensively examined reasons for score differences. This study evaluates whether differences in health and socioeconomic indicators, including literacy level, can explain differences in cognitive function test scores between older black and white adults.  Murray was wrong in 1994 in his reading of the evidence for a genetic basis for the black-white IQ difference — and that he is wrong today. We argued that it was misleading, even irresponsible, for Harris to treat Murray as if he were someone who merely passes along scientific facts — facts so sound that they can only be doubted by liberals in the grip of “a politically correct moral panic,” in Harris’s words. All three of us are academic psychologists who have studied human intelligence, and it is our contention that Murray’s views do not represent the consensus in our field.

We start by noting that we accepted as facts many claims that are controversial in the academy, if not in psychology — that IQ exists; that it predicts many life outcomes; that there is a gap between black IQ scores and white IQ scores; that IQ is at least partly heritable (as is almost every human trait). We rejected the conclusion that Murray and Harris say is virtually inescapable: that it follows that the black-white difference in IQ must be partly genetic. 

Given the response to our first article, we thought it would be useful to clarify the precise boundaries of the dispute, as well as respond to some technical points critics raised. The central issue at stake is whether the black-white IQ gap is partially genetically determined. We believe there is currently no strong evidence to support this conclusion, whereas Murray presents it as a near certainty, and Harris endorses Murray’s position.

To be fair to our critics, it can be a little hard at first to pin down Harris and Murray’s position on this point. They both offer broad caveats, like this one, from Harris: 

Symptoms

Read about the symptoms of mouth and oropharyngeal cancer and when to see your doctor.

Ulcers that do not heal

A broken area of skin (ulcer) that will not heal can be a symptom of mouth cancer. About 80 out of 100 people (80%) with mouth cancer have this symptom. 

Pain in your mouth

Pain or discomfort in your mouth that doesn't go away is the other most common symptom of mouth cancer. 

White or red patches in the mouth or throat 

An abnormal looking patch could be a sign of cancer or precancerous changes:

• White patches are called leukoplakia.
• Red patches are called erythroplakia. 

These patches are not cancer, but if left untreated they may lead to cancer. 

A funagal infection called thrush in the mouth can cause red and white patches. The white patches of thrush usually rub off, leaving a sore red patch underneath. If you have anti fungal treatment and the patches go away, they are not related to cancer.  

Difficulty swallowing 

Mouth cancer can cause pain or a burning sensation when chewing and swallowing food. Or you might feel like your food is sticking in your throat. Difficulty swallowing can also be caused by a harmless narrowing of the foodpipe (oesophagus). 

Speech problems

Cancer in your mouth or throat can affect your voice. Your voice might sound different. It may be quieter, husky, or sound as if you have a cold all the time. Or you might slur some of your words, or have trouble with pronouncing some sounds. 

A lump in your neck

You may have a lump in your neck caused by an enlarged lymph node. Swelling in one or more lymph nodes in the neck is a common symptom of mouth and orpharyngeal cancer. 

A hot red painful lump usually means an infection, rather than a cancer. Lumps that come and go are not usually due to cancer. Cancer usually forms a lump that slowly gets bigger. 

Weight loss

Weight loss is a common symptom of many different types of cancer. Mouth and oropharyngeal cancer can make it painful to eat and diffcult to swallow. This might cause weight loss. 

Extreme weight loss (when you are not dieting) can be a sign of advanced cancer. 

Bad breath

Most people have bad breath at some point in their life and it is not cancer. 

But if you have cancer, bad breath might be worse and happen more often. 

Other symptoms

These can  include one or more of the following:

• a lump or thickening of your lip 
• a lump in your mouth or throat 
• unusual bleeding or numbness in your mouth 
• loose teeth for no clear reason 
• difficulty moving your jaw 

We were the babies who grew up without the internet and went on to find online jobs.

If you were born between 1977 and 1983, you belong to a group being re-defined as Xennials.

We had analogue childhoods, wedged between Gen X and Millennials, and adapted to a digital revolution in adulthood. Xennials are a mix between the so-called pessimistic Gen X and optimistic Millennials, says TR Ashworth Associate Professor of Sociology at the university of Melbourne Dan Woodman.

“The idea is there’s this micro or in-between generation between the Gen X group – who we think of as the depressed flannelette-shirt-wearing, grunge-listening children that came after the Baby Boomers and the Millennials – who get described as optimistic, tech savvy and maybe a little bit too sure of themselves and too confident,” Professor Woodman told Mamamia. 

Woodman is a Xennial, born in 1980, and during his Canberran high school years he memorised landline phone numbers and watched prime-time TV. 

Although he warns an entire cohort of people won’t have one value set or one set of dispositions, Xennials did grow up during a unique time. "Around technology they do have a particular experience – we hit this social media and IT digital technology boom in our 20s," said Associate Professor Woodman.

"It was a particularly unique experience. You have a childhood, youth and adolescence free of having to worry about social media posts and mobile phones. It was a time when we had to organise to catch up with our friends on the weekends using the landline, and actually pick a time and a place and turn up there.  

"Then we hit this technology revolution before we were maybe in that frazzled period of our life with kids and no time to learn anything new. We hit it where we could still adopt in a selective way the new technologies," he added.

Woodman started his first email account after he finished high school. He sent emails, letters and post-cards during his gap year travelling. 

DOING yoga naked may not be everyone’s idea of a great way to work out.

But for a growing number of men and women across the UK it’s the hot new fitness trend. And the craze may not be that much of a stretch of the imagination — both yoga and being naked have health benefits, so why not combine the two?

Yoga’s many health-boosting properties are well-documented — from reducing anxiety and stress to easing back pain and improving lung capacity.

Being naked helps the immune system by aiding Vitamin D absorption and reducing the risk of infection and skin complaints.  Plus, exercising with no clothes on means you’ll burn more brown adipose fat. Naked yoga teacher and devotee Doria Gani, from Battersea, South London has been practising the art for seven years since battling cervical cancer.

And in that time demand for her lessons has soared.  

She says: “There is a sense of freedom practising yoga naked. “Lots of people equate being naked with sex but this couldn’t be further from the truth in a naked yoga class.

“Part of yoga is to honour and connect with your body. 

“Practising yoga naked frees you from negative feelings about your body and allows you to be more accepting and more deeply connected with yourself and the world around you. “Naked yoga helps you discover an entirely new way of looking at your own body. It teaches you to embrace your imperfections in a way other exercise classes don’t. It’s a holistic mind and body approach.

“Naturally, people are quite scared at the beginning because they don’t know what to expect. But seeing my clients’ confidence nurtured and growing is amazing.”

Doria — who offers one-to-one classes — urges anyone familiar with the yoga poses to try it naked and see and feel the benefits.

But she advises beginners to see an instructor first.

Here, Doria reveals popular naked yoga poses and tells how they can benefit body and mind.  MANY yoga practitioners feel this position helps improve circulation.

DORIA SAYS: "With your head beneath your heart, your blood will now flow in the opposite direction.

It helps clear congestion and aids venous return – blood pumping back to the heart.

Strengthens shoulders and arms, corrects posture and improves memory.