Neuroscientists say having a baby shrinks mothers’ brains

Women who are pregnant often report feeling a little fuzzy, a little dim and more forgetful than usual, but medical research has produced mixed data to support the so-called “baby brain” phenomenon. Now a study that used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) confirms that mothers lose brain volume when they’re pregnant, adding to the debate.

The authors of the new study, which was published in Nature Neuroscience, suspect the reductions they’ve detected may be a side-effect of “synaptic pruning,” which also happens to humans at age three and again during adolescence.

What happened after Arshad said ‘Talaq! talaq! talaq!’?

How fiction deals with triple talaq?
After her marriage, Kulsum had asked her father, you chose him? No property, no poultry, nothing. Felt like adopting someone?

But later Kulsum realised that Arshad was a very even-tempered man. He knew how to live in harmony. He had told Kulsum, with the money given by your father, how about raising poultry? We’ll sell eggs. Should be enough for us.

Kulsum’s father had given her some money; with it they bought chickens and ducks. All the money they earned from selling eggs came to Kulsum. Arshad could toil like a horse. He would go to Diamond Harbour to sell the chickens and eggs, and hand over the entire earnings to his wife.

And so Kulsum was no longer unhappy. True, they did not have a paan plantation like her elder sister, or a three-plough stretch of land like her younger one. But they had peace and contentment.

‘We’re doing social work’: The twists and turns in the lives of Bengaluru’s roadside dentists

A photo essay on the roadside dentists of Bengaluru’s historic KR Market.

“Now you can eat as much mutton biryani as you want, but don’t forget to brush your teeth twice a day,” said Allah Baksh to Amina Biwi, while soaping his hands under the busy KR Market Flyover in Bengaluru. Amina Biwi appeared relieved: her pain had receded. In gratitude, she flashed a generous smile at Baksh, revealing the three shiny new incisors she had just received.

Indian IT Workers Brace For Bloodbath As Industry Veers Towards Jobless Growth

It seems like the heydays of tech jobs in India may be getting over sooner than what many will have you believe.

Nearly all large IT employers in India such as Infosys, Wipro, Tech Mahindra and Cognizant, are in the process of laying off hundreds of employees, according to media reports. And several more have plans to retrench as many as 58,000 engineers , or over four per cent of their combined workforce in the next few months, Mint reported.

‘Sarkar 3’ film review: Amitabh Bachchan is the grace note in this tired soap opera

Ram Gopal Varma has little new to offer in the third part of the ‘Sarkar’ films, but the veteran actor is in fine form.

There is a new Ram Gopal Varma movie in the theatres. A little while ago, that statement used to be welcomed enthusiastically. But given the filmmaker’s free-fall collapse in form, it is now treated with a mixture of trepidation and weariness.

At the outset, this third chapter of Sarkar (2005), one of Varma’s last entirely watchable films, isn’t as egregious as his recent attempts. Some attention has been paid to the storytelling, and some of the camerawork is actually not risible. The bizarrely framed camera angles are kept to a minimum, although there is a repeated point-of-view shot from a character’s ring, leading to futile speculation about a spying device hidden in the precious stone.

How the delicious jamun could help India meet its power needs?

The berry has a crucial ingredient for creating cheap solar cells, say scientists.

A species of berries indigenous to South Asia may have what it takes to make solar panels far less expensive than they are now. It may even provide a lasting solution to India’s chronic power shortage.

A group of researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, have found that a pigment found in jamun (Syzygium cumini) absorbs large amounts of sunlight. The IIT scientists have been experimenting with the pigment, called anthocyanin, and believe that using it for mass production could bring down solar panel costs.

How H-1B Visa Changes Could Benefit Indian Professionals?

President Trump has issued an executive order directing some U.S. agencies to review the nonimmigrant, H-1B work visa policies, which at present allow companies to hire “skilled” foreign workers when employers say they cannot find qualified Americans. Trump has questioned the impact of the program, saying that it represses American wages by paying foreign workers less. 

The U.S. issues 85,000 H-1B visas annually, and extends or reissues another 100,000 visas, according to Forbes. Last year, nearly 127,000 visas went to Indian nationals, about 21,700 to Chinese workers and 2,540 to Mexicans to round out the top three.