Researchers at California University, who filmed 79 dating couples, say they found that the way a person responds to their partner’s good fortune — with excited whoops or passive nods, a shared glow or cold indifference — is the most crucial factor in building or undermining their bonds.

The study, in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, asked couples who had been dating for at least six months to take turns to tell each other about positive and negative things that had happened to them recently.

Two months later, the researchers followed up the couples and found that those who openly cheered at their partners’ successes were far more likely still to be together and in strong relationships than those who were indifferent or negative. The link was far stronger than that between relationship strength and responses to each other’s failures and travails.

“When you’re seeking support from a partner, there’s much more going on when you’re sharing good news,” says the lead researcher Shelly Gable. “Your ego is on the line.”

Drugs ‘may starve bacteria to death’

SCIENTISTS are in the early stages of creating a new class of antibiotic drugs that would work by convincing bacteria to, in effect, starve themselves to death.

Bacteria strains such as the superbug MRSA serve as a stark warning about how quickly resistance to conventional antibiotics is growing. But a new approach, outlined in Nature Chemical Biology, focuses on the idea of simply switching off a vital part of the bacteria’s systems.

Scientists at Yale University are focusing on riboswitches, a form of chemical monitor that was identified only four years ago, and is responsible for determining how parts of genes are turned on and off.

Their experiments on simple bacteria in the lab have used the amino acid lysine as a chemical skeleton key that can be used to break into the riboswitch’s system.

The riboswitch can then be fooled into thinking that it is swimming in food nutrients and should switch off the bacteria’s mechanisms for producing protein. This stops the bacteria growing.

However, Ron Breaker, the lead researcher, cautions that he is a long way off producing drugs: “We can cure test tubes of bacterial infection, but it’s more challenging when you get to a patient,” he says.

All in the wrist

THE GREAT tennis obsession with getting the correctly sized racket grip for your hand, lest you develop tennis elbow, is a myth, say researchers in the American Journal of Sports Medicine. They studied the electrical activity in the arm muscles of 16 serious players while they returned serves and found that grip size doesn’t cause the injury. Instead they say that sloppy wrist tension on backhand strokes is a culprit.

Fatal attraction

PEOPLE with pacemakers and other implanted heart devices should be wary of modern headphones, toys, jewellery and computer hard drives that contain a powerful new type of magnet, say Swiss experts.

Researchers at Zurich University tested the shiny silver neodymium-iron-boron magnets on 70 heart patients and found that they interfered with their pacemakers and cardioverter defibrillators. The researchers report in Heart Rhythm journal that prolonged exposure, such as wearing a magnetic name badge, could cause permanent damage.

Odds on ill health

GAMBLING may seriously harm your health, says a study of 43,000 people by Connecticut University. The study, reported in Psychosomatic Medicine, claims that even moderate flutters raise their risk of health problems.

It looked at self-reported illness levels and found that those who gamble say they have more health problems.

Pathological gamblers had the highest number of reported troubles, but even people who gambled only four or five times a year had a raised level of health problems, says Benjamin Morasco, the lead researcher.

Habitual gamblers might have a sophisticated grasp of odds and risk, but it doesn’t seem to influence their health behaviour — they tend to smoke and drink a lot, says the study. Gambling itself may elevate stress levels, it adds.

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