Researchers in Canada have suggested that daily contraceptives could alter women’s brains and make them risk-takers. According to a study published in the journal Frontiers in Endocrinology, researchers from Montreal analysed the effects of oral contraceptives on the brain. Specifically, they investigated the role of naturally and synthetically produced hormones on the way fear is processed. 

“When prescribed [combined oral contraceptives], girls and women are informed of various physical side effects, for example, that the hormones they will be taking will abolish their menstrual cycle and prevent ovulation,” said study author Alexandra Brouillard, a researcher at the University of Quebec in Montreal, in a statement. Yet, the researchers claim that the pill’s effects on the brain’s development have not been thoroughly investigated. 

Therefore, the researchers from Montreal enlisted 139 women, ages 23 to 35, who were using oral contraceptives at the time, who had stopped taking the pill, or who had never used hormonal birth control. They also enlisted 41 men. 

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The team found that compared to men, the women on birth control had a “thinner ventromedial prefrontal cortex,” which is responsible for “emotion regulation, such as decreasing fear signals” in safe situations. Ms Brouillard noted that this thinning could mean an impairment of emotional regulation, which could make them risk-takers. 

However, the researchers also noted that this thinning could be reversed once consumption of the pill stops since the former birth control users did not demonstrate the same results. 

In the study, the team said that further research is still needed to confirm the findings. “The objective of our work is not to counter the use of [combined oral contraceptives], but it is important to be aware that the pill can have an effect on the brain. Our aim is to increase scientific interest in women’s health and raise awareness about early prescription of COCs and brain development, a highly unknown topic,” said Ms Brouillard. 

The Kerala Government has moved the Supreme Court challenging the Kerala High Court order that dismissed its plea against the Governor over withholding assent to bills indefinitely.

This is another application filed by the Kerala government against the Governor for delaying the clearance of pending bills. The state government has challenged the HC order passed by its Ernakulam Bench on November 30, 2022.

In the High Court, the government advocate has raised the question of whether the Governor is under a constitutional obligation to act in a time-bound manner in one or the other modes mandated or prescribed under Article 200 of the Constitution with respect to the Bills that have been passed by the Legislative Assembly of the State and presented to him for his assent within a reasonable time.

The petitioner has sought to declare that the actions of the Governor in withholding the bills indefinitely without exercising the discretionary powers under Article 200 of the Constitution as contumacious, arbitrary, despotic and antithetical to the democratic values, ideals of the Cabinet form of government, and principles of democratic constitutionalism and federalism.

The state government said that grave injustice is being done to the people of the State, as well as to its representative democratic institutions (i.e., the State Legislature and the Executive) by the Governor by keeping Bills pending for long periods of time, including three bills for longer than two years.

The Governor appears to be of the view that granting assent or otherwise dealing with Bills is a matter entrusted to him in his absolute discretion to decide whenever he pleases. This is a complete subversion of the Constitution, the state government said.

The petitioner, the State of Kerala, sought appropriate orders from the top court in relation to the inaction on the part of the Governor in relation to as many as eight bills passed by the State Legislature and presented to the Governor for his assent under Article 200 of the Constitution.

Of these, three bills have remained pending with the Governor for more than two years, and three more in excess of a full year, the Kerala government said.

The plea alleged that the conduct of the Governor in keeping bills pending for long and indefinite periods of time is manifestly arbitrary and also violates Article 14 (right to equality) of the Constitution. Additionally, it defeats the rights of the people of the State of Kerala under Article 21 (right to life) of the Constitution by denying them the benefits of welfare legislation enacted by the State Assembly.

According to Article 200, when a bill has been passed by the Legislative Assembly of a State or, in the case of a State having a Legislative Council, has been passed by both Houses of the Legislature of the State, it shall be presented to the Governor and the Governor shall declare either that he assents to the bill or that he withholds assent therefrom or that he reserves the bill for the consideration of the President.

One of Pablo Picasso’s masterpieces, “Woman with a Watch,” was sold at auction Wednesday night for $139.3 million by Sotheby’s in New York, the second-highest price ever achieved for the artist.

The 1932 painting depicts one of the Spanish artist’s companions and muses, the French painter Marie-Therese Walter, and had been valued at over $120 million before going on the block, according to Sotheby’s.

The painting is part of Sotheby’s special sale this week of the collection of the wealthy New York patron of the arts Emily Fisher Landau, who died this year at the age of 102.

Julian Dawes, the house’s head of impressionist and modern art, called the Picasso canvas “a masterpiece by every measure.”

“Painted in 1932 — Picasso’s ‘annus mirabilis’ — it is full of joyful, passionate abandon yet at the same time it is utterly considered and resolved,” he said.

Walter was considered Picasso’s “golden muse”, and features in another of his works going under the hammer on Thursday at Christie’s: “Femme endormie,” or “Sleeping Woman”, estimated to sell for $25-$35 million.

Walter met Picasso in Paris in 1927, when the Spaniard was still married to Russian-Ukrainian ballet dancer Olga Khokhlova, and when Walter was 17.

She also featured in “Femme assise pres d’une fenetre (Marie-Therese)”, which was sold in 2021 for $103.4 million by Christie’s auction house.

In 2021, Sotheby’s also sold another Picasso featuring Walter, for $103 million. The couple had a daughter together who died last year.

Fifty years after his death in 1973 aged 91, Picasso remains one of the most influential artists of the modern world, and is often hailed as a dynamic and creative genius.

But in the wake of the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment and assault, his reputation has been tarnished by accusations that he exerted a violent hold over the women who shared his life and inspired his art.

Sotheby’s is hoping to net around $400 million in sales for pieces from Landau’s collection, which also includes works by Jasper Johns, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko and Andy Warhol.