Pope breaks right wrist in fall

Pope Benedict XVI has suffered a fall and broken his right wrist while on holiday in northern Italy.

The Vatican said the 82-year-old pontiff had accidentally slipped during the night in his chalet.

However he was able to celebrate Mass in the morning in the alpine town of Aosta, before undergoing surgery to re-align the fractured wrist bones.

A hospital spokesman said the operation had been successful, but the Pope would have to wear a cast for about a month.

He left hospital after an operation under local anaesthetic that lasted about 20 minutes.

The Vatican said it was the first time Pope Benedict had been treated in hospital since his election in 2005.

He insisted on being treated like any other patient and waited his turn for an X-ray, Italy’s Ansa news agency says.

He has been staying at a house in the village of Les Combes in the Valle d’Aosta region. It was a favourite vacation spot of his predecessor, Pope John Paul II.

Right ear is ‘better for hearing’

The left-side of the brain processes much of what is heard in the right ear

If you want to get someone to do something, ask them in their right ear, say scientists.

Italian researchers found people were better at processing information when requests were made on that side in three separate tests.

They believe this is because the left side of the brain, which is known to be better at processing requests, deals with information from the right ear.

The findings are reported online in the journal Naturwissenschaffen.

We can also see this tendency when people use the phone, most will naturally hold it to their right ear Professor Sophie Scott, of University College London

In the first study, 286 clubbers were observed while they were talking with loud music in the background.

In total, 72% of interactions occurred on the right side of the listener.

In the second study, researchers approached 160 clubbers and mumbled an inaudible, meaningless utterance and waited for the subjects to turn their head and offer either their left or their right ear.

They then asked them for a cigarette.

Overall, 58% offered their right ear for listening and 42% their left.

In the third study, the researchers intentionally addressed 176 clubbers in either their right or their left ear when asking for a cigarette.

The researchers obtained significantly more cigarettes when they spoke to the clubbers’ right ear compared with their left.

Brain

In conclusion, the researchers said: “Talk into the right ear you send your words into a slightly more amenable part of the brain.

“These results seem to be consistent with the hypothesised specialisation of right and left hemispheres.”

Professor Sophie Scott, of the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London, agreed.

“Most people process speech and language on the left-hand side of the brain and while it is not cut-and-dry a lot of what goes in our right ear will be dealt with by the left-side of the brain.

“The other side of the brain is more involved in things such as interpreting emotion and that is why we have these kind of findings.

“We can also see this tendency when people use the phone, most will naturally hold it to their right ear.”