Selma Blair has opened up about how “older male doctors” dismissed her early multiple sclerosis symptoms, and suggested she get a boyfriend to help with the pain. The Cruel Intentions star, 51, discussed how her multiple sclerosis (MS) went undiagnosed for years during an interview with Kristen Welker on Meet The Press. While speaking with Welker on 26 November, Blair revealed that doctors had chalked up her early MS symptoms as simply menstrual issues. “Everything does not need to be blamed on menstruation or something,” she said, noting that the long delay in her diagnosis was likely due to “older male doctors who really probably did not know the intricacies of a girl”. One medical professional even told Blair that maybe she “needed a boyfriend” after seeking help for her chronic pain, the actress said. “I just cried,” Blair said, when asked about her response to the doctor’s suggestion. “I had no capability to process: ‘What am I supposed to do with this information?’ I knew the pain was real. I thought it was. But I did start to convince myself: ‘You’re overly sensitive. There’s nothing wrong with you. Get it together, you lazy, lazy whatever.’” The Legally Blonde actor went on to explain how she began experiencing symptoms of MS as early as just seven years old. “There is a prodromal period so I’m not certain that it actually was full on,” Blair told Welker. “I had very clear signs at that time. I had optical neuritis as a child, which really is only from brain trauma or MS, and yet they didn’t recognise it even though I was seeking doctors my entire childhood.” Blair admitted that she’s experienced “so much medical trauma” due to doctors “taking advantage of that time” or “really just not seeing me” while trying to be diagnosed for her chronic health condition. “I’ve been advocating for myself for a long time, trying to find what was ailing me, why I was not able to keep up with anyone really my entire life,” she said. The Mean Baby author acknowledged that much of her misdiagnosis has to do with “gender bias” in medicine. She recalled an incident when a boy in her class was experiencing “the exact same chronic headache and fever” and he received “surgery and an MRI within the week”. “But they just said: ‘Oh, [you’re] just dramatic,’ you know?” Blair recounted. While she noted that MS symptoms are “different for everyone”, the actor explained how she began experiencing symptoms that were “disguised as emotional” mood swings. “I have prefrontal damage that would cause hysterical crying and laughing,” Blair explained. “I just thought: ‘Wow, I’m just that wild one that wakes up in the middle of the night, like, waking myself up laughing hysterically, or sobbing, or in front of people just very moody maybe.” “And I believed all these things,” she added. “I was put on really strong antidepressants from a really young age. And I drank. I drank because I felt so other. I just went in the basement and I drank from a really young age.” In October 2018, Blair publicly shared that she had been diagnosed with MS - a condition that affects the central nervous system, disrupting the flow of information within the brain and between the brain and body, according to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Since then, she’s offered deeper insight into her health struggles in the Discovery+ documentary Introducing, Selma Blair. The film, which was released in 2021, follows Blair as she undergoes a risky stem cell transplant to treat the disease. In August that year, Blair revealed that she was in remission following the stem cell transplant. Read More Revealed: Healthy mental health patients trapped in hospitals for years Major study focuses on key lifestyle change that can add decade to life expectancy Dan Walker recalls having ‘out of body experience’ during a kidney cancer scare Revealed: Healthy mental health patients trapped in hospitals for years Major study focuses on key lifestyle change that can add decade to life expectancy Dan Walker recalls having ‘out of body experience’ during a kidney cancer scare

Former Liverpool captain Sami Hyypia believes Virgil van Dijk will prove this season he is once again the best centre-back in the Premier League. The Netherlands international has faced questions about whether can rediscover the form which arguably made him the world’s top defender prior to a knee ligament injury in October 2020. However, there are signs the current Reds skipper is edging closer to his best with his commanding performance in the weekend’s Merseyside derby win over Everton another indicator of a return to his previous high level. “He is one of the best in the business in the world,” Hyypia told the PA news agency at a Nike Game On initiative which, in conjunction with the LFC Foundation, has provided more than 8,000 local schoolchildren with access to a range of sports. “I think he has raised the standard with everyone expecting him to play at that level every time and that is very difficult. “But he is doing well, he is a big part of our team and a big leader of the team so I think we all need to be patient and his best is coming. “I think this season he has shown in some games he is still at the level and I have no doubts he will be the best centre-back in the league this season.” Despite their good start to the season there has been scrutiny on Liverpool’s defence, with right-back Trent Alexander-Arnold now operating in a hybrid midfield playmaker role in possession and opponents seeking to exploit the space in behind. The focus is likely to intensify following the news left-back Andy Robertson will be sidelined for three months after shoulder surgery, with Kostas Tsimikas having to deputise. I have no doubts he will be the best centre-back in the league this season Sami Hyypia on Virgil van Dijk But Hyypia has faith in both Liverpool’s full-backs, adding: “Trent is like a midfield player. He can pass short and long and has the vision to see the passes. “I think this role suits him well and when he is in the midfield position he doesn’t have that big distance to go back defending when we lose the ball.” On Tsimikas, the former Finland international said: “I think he will get a lot of responsibility now and he has his chance to show what kind of player he is. “Hopefully he is courageous and takes his chance. If that is not going to work then Jurgen (Klopp) needs to think of something else to solve the problem but I have confidence in Tsimikas that he can do the job.” Having come through a testing set of fixtures Liverpool sit third in the table, a point behind leaders Manchester City. With games to come against Nottingham Forest, Bournemouth and Luton – all teams in the bottom six – and Brentford before a late November trip to the Etihad Stadium, Hyypia believes the platform has been laid for another title challenge. “The ambition is to win the league,” he said. “As long as we are competing until May to be the champions I think we can say we will have had a successful season. “The top four is always the minimum target to reach but everyone wants success and some trophies this season. “It would be foolish to look at what the others are doing. We just concentrate on what we are doing and do what we do best and then we see what the result is.” The first three years of Game On programme, funded by Nike and delivered by the LFC Foundation, has engaged more than 8,000 children – including 950-plus disabled and 1,000-plus ethnically-diverse participants – aged between seven and 12 and 46 grassroots sports clubs with coaching delivered in 15 different sports. “Game On is about using the power of sport, Nike and Liverpool to engage local young people in sport – unusually for us not football,” said LFC Foundation chief executive Matt Parish. Read More Brydon Carse backed to take on Liam Plunkett role after England World Cup call The sporting weekend in pictures Philadelphia Eagles sink Miami Dolphins as Super Bowl rivals set the pace Man Utd expect to pay further tribute to Sir Bobby Charlton on Tuesday night Pep Guardiola admits winning treble has taken toll on Manchester City Gary O’Neil determined to repay Wolves for their faith after Bournemouth sacking

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Hundreds of people have attended an AI-generated church service in Germany, involving virtual avatars delivering sermons written by ChatGPT. The 40-minute service at Saint Paul’s church in Fürth received mixed reactions from the Protestant congregation, the Associated Press reported, with the avatars occasionally causing unintentional laughter. Some church members even refused to speak along when the digital avatar read out the Lord’s Prayer. “There was no heart and no soul,” said Heiderose Schmidt, a 54-year-old IT worker who attended the service. “The avatars showed no emotions at all, had no body language and were talking so fast and monotonously that it was very hard for me to concentrate on what they said. But maybe it is different for the younger generation who grew up with all of this.” Lutheran pastor Marc Jansen was more impressed by the artificial intelligence, saying he had “imagined it to be worse” than it was. “I was positively surprised how well it worked,” he said. “Also, the language of the AI worked well, even though it was still a bit bumpy at times.” The AI began the service by stating: “Dear friends, it is an honour for me to stand here and preach to you as the first artificial intelligence at this year’s convention of Protestants in Germany.” It went on to talk about leaving the past behind and never losing trust in Jesus, while also urging the congregation to overcome their fear of death. More than 300 people attended the service, which was organised by 29-year-old theologian Jonas Simmerlein from the University of Vienna. Mr Simmerlein instructed ChatGPT to include psalms, prayers and a blessing, saying the experiment was designed to show how religious leaders could use AI to help them with their work. “Artificial intelligence will increasingly take over our lives, in all its facets. And that’s why it’s useful to learn to deal with it,” he said, adding that AI will not be able to replace the role pastors serve in interacting with the local community. “The pastor is in the congregation, she lives with them, she buries the people, she knows them from the beginning. Artificial intelligence cannot do that. It does not know the congregation.” Read More What is superintelligence? How AI could wipe out humanity – and why the boss of ChatGPT is doomsday prepping 10 ways AI will change the world – from curing cancer to wiping out humanity Major Google Bard update allows it to not just write code, but execute it Instagram is working on an AI chatbot with multiple personalities The glaring omission from Apple’s AR headset launch

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About 20 per cent of US academic respondents in a survey have reported that they, or someone they know, have seen unidentified flying objects (UFOs). Over a third of the nearly 1,500 respondents are interested in conducting research into such unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), suggested the results of the survey, published in the journal Humanities and Social Science Communications. The US government has undertaken new hearings, reports and investigations into UAP, with a report by the Pentagon suggesting there were over 500 reports about UFOs with the agency as of August 2022. In the current research, scientists, including those from the University of Louisville, surveyed 39,984 academics, including professors, associate professors and assistant professors from 144 US universities across 14 different disciplines. Despite the stigma associated with the topic, researchers said these developments merit asking university faculty about their perceptions on the sightings of UFOs. Researchers asked the 4 per cent of individuals who responded to the survey about their perceptions of, experiences with and opinions of UAP. Nearly a tenth of the participants worked in political science, another tenth in physics, 10 per cent in psychology and 6 per cent in engineering. About 276 of the respondents – or 19 per cent of participants – reported that they or someone they knew had witnessed UAP. A further 9 per cent said they or someone they knew “may have witnessed” UAP, according to the study. Thirty-nine percent of all the participants said they did not know what the most likely explanations for UAP were, but a fifth of them attributed the sightings to natural events and 13 per cent to devices of unknown intelligence. About 4 per cent of participants said they had conducted academic research related to UAP, and over a third said they had some degree of interest in conducting research in this area. Among the respondents, 37 per cent ranked the importance of further research into UAP as either “very important” or “absolutely essential”, while nearly two-thirds of them considered academia’s involvement in UAP-related research to be “very important or absolutely essential”. The findings hinted that many American academics across disciplines consider academia’s involvement in research into UAP to be important. “Results demonstrated that faculty think the academic evaluation of UAP information and more academic research on this topic is important,” scientists wrote in the study, adding that curiosity on the topic “outweighed scepticism or indifference”. Researchers also suggested many may be cautiously willing to engage with UFO research if others they consider to be reputable within their field also do so. However, they said more surveys among larger and diverse cohorts are needed to understand attitudes of academics towards UAP. Read More Some strange ‘highly manoeuvrable’ UFOs seem to defy laws of physics, scientists say UFOs, UAPs and ETs: Why some people believe aliens are visiting us right now Nearly 200 recent UFO sightings in US remain unexplained, Pentagon says Ancient galaxy discovered 25 million light years away Watch: Axiom Mission 2 arrives at the International Space Station Nearly 350 licences issued to UK space companies

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