I heard about this on
William Saletan’s column on Slate where he gives a summary of the findings.
These
findings are very interesting. They show that brain changes in childhood through adolescence are linked to intelligence.
Perhaps the safest thing for parents to do is provide a rich and stimulating environment for their children through adolescence, to ensure that they are not robbed of opportunities to develop their intelligence.
Learn
how to correctly pronounce popular French and Italian menu items, and wine names.
Expect gas prices to keep rising over the next few months as refiners in the US switch to using ethanol to replace MTBE, an additive in gas that contaminates ground water. Unfortunately, petroleum and ethanol producers may not have prepared themselves adequately for this transition, leading to an undersupply of ethanol which in turn raises gas prices.
The Fed [US Federal Reserve] wants you to think it's fighting inflation. So why did it kill an important measure of the money-supply boom that feeds rising prices?
Wow!
This is such a good deal, it made international news.
At that price, why call when you can fly?
Adopting is the new 'in' thing to do, apparently. Following Angelina Jolie's lead,
Jessica Simpson is considering adopting too.
With more and more people switching to high-definition TV, it is only a matter of time before the transition to HD is complete.
TV production companies are scrambling to deal with the transition to this new technology as everything from sets to make-up needs to be redone for HD. Stars also have something more to worry about because HD cameras are unforgiving. With the high resolution of HD TV, pimples, wrinkles and scars become difficult to hide.
But all this is good news for us. Not only will the picture quality of TV shows improve, we will also see celebrities more accurately—warts and all—and maybe we’ll all feel a little better after that.
Some people are saying that Chris Daughtry did not deserve to be praised by American Idol judges for making the song
I Walk the Line his own, because
he copied the version done by a band called Live in 2001.
At 100 years of age and after working for 76 years for the public transit system in LA, bus maintenance attendant
Arthur Winston finally retires.
Amazingly, the man was never late. He only missed one day of work in all those years—the day his wife died.
This is a
good place to find Web sites that list coupons and deals
Next time you go to Orange County, keep your eye out for these UFOs. They're real and you can get them for for $1000 each.
Very interesting
article on why polygamy doesn't really work, and monogamy does. Blame it on our jealous natures.
Creepy. This sleeping pill may cause sleep-eating in susceptible people.
The drug’s users sometimes sleepwalk into their kitchens, claw through their refrigerators like animals and consume calories ranging into the thousands.
These people not only end up gaining weight because of their sleep-eating, some of them even cook in their sleep, turning ovens and stoves on while asleep—a definite fire hazard.
The reactions [to the drug] range from fairly benign sleepwalking episodes to hallucinations, violent outbursts and, most troubling of all, driving while asleep.
Every man should read this
article. Men need to start paying attention to their health and see the doctor regularly. Ignoring symptoms and pain because they don’t want to make a fuss or a big deal out of it, can be a fatal mistake. "
From the
article:
Men are typically strangers to their own health. Preventive medicine and early detection rank way down on their list of priorities. And they frequently pay for it with their lives. Men are far likelier than women to die early from diseases, many of them treatable.
Of every 100,000 people, for instance, 297 men die of heart disease each year, but just 197 women. Cancer, likewise, takes 238 men per 100,000 compared to 163 women. In the United States, men live an average of six years less than women do. According to a recent Lou Harris poll, men were three times more likely than women to avoid doctors when they had persistent minor medical symptoms. Many neglected to seek routine screenings, even if sent reminders and offered free testing by their health plans.
…Because of their early training, men don’t want to talk to anybody when they’re hurting. Fathers have an opportunity to teach their sons to take charge of their health.
Tips on how to shop at Trader Joe's.
These states have the
most polluted air in the US (starting with the top): New York, California, Oregon, Washington D.C., and New Jersey. The risk of getting cancer is higher for those living in states with dirty air.
Here are the
top ten movies for romantics as rated by the Ladies Home Journal. Don’t read the spoilers for the movies you haven’t seen yet. At the end of the article, there is also a list of the top romantic movies chosen by readers.
This is why it’s important for parents to get treated for depression (and possibly even ADHD)—it benefits not only the parents, but their children too.
From the
article:
“In states where rating factors can legally include education and occupation, insurers such as Allstate and Geico are now charging drivers with the right kind of jobs much less for insurance.”
Hopefully, being
bought out by big business won't change this environmentally and socially responsible company.
There are people who buy a stock, not because they want to own a piece of the company, but for the paper it's printed on. Some stock certificates that are visually appealing or hard to come by become prized collectibles.
Smoking really kills, but those who quit can prolong their lives.
Cigarette smoking strongly increases the risk of dying in middle age for both men and women, but kicking the habit, even at older ages, strongly decreases the risk of dying prematurely.
For people who like to travel, this a new incentive to lose weight.
This is kind of sad. For some of the people who take prescription drugs known as dopamine agonists, the cure is worse than the disease, as these drugs cause them to compulsively seek gambling and sex. The results are devastating. As people's personalities change, their relationships and finances are damaged and their lives, destroyed.
Home-cooking is on the decline, and Americans are losing their cooking skills which used to be passed on from generation to generation in the home. As a result, recipes now have to be dumbed down in order for people to understand them, as many Americans do not know what a lot of cooking terms mean. Also, people want simpler recipes, ideally with only seven ingredients. The article laments the decline of culinary knowledge and skills among people today, although people still seem to be very interested in food and cooking.
After giving a flu shot to elderly people, researchers found that:
The antibody response of happily married people was better than single or widowed people.
The antibody response of those who recently suffered the death of a close friend or relative was worse.
Interesting to know this.
Fascinating article about single women who are conceiving using sperm donors.
Noise pollution is something we all live with and do not even notice, but it is having a very real effect on our health and well-being. Read this article to find out how all the noise we are exposed to on a regular basis could be affecting our health.
A study of elderly people with depression showed that drugs were better at preventing the recurrence of depression than monthly psychotherapy sessions.
Scientists found a protein that caused memory loss in the brains of mice that may help us understand Alzheimer's disease.
Eating veggies might help prevent asthma.
A study of twins shows that "56% liability for developing anorexia nervosa is due to genetic factors".
Another study of binge eaters "found that 20% of those with an immediate relative with binge-eating disorder had ever had the same problem, compared with 9% of those whose relative didn't have binge-eating disorder. The study doesn't show why binge-eating tended to run in families. Genes and environment could both be factors, but it's not clear how much either contributed."
Eggs have been maligned in the past, but they really are good for you.
Whole fruits are the best when it comes to nutritional value, but for most people, the convenience of fruit juice makes it preferable. However, compared to eating fruits, it is easy to go overboard with the calories when you drink fruit juice, so it is recommended that people limit their consumption to one serving of 100% fruit juice a day.
Eating foods that are high in omega-3 fatty acids (such as fish, flaxseed, walnuts, and canola oil) may help with depression, ADHD, schizophrenia, and other mental conditions.
Video games are no longer just for the young. Seniors are now getting into new brain-training games that are supposed to keep their minds in tip-top shape.
Read this to learn how OXO designs its gadgets.
Your genes may determine whether coffee is good for you or bad for you.
Here is another (longer) article about this.
Will this become a new trend in wedding photography?
This is incredible! Four thousand students who took the SATs received incorrect scores. It was only discovered after two students questioned their scores. I don't know how those students knew that there was something wrong with their SATscores, but it's a good thing that they complained or the errors might never have been discovered.
More on what makes people happy.
Tesco, the British supermarket giant, is coming to America. With plans to build small, upscale convenience stores in California, it may give Walmart a run for its money.
It's inspiring to know that altruism shows up in humans at a very early age. A study has found that toddlers as young as a year and a half engaged in unprompted helping.
How do you pronounce "brushcetta" correctly? It's a lot harder than you might imagine, as this one man found out.
We may soon see warning labels on soda, the way we do on cigarettes. There seems to be plenty of data linking sugary soft drink consumption to obesity.
Drinking diet soft drinks seems to be better than drinking sugar-sweetened sodas that are full of empty calories, but
another article warns that some people may compensate for the calorie savings by eating more of other things, and diet sodas may also have the effect of “infantilizing” our taste buds.
Read about tthis internationally released original computer game that was developed in the Philippines.
Many kids are playing "the"choking game" (self-asphyxiation) to get a high, without realizing how dangerous it is.
Descended from the same ancestor as reptiles, the earliest birds had teeth instead of beaks. Proof of this exists today. Scientists have been able to tweak the genes of normal chickens causing them to grow crocodile-like teeth!
This article says that happiness is only 50% genetic; the other half is something we determine ourselves. Read this article to learn the secrets to happiness.
While many countries are dealing the problem of rising obesity, some parts of the world are still dealing with the problem of malnutrition. In particular, there is a dire need to address malnutrition in pregnant women and children under 2. A small investment in this demographic can yield large gains. Malnutrition is a problem that we have a solution for. There is clearly more than enough food in the world to feed the malnourished; if there weren't, obesity would not be the widespread problem that it is.
Did you know that the Japanese are obsessed with food? According to this article, eating good food is very important in Japan. People will pay through the roof and wait in line for hours for a good meal. Even on TV, “food shows now account for an estimated 35 to 40 percent of all domestic programming.” That ‘s certainly something to chew on.