Urban Farming Around the World - Photo Essays. Study: Buying Organic Food May 'Harshen Moral Judgments' Are these strawberries organic?
Is this omelette made with free-range eggs? Can you swap out the rice for quinoa? Is this kale locally sourced? Pesticide-free? Fair trade? Untitled. Why dogs yawn when we yawn. If your canine companion has ever yawned after you yawned, it could be because he empathizes with you, according to a new study.
It may seem simple, but the fact that this behavior is contagious is actually quite remarkable because very few animals do it. Yawning itself is rare in the animal kingdom, and besides people and dogs, contagious yawning has been observed only in gelada baboons, stump-tail macaques and chimpanzees. 7 Thoughts That Are Bad For You. Our personalities do more for us than determine our social circles.
Temperament can impact a person's physical health. "The idea that behavior or personality traits can influence health is one that's been around for a long time. We're just now getting a handle on to what extent they do," said Stephen Boyle of Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina. From those with a chill demeanor to the completely frazzled types, mental factors are ultimately tied to physical health. Modern Insanity: What Really Makes Us Crazy.
Last month, researchers found that schizophrenics were more likely to have been subjected to influenza in the womb than healthy individuals.
Other common experiences can also drive away our wits, long after we are out of diapers. In fact, the typical American lifestyle teems with risk factors for mental illness, says Stephen Ilardi, a psychologist at the University of Kansas and author of "The Depression Cure: The 6-Step Program to Beat Depression without Drugs" (DeCapo Press, 2009). Neurotic? Why You're Likely to Die Prematurely. Neuroticism can shave years off a person's life, at least in part because a nervous Nellie is more likely to smoke, a new study suggests.
The finding adds to a mountain of evidence suggesting personality and psychological traits — from mellowness to anger and even degree of social engagement — help determine how long you'll live and how healthy you'll be. While the latest results are based on a survey of men, it is "very likely" they also apply to women, though follow-up research is needed to confirm, according to study researcher Daniel Mroczek, a professor of child development and family studies at Purdue University in Indiana. Top 10 Craziest Environmental Ideas. Beyond the Grave: Death Gets More Interesting. Going six feet under is just so passé.
After Death: 8 Burial Alternatives That Are Going Mainstream. Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer | September 12, 2011 04:45pm ET Credit: Vacclav / Shutterstock.com The ancient world is full of examples of burial customs that seem strange now, from Egyptian mummification to bodies dumped in bogs to departed Vikings launched out on ships-turned-crematoriums.
But space constraints and environmental concerns are pushing modern man to explore new options for dealing with the dead. The most recent of these to land on American shores is a process that uses heat, pressure and chemicals to liquefy a body in just a few hours, leaving behind sterile remains that can be poured into the wastewater system. But unusual customs, from launching cremated remains into space to old-fashioned burials in hand-dug graves, are a growing trend.
5 Foul Things That Are Good For You. 50 Fabulous 4th of July Facts: The 13 Original Colonies. Top 10 Amazing Facts About Your Heart. Ten Most Common Poisonous Plants. Robin Lloyd | May 17, 2007 04:43pm ET <div class="countdown_data"><div><h2>Top 10 Poisonous Plants</h2><p>Deceptively attractive, some common flowers and plants can give you headaches, cause convulsions or simply kill you, according to the "Handbook of Poisonous and Injurious Plants" (Springer, 2007).
Children under 6 are especially vulnerable; they account for 85 percent of all calls to poison centers, though the most commonly consumed culprits in poison cases are cosmetics, personal care products, cleansers and pills. Most plants are safe, but here are some you need to know about. The Top 10 Mad Scientists. Mellow Demeanor May Stave Off Dementia. People who are socially active and mellow may be less likely to develop dementia, a new study finds.
Dementia is a loss of mental function, such as memory and reasoning, that is severe enough to interfere with everyday life. Several diseases can cause dementia, including Alzheimer's (the most common cause of dementia in the United States) and Parkinson's disease as well as nutritional deficiencies, stroke and infections that affect the brain. About one in seven Americans aged 71 and older has some form of dementia, the study researchers say. 7 Things That Will Make You Happy. Future Rx: Marijuana without the forgetfulness. Marijuana's negative effects on memory are well known.
But now scientists have pinpointed where in the brain the drug causes this forgetfulness, and it's separate from where pot exerts its medicinal effects. If this finding, drawn from experiments with lab mice, is also found to apply to humans, it means scientists someday may be able to design medical marijuana that doesn't impede a patient's working memory while treating his or her pain. Working memory is the ability to hold more than one thought in your head for a period of time. "We have found that the starting point for this phenomenon — the effect of marijuana on working memory — is the astroglial cells," study researcher Giovanni Marsicano, of the French biomedical researcher institution INSERM, said in a statement. Brain cells. 10 Things You Didn't Know About the Brain. 6 Action Steps to Take When You Feel Financially Vulnerable.
EmailEmail A report released last week gave the shocking news that half of all Americans are financially fragile and would not be able to come up with $2,000 in 30 days without having to resort to borrowing money or pawning/selling items that they own. It’s apparent that it’s not just the poorest families that are financially vulnerable, many middle class families are also in the same boat. Ask yourself how easy would it be for you to come up with $2,000 to pay for a necessary car repair, vet bill or home repair. Can’t Get Enough Coffee? It Might Be in Your Genes. If you rely on a deep, sludgy kick of java to get you through the day, your need for caffeine might have something to do with your genes: a team of researchers have identified variations on two genes that may influence how much coffee people consume.
The study was a meta-analysis of data from five studies involving 47,341 U.S. participants of European descent, and run by scientists from the National Cancer Institute, Harvard School of Public Health, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The genes in question are known as CYP1A2, which is involved with the body’s caffeine metabolism, and AHR, which regulates CYP1A2. Scientists found that people with high-consumption variants of either gene on both chromosomes consumed on average about 40 mg more caffeine per day than people who didn’t have the mutation on either chromosome. (More on Time.com: Drinking Coffee May Lower Women’s Risk of Stroke) Sleeping Late on Weekends Not a Remedy for Lost Snooze Time. Staying in bed on the weekend might not be enough to make up for a weeks' worth of sleep deprivation, a new study suggests. In the study, after five days with only four hours of sleep, a 10-hour doze did remedy some of the ill effects of chronic sleep restriction.
However, even after an extended snooze, participants still experienced lapses of attention and delayed reaction times. The findings agree with those of a previous smaller study showing that people can accumulate a sort of sleep debt by going long periods with little sleep even if they also sleep in every once in a while. 10 Scientific Tips For Raising Happy Kids. 6 (Other) Great Things Sex Can Do For You. Top 10 Spooky Sleep Disorders. No Sex Required: Women Have Orgasms at the Gym.
Women may not need a guy, a vibrator, or any other direct sexual stimulation to have an orgasm, finds a new study on exercise-induced orgasms and sexual pleasure. The findings add qualitative and quantitative data to a field that has been largely unstudied, according to researcher Debby Herbenick, co-director of the Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University. For instance, Alfred Kinsey and his colleagues first reported the phenomenon in 1953, saying that about 5 percent of women they had interviewed mentioned orgasm linked to physical exercise.
However, they couldn't know the actual prevalence because most of these women volunteered the information without being directly asked. Since then, reports of so-called "coregasms," named because of their seeming link to exercises for core abdominal muscles, have circulated in the media for years, according to the researchers. Pleasure at the gym. Gender Differences, Female Hormones & Human Brain. Matters of the Brain: Why Men and Women Are So Different. Top 10 Weird Ways We Deal With the Dead. 10 Things You Didn't Know About You. Sleep, Seasonal Depression & Sex. 5 Things You Must Know About Sleep. Jet Lag Caused By Out-of-synch Brain. Night Owls Stay Alert Longer than Early Birds. SETI Astronomers Launch New Campaign to Eavesdrop on E.T. If Aliens Exist,They May Come to Get Us, Stephen Hawking Says. Huge Fridge Colder Than Outer Space. Greatest Discoveries & Advances in Science. Fear of Snakes, Fear of Heights, Fear of Flying. 5 Myths About the Male Body.