Help for civil servants
British civil servants have been given counselling manuals advising them how to deal with stress-related boredom and a lack of work, The Daily Telegraph reports. "In one booklet from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, officials said stress-related problems could be caused by having 'too little work or responsibility' and suggested that pressured workers take up a hobby to alleviate anxiety. The Department for International Development's book warned workers to avoid becoming lethargic from 'too little pressure,' but allow for 20 per cent more time to complete tasks they feel could add to stress. 'Breathe in and out heavily a few times and imagine yourself being successful,' it advises workers."
A consumer study
"U.S. and Italian scientists say they've found [that]monkeys, given a choice of their favourite food or choosing from a variety of options, will opt for variety," United Press International reports. "Duke University scientists led by Prof. Dan Ariely said the choices made by the captive-bred capuchin monkeys in Italy's Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies seems to show some innate desire to seek variety.… The findings are expected to shed light on human consumer behaviour.…"
Spotting cheaters
"A professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology devised a clever way to detect student cheating on homework in his introductory physics course - and found about 50 per cent more cheating than students reported in anonymous surveys. And he discovered that frequent cheaters ended up bombing their exams," The Chronicle of Higher Education reports. "The professor, David E. Pritchard, led a research team that analyzed student performance in an online homework system … during four different semesters. The researchers were able to measure the time spent on each question and look for suspicious work patterns. If a student took less than a minute each answering several complex questions and got them all right, for instance, the system flagged that as likely cheating."
Books into fashion
"Who's the more powerful arbiter of style: Anna Wintour or the University of Chicago Press?" Christopher Shea writes for The Boston Globe. "The artist Caitlin Phillips, founder of Rebound Designs in Washington, D.C., riffs on the double meaning of style with her Chicago Manual of Style book purse, fashioned out of an actual copy of the 14th edition of the academic bible, familiar to anyone who's had to write a thesis. … Phillips has also made totes out of Sense and Sensibility and The Good Earth, created wallets out of paperbacks - she'll do a book for you by request as long as it isn't the Koran - and she sells a line of brooches called Naughty Bits, each presenting a unique snippet from a torrid romance novel. Among the printable lines are 'she arched her back' and 'draw those tight crests to.'"
No campus memorials?
"When college students take their lives, as apparently happened recently at Cornell University, the instinctual reaction, to mourn publicly and officially, may be the wrong thing to do, psychologists say," CNN.com reports. "The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention recommends that schools have a 'muted response' to suicide, said Ann Haas, director of suicide prevention projects. That's because students already vulnerable to suicide may be attracted to the idea of getting recognition or gratification in death. 'For those students who seem to be really at risk, there's something about those kinds of memorials that really can trigger additional suicide,' she said."
Hail the @
"The French and Italians have nicknamed it the 'snail.' The Norwegians have plumped for 'pig's tail,' the Germans 'monkey's tail,' and the Chinese 'little mouse,' " Alice Rawsthorn writes for The New York Times. "The Russians think of it as a dog, and the Finns as a slumbering cat. It's the @ symbol on the computer keyboard, which is an essential component of every e-mail address. Millions of us type it each day, usually without thinking about it. Yet the Museum of Modern Art in New York has deemed it to be such an important example of design that the @ has been officially admitted to its architecture and design collection. That's as good as it gets in the design world, rather like bagging a Tony on Broadway or an Oscar in Hollywood."
Sportsmanship
Sumo wrestler Harumafuji was summoned by the head of the Japan Sumo Association's refereeing department Saturday evening and issued a warning over disrespectful behaviour in the ring, The Yomiuri Shimbun reports. In his bout that day, as the wrestler was forcing out Toyonoshima, he gave his opponent an extra shove - accompanied by a tormenting smirk - to send him from the raised ring. An unnecessary final push, known as dameoshi, is considered disrespectful to an opponent. A chastened Harumafuji said afterward: "I did it in the heat of the moment. I need to be more careful."
Thought du jour
"A Chicago alderman once confessed that he needed physical exercise but didn't like jogging, because in that sport you couldn't hit anyone."
- Andrew H. Malcolm