Rates of aging
"A new study of MRI images among middle-aged and older individuals discovered an association between personality and the amount of grey matter in the brain," Psych Central News reports. "Researchers studied 79 volunteers between the ages of 44 and 88 who also had provided personality and demographic data. Investigators discovered lower volumes of grey matter in the frontal and medial temporal brain regions of volunteers who ranked high in neuroticism traits, compared with higher volumes of grey matter in those who ranked high in conscientious traits. … 'This is a first step in seeing how personality might affect brain aging,' says Denise Head, PhD, assistant professor of psychology in arts and sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. … She notes also that the results could be seen as 'the tail wagging the dog.' That is, it is actually brain changes during aging that influence personality."
Did you say something?
"Husbands, if you end up in the dog house, consider it a promotion," Sue Manning writes for Associated Press. "A third of pet-owning married women said their pets are better listeners than their husbands, according to an Associated Press-Petside.com poll released Wednesday. Eighteen per cent of pet-owning married men said their pets are better listeners than their wives. … Overall, about one in 10 pet owners said they would talk their troubles over with their pets."
What's his secret?
"Indian military scientists are studying an 82-year-old who claims he has not had any food or drink for 70 years," The Daily Telegraph reports. "Prahlad Jani is being held in isolation in a hospital in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, where he is being closely monitored by India's defence research organization, who believe he may have a genuine quality which could help save lives. He has now [April 28]spent six days without food or water under strict observation and doctors say his body has not yet shown any adverse effects from hunger or dehydration. … 'If his claims are verified, it will be a breakthrough in medical science,' said Dr. G. Ilavazhagan, director of the Defence Institute of Physiology and Allied Sciences."
People and good luck
"In a test conducted by researchers from the University of Cologne, participants on a putting green who were told they were playing with a 'lucky ball' sank 6.4 putts out of 10, nearly two more putts, on average, than those who weren't told the ball was lucky," Carl Bialik writes for The Wall Street Journal. "That is a 35 per cent improvement. The results suggest new thinking in how to view luck and are intriguing to behavioural psychologists. 'Our results suggest that the activation of a superstition can indeed yield performance-improving effects,' says Lysann Damisch, co-author of the Cologne study, set to be published in the journal Psychological Science. The sample size, just 28 university students, was small, but the effect was big enough to be statistically significant. Believing in their own good fortune can help people only in situations where they can affect the outcome. It can't, say, help people watching a horse race they have bet on."
Is it noted in her food diary?
Police in Lincoln, Neb., say a 24-year-old man is missing a chunk of his right ear that was bitten off by a woman who didn't like being called "fat," Associated Press reports. A police spokeswoman said officers were called to a hospital around 3:25 a.m. Wednesday to talk to the injured man. He told them he had been bitten at a birthday party. Officers later learned the injured man and two others had been arguing with some other guests. The man told the 21-year-old woman that she was fat. She then tackled the man and took a bite. The ear chunk has not been found.
News in depth
The Sun tabloid in Britain will publish a 3-D edition with 3-D colour ads and editorial, including Page 3, on June 5 - a week before the World Cup starts. "Sun readers will receive a pair of 3-D glasses with the paper," MediaWeek.co.uk reports. "It is understood that advertisers will have to pay a significant premium if they want colour ads in 3-D. … The 2010 World Cup in South Africa will be filmed in 3-D for the first time. Up to 25 of the games will be captured using 3-D cameras."
Night school
"With enrolment surging at community colleges, Anne Arundel Community College [in Maryland]is taking a novel approach: midnight classes. The college will offer a psychology class from midnight to 3 a.m. Thursdays this fall. It's being dubbed Midnight Madness. The class was dreamt up by Matt Yeazel, the head of the psychology department. He said introductory courses have been overflowing in recent semesters, so he settled on the new time slot as a way to reach more students." Community colleges in four other states have also started offering late-night classes, with enrolment at U.S. two-year schools up 17 per cent this year.
Source: Associated Press
Thought du jour
"Learn to reverence night and put away the vulgar fear of it, for, with the banishment of night from the experience of man, there vanishes as well a religious emotion, a poetic mood, which gives depth to the adventure of humanity."
- Henry Beston