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Curmudgeons, Rejoice: Being Grumpy Might Be Good For You!

TresSugar — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:05:00 -0800

Australian psychology professor Joe Forgas has concluded through his research that grumpy people tend to think more clearly, and because of their skepticism, they also make better decisions than their more cheerful and gullible counterparts.

Cheerfulness isn't all bad, though. Forgas says it encourages creativity. Bad moods, however, incite "attentiveness and careful thinking."

How did he figure this out? He asked volunteers to watch films while thinking of either positive or negative events in their lives, in the hopes they'd be put into good or bad moods.

Then, to test their powers of analysis, he had them judge the truth of urban myths and provide eyewitness accounts of events. The results: the grumps made fewer mistakes and were better at communicating.

"Whereas positive mood seems to promote creativity, flexibility, co-operation and reliance on mental shortcuts," said Professor Forgas, "negative moods trigger more attentive, careful thinking, paying greater attention to the external world."

If you see a smile on my usually grumpy face today, it's temporary - I'm just gloating.

Would You Offer Up Your Baby to Research?

LilSugar — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:00:00 -0700

Weird science? The world's heaviest baby has been invited by the Japanese Medical Association to have his development studied as he grows. The study would be sponsored by a Japanese television network and new concerns are brewing that the Indonesian newborn will be exploited, even if it's for science. Luckily it's not a decision that most parents have to face, but would you allow your baby to be poked and prodded by doctors?

For the Childless, Womb Transplants Are on the Horizon

babysugar — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 11:30:28 -0700

Some women have known all their lives that they were meant to be mothers. When nature does not allow for a man and woman to procreate on their own, people can take alternative routes to building their families: adoption, surrogacy, and in vitro fertilization. But for some ladies, it's not enough to take in an orphaned child or even have another woman carry her own flesh and blood. In that case, a womb transplant could be a dream come true and is very likely to become a reality sooner than later.

Scientists in London successfully performed a womb transplant in rabbits, giving hope to the future of human womb transplants. While there are medical issues to be conquered and experiments yet to be performed, the researchers believe the technique will be tested on women within two years. The topic of human reproduction always proves to be a volatile one. Some will argue the world is already overpopulated and there are plenty of children starving for homes. But for those women who crave the desire to be pregnant, the medical procedure could be the answer to their prayers.

What are your thoughts on the scientific advancement?

Are People With Sensitive Noses More Empathetic?

TresSugar — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:00:00 -0700

Are you cursed and blessed with a good sense of smell? Cursed because you smell every ungodly stink no matter how far away, and blessed because lovely smells affect you deeply?

Psychology professor Denise Chen at Rice University thinks you may also be more empathetic than your olfaction-challenged neighbor.

Sense of smell and emotions come from the same area of the brain (the limbic system), and Chen set out to test their connection. In an experiment with 22 pairs of dorm-dwelling women, Chen asked them all to sleep in identical t-shirts. The next morning, she presented each person with three t-shirts: one worn by her roommate, and two others worn by other people in the dorm. The women who were able to identify their roommates' t-shirts by smell alone also scored high in emotional tests.

"The olfactory brain overlaps with the emotional brain," said Chen, "and is believed to have contributed to its evolution." Do you have a good sense of smell or wish you did?

Burning Question: What Causes Red Wine Headaches?

YumSugar — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 11:45:40 -0700

Red wine headache, or RWH, has long been a subject of contention. Contrary to popular belief, it isn't caused by sulfites (both sweet white wines and dried fruits contain more sulfites than red wine), but rather compounds found in grape skins. Still, no single chemical has conclusively proven to be the culprit.

Some believe the cause is a group of chemicals, which include tyramine, histamine, and others. Red wine contains higher levels of these, because it's produced using the grape's skin and juice. Other scientists theorize that tannins, another byproduct of grape skins, could be at fault. Still others point to lipid compounds. These potential culprits vary among red wines. If you aren't ready to give up red wine just yet, experts suggest trying a small glass of different brands and varietals - like less-tannic Burgundies, Riojas, and Pinot Noir - then noting whether they cause a headache, which would likely appear within 15 minutes.

Got a burning question? Join the Burning Question group in the YumSugar Community! It's your place to post the most pressing questions about the culinary world.

Can Your Eyes Change Color? Here's the Answer.

BellaSugar — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 04:00:12 -0700

When Mr. Bella was first courting me, he went on and on about my eyes. "They change color depending on your mood," he said. I smiled at the sweetness but insisted that such a thing was impossible, that any perceived shift in color was due to him needing an eye exam. I mean, I'm hardly an ocular mood ring. This became one of those cutesy couple "arguments" that we had again and again.

One thing was for certain: My eyes were much greener than they'd been when I was growing up as a blue-eyed girl. What was going on? To get to the bottom of this, I approached Jacque L. Duncan, M.D., Department of Ophthalmology, University of California, San Francisco. "Some loss of iris pigment occurs with age," she said. Fair enough. But what about the alleged color shift depending on mood? I suspected it was due to different lighting, and Duncan cleared that up. "The iris sometimes tends to reflect colors that surround it," she explained. "I think your thought about different light is closest to the truth." I love being right, but I like romance even more, so I might just file this away in the "I was right" files rather than squash Mr. Bella's romantic eye-praising.

Next Up For Male Contraception: Reversible Hormone Injections

TresSugar — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 10:00:00 -0700

When it comes to birth control options, women have the pill, the patch, the ring, the diaphragm, IUDs . . . the list goes on and on. Men have the condom. Scientist are working on more convenient ways for men to take charge of birth control, and now couples in Europe are being recruited to test a new form of male contraception: reversible hormone injections.

Men would get the injections every two months, causing their sperm count to drop to levels that make conception nearly impossible. The effects would be fully reversible.

Do you think men will get on board with this? Would you still use contraception yourself, even if your partner received these injections?

Love: The Key to Creativity

TresSugar — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:00:00 -0700

Love has been the driving theme of artistic creations stretching over generations. Researchers from the University of Amsterdam recently decided to verify that love can change the way we think. The study found that love makes us more creative, while sexual desire makes us more logical.

Subjects who thought about a romantic walk with the person they loved performed better on tasks that required creative thinking. When asked to think about a sexual encounter with someone they didn't love, the subjects performed worse on the creative tasks, but better on logical puzzles. Scientists reasoned that romantic love makes us see things from a long-term perspective (which is good for creativity), while sex makes us think short term (which is good for logical thinking).

So now we know that love makes us creative, while lust might have the opposite effect. I'd like to add heartbreak to the list of creative forces. Without that we wouldn't have Shakespearean tragedies or Kanye's amazing song "Heartless."

Does love make you more creative?

Are You a Fan of the Surreal? It May Make You Smarter

TresSugar — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:00:00 -0700

Franz Kafka, David Lynch, and Rene Magritte were my Kevin, Joe and Nick Jonas as a teenager. (Yeah, I was a weirdo.) So imagine my delight when I read a study that claims that surrealism may be good for the brain.

Research psychologists at UC Santa Barbara and the University of British Columbia concluded that exposure to surrealist art, film or literature, because it puts you in worlds whose elements don't make sense, drives you to look for structure and sense elsewhere, hence raising "the cognitive mechanisms that oversee implicit learning functions." Want to hear the details of this study? Then read more.

To reach this finding, they had two groups of people read Kafka. One group was given Kafka's story "The Country Doctor," which in typical Kafkaesque fashion, goes from normal to weird in no time at all. The other group was given a rewritten version so that nothing was odd about the plot or narrative. After they finished their respective Kafkas, they were asked to find patterns hidden in strings of letters. Those who read the original Kafka stories were both more motivated to find patterns and more accurate in their findings than those who read the normalized Kafka.

It's their second experiment that is almost more interesting to me - they divided groups between those who felt alienated by things they'd done in the past and those who didn't. "You get the same pattern of effects whether you're reading Kafka or experiencing a breakdown in your sense of identity," said Travis Proulx, a postdoctoral researcher at UCSB and co-author of the article. "People feel uncomfortable when their expected associations are violated, and that creates an unconscious desire to make sense of their surroundings. That feeling of discomfort may come from a surreal story, or from contemplating their own contradictory behaviors, but either way, people want to get rid of it. So they're motivated to learn new patterns."

So, basically, feeling alienated and consuming alienating art and literature drives you to make sense of things, giving your brain a workout. That would finally explain my motivation to find meaning in the world after watching The Hills, a surrealist masterpiece if I ever saw one!

Source

News Flash: Men Are Bigger Liars

TresSugar — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:00:00 -0700

After scrutinizing 2,000 Britons, researchers found that in general, men lie twice as much as women. On average, they lie six times a day and women lie "just" three times a day.

The most common lie told by both men and women is, "Nothing's wrong. I'm fine." Men, however, tend to lie about how much they've had to drink, and women lie about how much they spent shopping.

Although 83 percent of adults said they can tell if their significant other is lying, body language expert Richard Newman thinks most people can't tell what signs to look for. "They assume that if someone is hiding the truth," he says, "they would hide their face and avoid eye contact. In fact, the opposite is true. Liars usually do everything they can to convince you of the truth, sitting still and looking at you to watch your reaction."

Now I'm trying to think if I've lied yet today . . .