Fact O' The Day

[Krandall]

Psh, rallies are over powered by the scent of butsekz.

[Peelz]

 

[Krandall]

"You drink more slowly from a straight-sided glass."


According to a University of Bristol study published in the journal PLoS ONE, people drink alcohol twice as slowly out of a straight-sided glass as they do from a beer flute. Researchers theorized that people have a harder time gauging the midpoint in a curved beer flute, and are thus less likely to pace themselves; a follow-up test asked participants to gauge the fullness of different kinds of glasses and confirmed a higher error rate for curved glasses. Glassware shape had no effect on the speed with which people drank nonalcoholic beverages.

[Krandall]

"A Tanzanian village was once overcome with contagious laughter so extensive that it shut down 14 schools."


On January 30, 1962, in the village of Kashasha, Tanganyika (now Tanzania), one group of students began laughing, and the laughter spread to more students, then beyond the school to the surrounding area, and from the area to neighboring villages. Though symptoms lasted a few hours or days, they also relapsed periodically; all in all, the episode lasted for about a year and affected several thousand people. One explanation for the incident, according to linguist Christian F. Hempelmann, is mass psychogenic illness -- a group response to constant stress, formerly dubbed mass hysteria. Similarly inexplicable group behaviors have been recorded throughout history, including the 1518 "Dancing Plague" in Strasbourg, during which dozens (and then hundreds) of people began dancing ceaselessly, some until they died of exhaustion.

[Peelz]

"A Tanzanian village was once overcome with contagious laughter so extensive that it shut down 14 schools."

Aww snap...who sent them the whistles go woo video? 

[Krandall]

"People prefer flexibility at work more than anything else."


Harris Interactive surveyed 1,096 U.S. workers on behalf of the staffing firm Mom Corps, and found that almost half (45%) of working adults would give up a percentage of their salary for more flexibility at work. The average amount they'd be willing to part with is 8.6% (which is nearly double what this figure was last year). Young adults aged 18-34 would give up 14% of their salaries for more flexibility. More than half of people surveyed believed they'd be more productive if allowed to work from home occasionally.

[Krandall]

"A Tanzanian village was once overcome with contagious laughter so extensive that it shut down 14 schools."

Aww snap...who sent them the whistles go woo video? 

[Krandall]

"For a third of Americans, age 70 will be too young to retire."


According to research by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, working an additional five years beyond the traditional retirement age of 65 still won't be enough for them to retire comfortably. The EBRI's research analyzed data from millions of people with 401(k)s, and found that about 64% of people would be able to retire by age 70, while only slightly more than half (52%) could retire comfortably at 65. Working longer can certainly help people save for retirement, the study's summary explains, but this approach is risky, especially for low-income workers.

[Krandall]

"Flirting, but not friendliness, helps women get better deals."


Researchers at UC Berkeley and the London School of Economics devised a series of experiments to evaluate the effects of female flirting. In one experiment, flirtatious women were able to get 20% off the price of a car, but in another, women who made the effort to be friendly without coming off as flirtatious actually wound up paying more. Men tended to see flirtation as strong and assertive (in this case, the flirtatious woman would smile, look the seller up and down, touch his arm and wink). When women were merely friendly, however, men tended to perceive them as pushovers. Other women weren't swayed one way or the other by these different approaches.

[Krandall]

"Being told they're better navigators makes men navigate better"


For a study at Durham University in England, 40 male and 40 female participants were asked to navigate through a computer landscape in order to find a hidden objective. The participants navigated either spatially (relying on geometric cues like angles and distant surfaces) or by using landmarks. The male participants performed better when just using geometric cues, but when half of the participants were told that the test was to examine gender differences in navigation ability, the men performed better on both geometric and the landmark navigation. The effect, called "stereotype lift," is widespread, and has been demonstrated to improve performance in relation to a negatively stereotyped group. One study on the phenomenon focused on Asian women, and called attention either to the fact that they were women (in which case their math performance decreased) or to the fact that they were Asian (in which case their math performance increased).

[Krandall]

"Men and women see motion and colors differently."


According to a study published in Biology of Sex Differences, men's and women's vision are slightly different -- men are better at tracking objects, while women are better at observing subtle color differences. Male participants, the study found, are not as proficient at discriminating between shades in the middle of the spectrum (greens, yellows, and blues), and might see an object as being warmer (more reddish or more orange) than a woman would. However, men excelled at noticing details that shifted rapidly and at a distance (thanks to hormone exposure in the womb, men have more neurons in the visual cortex, which is responsible for this visual processing).

[Krandall]

"Three-fourths of women won't date an unemployed man."


It's Just Lunch, a personalized matchmaking service for professionals, surveyed users on their dating preferences and found that 75% of women are at least "unlikely" to date an unemployed man (including 33% who flatly said they would not). Only 4% of women responded that, "of course," they would. Women were partially concerned about the financial repercussions of dating someone who is unemployed, but were also concerned that their partner's lack of employment would keep them from doing things they enjoy. Conversely, 65% of men were open to dating an unemployed woman.

[Krandall]

"Sights and smells can subliminally influence your pain response."


Researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Charlestown set out to test the idea that outside stimuli completely unrelated to treatment are able to invoke the placebo response and its counter-effect (dubbed the nocebo response). Participants were shown two different images on a computer screen, one of which was presented along with a painful heat pulse to the arm; the other image was accompanied by a much less severe heat pulse. Half of the participants then saw the same images again, but this time, both images were accompanied by an identical heat pulse. The participants nonetheless believed that the previously higher-pain image was again accompanied by a more painful pulse. The other half of the participants were presented with the same setup, but only saw the images for 12 milliseconds, far too fast to consciously parse them (for reference, a blink lasts about 300 milliseconds). These participants also rated the high-pain image as more painful. The implication, according to the study's authors, is that stimuli we're not even aware of can assist (or hamper) a patient's recovery.

[Krandall]

"Watching reruns helps restore your willpower."


A study at the University of Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions asked participants to track their daily activities along with their television consumption and found that people are more likely to seek out TV reruns (or favorite books or movies) if they have something taxing to do later in the day. A followup experiment asked participants to engage in either a demanding task or a less-demanding one. Half of the participants were then asked to write about their favorite TV show, while the other half were given a neutral writing assignment (listing items in their rooms). Those who had dealt with a demanding task wrote more, and for longer, about their favorite TV show than those who'd had a less-demanding task, implying that reflecting on familiar content is in some way restorative.

[Peelz]

"Watching reruns helps restore your willpower."


A study at the University of Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions asked participants to track their daily activities along with their television consumption and found that people are more likely to seek out TV reruns (or favorite books or movies) if they have something taxing to do later in the day. A followup experiment asked participants to engage in either a demanding task or a less-demanding one. Half of the participants were then asked to write about their favorite TV show, while the other half were given a neutral writing assignment (listing items in their rooms). Those who had dealt with a demanding task wrote more, and for longer, about their favorite TV show than those who'd had a less-demanding task, implying that reflecting on familiar content is in some way restorative.

yep mindnumbing tv. use that regularly to purge the brain....