Here is what I am reading today:
“Those childhood music lessons could pay off decades later – even for those who no longer play an instrument – by keeping the mind sharper as people age, according to a preliminary study published by the American Psychological Association.
The study recruited 70 healthy adults age 60 to 83 who were divided into groups based on their levels of musical experience. The musicians performed better on several cognitive tests than individuals who had never studied an instrument or learned how to read music. The research findings were published online in the APA journal Neuropsychology.”
“A new study from The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry finds that mothers who feed their babies breast milk exclusively, as opposed to formula, are more likely to bond emotionally with their child during the first few months after delivery. The breastfeeding mothers surveyed for the study showed greater responses to their infant’s cry in brain regions related to caregiving behavior and empathy than mothers who relied upon formula as the baby’s main food source.”
“In a new study suggesting pesticides may be associated with the health and development of children, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley’s School of Public Health have found that prenatal exposure to organophosphate pesticides — widely used on food crops — is related to lower intelligence scores at age 7.”
“The happiest countries and happiest U.S. states tend to have the highest suicide rates, according to research from the UK’s University of Warwick, Hamilton College in New York and the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.”
“Jean Meyer gets compared to Mark Zuckerburg, the founder of Facebook, quite a lot these days; and he doesn’t mind one bit. Meyer is a business student at Columbia University and the co-founder of “Date My School” a dating website exclusively for students of certain colleges.
Meyer originally launched “Date My School” at Columbia, but has also launched the site for New York University, Fashion Institute of Technology and UC Berkeley, too. In April the site will go live at Harvard and MIT.”
5 Comments
mdean · April 22, 2011 at 2:49 pm
The “Date my School” website seems like a great idea. It is hard to find people when you have time commitments and grades to keep up in order to get into grad schools. This site seems like a great way to meet people with similar goals without having to waste too much time looking for them.
Robert Landon · April 24, 2011 at 9:43 pm
I’m not completely surprised about the results of the article regarding the “happiest places on earth.” Professor Oswald stated the interesting point that there is a definite disparity of the people in the “happy” places. Further, I think there is a deviation within the individuals themselves in these populations as well. People reporting themselves as happy may have a higher stress response to a life event, such as, loss of a loved one or a job loss than someone that has continual hardship. This is a speculation, but would be interesting to further evaluate.
jwestend · April 25, 2011 at 10:18 am
In response to the “happiest places on earth.” article: Oh no! Oprah has doomed us! haha. Living in one of the supposed “happiest places on earth” I can’t help but agree with the contrast theory mentioned in the article but with a slight twist. Maybe individuals are so used to being satisfied with their life in these places that when a major disappointment comes along they fall much deeper into depression than if they had been conditioned to unhappiness. This may make them more likely to resort to drastic actions such as suicide.
noheli20 · April 25, 2011 at 10:18 am
the article about childhood music lessons really stood out to me. I have played the piano, clarinet and saxophone since i was 10 years old, and i always could feel that there was a trend relating to years of musical practice. I always felt that things such as math skills always came into play when i studied my music. Something that I also find very interesting, and I wonder if their is any research on, is that from my experience and other musicians that I have known, it is always interesting how a person with a musical background, can have a conversation with someone, and almost always immediately can tell if that person plays an instrument, and almost 95% of the time, we are able to guess which instrument they played. This is just something that i have noticed for several years and i wonder if that is the case with other people
noheli20 · April 25, 2011 at 10:30 am
when reading the article about the date my school website, I can’t help but think that Mr. Meyer is on to something great. It is a great idea for people of the same colleges to meet, with not having to worry about the distance, and the level of commitment each one has towards their goals. Often I find myself pulling away from love from people that do not attend my college because, i can not be certain of their priorities. I’m sure this is the case for a lot of people that date people from their hometown, long distance simply does not work. living in this fast pace world, some students don’t have time to set up a date with someone , or even look for anyone to date. But the truth of the matter is we all need someone.. we cant live alone, it is human nature. love is out there, and for someone to come up with a way for students to find it, was brilliant
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