The act of touching helps form social relationships between people through a physiological process that involves hormones, in particular cortisol, heart rate and body temperature. Specific skin nerves respond to delicate touch, particularly caresses, but not to rapid caresses (faster than 10 centimeters a second) or to rubbing. The stimulated nerves reach brain areas that...
Human newborns are the only mammals that do not stand up soon after they are born. Elephants, giraffes, and horses take a few steps just a few minutes after they are born. Before a human newborn does anything similar it will take about a year and during that time it will roll and drag itself...
Puberty is the time when changes in boys and girls gradually take them into adulthood. These changes used to begin around the age of 14 years. Today, for a variety of reasons including our much richer diets, the age has come down by 3-4 years. Transformations that begin with puberty continue until around 19 years....
In almost all parts of the world women live from six months to four years longer than men and in some places the difference increases to 10 years. A study investigating trends over the last three hundred years reveals that the different longevity is particularly marked in periods of famine or prolonged epidemics. In early...
For various reasons some people find it difficult to fall asleep, the main reason being that they have worries and cannot stop thinking about their problems. It has been seen that writing improves sleep because it reduces anxiety. A study now shows that putting in writing before going to bed, the things one still has...
‘Having a conversation’ is one of the most typical human activities. The speaker usually believes that the listener is interested in hearing about his/her incredible experiences. Instead, the listener is more often bored because it is difficult that the speaker tell a story so well that others grasp what makes it extraordinary for the speaker....
We all know that eating fish is good for one’s health. An association has been observed between diets rich in omega 3, a particular type of fat, and the development of intelligence. Still other studies have described an association between quality of sleep and omega 3 in the diet. A recent study has now established...
The number of road accidents involving motorbikes, bicycles and other two-wheel vehicles is relatively high with respect to the total number of accidents. The reasons given are often obvious and based on the fact that a two-wheel vehicle is less stable than a four wheel one. Clearly, the passengers of, say a scooter, run greater...
Imagine you are walking down a crowded street. You pass thousands of people, but you only notice a few faces while the many others are ignored. How does your brain decide which to notice and which to ignore? Actually, no face is entirely ignored, but in a fraction of a second your brain decides at...
An analysis of 800 million anonymous twitter messages has shown that over the 24 hours of the day our mood changes following cycles. We knew about cycles for body temperature, sleep, appetite, secretion of certain hormones and some mood aspects, but we did not know about cycles for anger, sadness, tiredness. The cycles are specific...
