Heidi Montag's Plastic Surgery: Obsession Or Addiction?

From Live Science:

When reality TV show star Heidi Montag announced last week that she had undergone 10 plastic surgeries, all in one day, the news was met with some (naturally) raised eyebrows. But she's not alone in her obsession to look perfect by enduring multiple cosmetic enhancements, a phenomenon that has the makings of an addiction, or at least a binge behavior, experts say.

Though Montag, 23, has argued she's not addicted to cosmetic procedures, some psychologists would disagree.

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Ability To Recognize Faces Is Inherited

From Live Science:

Some people never forget a face. For the rest of us, recognizing faces is not so easy. And those with prosopagnosia can't even recognize their close friends.

Now scientists say the ability to recognize faces is inherited and separate from general intelligence or IQ.

IQ is strongly heritable. And one longstanding general thought about IQ holds that if you're smart in one area, you'll be smart in others. But some skills seem distinct. A person can be brilliant with numbers but not good with linguistics, for example. This latter reality supports a modularity hypothesis, in which the mind is like a Swiss Army knife — a general-purpose tool with special-purpose devices, researchers explained.

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Weekends Are Good For You, Study Finds

From Live Science:

Just about everybody – even workaholics – should look forward to the weekend, when most people get a mood boost, a new study suggests.

Participants in the study often reported better moods, greater vitality, and fewer aches and pains from Friday evening through Sunday afternoon as compared with the rest of the week.

"Workers, even those with interesting, high-status jobs, really are happier on the weekend," said study researcher Richard Ryan, a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester.

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Only Humans 'Use Laughter To Mock Or Insult Others'

From The Telegraph:

Humans are the only creatures to use laughter to mock or insult others, scientists have found.

Our animal ancestors, and most of their descendants, laughed simply because they were enjoying themselves, according to a new study.

But over millions of years humans have perfected how to use the sound to wound as well.

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Weekends Are Good For You, Study Finds

From Live Science:

Just about everybody – even workaholics – should look forward to the weekend, when most people get a mood boost, a new study suggests.

Participants in the study often reported better moods, greater vitality, and fewer aches and pains from Friday evening through Sunday afternoon as compared with the rest of the week.

Read more ....

Ladies Are Lugging Less: How Tiny Gadgets And Smart Phones Are Making Women's Handbags 57% Lighter

Photo: Big to small: Cheryl Cole (left) carries a huge Louis Vuitton handbag through LA airport early last year.

From The Daily Mail:

The average weight of a woman's handbag has plummeted as multi-purpose gadgets take the place of Filofaxes, brick-like phones and hefty laptops.

The rise of smartphones such as the iPhone and miniature MP3 players has taken a huge weight off the shoulders of the nation's ladies.

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Women With Full Lips 'Look Younger'

Marilyn Monroe had full lips

From The Telegraph:

Women who have plump full lips look younger than their years, scientists have said.

Devotees of collagen injections and silicone implants have long believed it and now research has backed their theory that a bee stung pout can belie their true age.

Even if the woman in question has wrinkles, eye bags, sagging jowels and greying hair, a rosy and firm set of lips will make them appear younger.

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On The Street: Future of Dating: CBS News

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Watching TV Shortens Life Span, Study Finds

From The L.A. Times:

Australian researchers find that each hour a day spent in front of television is linked with an 18% greater risk of dying from cardiovascular disease and an 11% greater risk of all causes of death.

Watching television for hour upon hour obviously isn't the best way to spend leisure time -- inactivity has been linked to obesity and heart disease. But a new study quantifies TV viewing's effect on risk of death.

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Looks Matter More In A City

From Live Science:

For women, looks may matter more if they live in the city than in rural areas, a new study finds.

The results, which are based on body shape rather than overall beauty, showed that in cities the most attractive gals had higher social and psychological well-being. That same link wasn't found for country residents.

The researchers suggest with higher population densities, cities offer more potential friends and sexual partners, allowing city folks to be choosier and so theoretically able to select the cream of the crop to associate with.

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Sex And Shopping – It's A Guy Thing

It's not what you give, it's what your gift says about you that counts
(Image: George Eastmant House/Hulton/Getty)

From New Scientist:

PEOPLE have radically diverse responses to the very idea of conspicuous consumption. Some folks consider it blindingly obvious that most economic behaviour is driven by status seeking, social signalling and sexual solicitation. These include most Marxists, marketers, working-class fundamentalists and divorced women. Other folks consider this an outrageously cynical view, and argue that most consumption is for individual pleasure ("utility") and family prosperity ("security"). Those folks include most capitalists, economists, upper-class fundamentalists, and soon-to-be-divorced men.

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Why The Powerful Lie, Cheat And Steal

Photo: Tiger Woods may have uncanny concentration when he's on the green, but that same focus doesn't appear to apply off the golf course. Credit: AP Photo

From Discovery News:

Cheating, lying and stealing certainly aren't new social practices, but they were apparently fashionable in 2009.

The year saw a string of scandals involving high-profile personalities from politicians (Gov. Mark Sanford, Sen. John Ensign, Rep. William Jefferson), to corporate executives (Bernie Madoff, Raj Rajaratnam, Allen Stanford) to one golfer pictured here.

Why are powerful people seemingly so powerless to prevent their own transgressions? A new study published in the upcoming issue of the journal Psychological Science offers some explanation.

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9 Things We Learned About Us In 2009

From Live Science:

For a species that has been studying itself for thousands of years, you might think humans would have learned everything there is to know about, well, us. But science never ceases to reveal more about the complex human body, mind and culture. Here are 9 of the most fascinating things we learned about ourselves in 2009:

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Surprising Truths About Santa's Reindeer

Reindeer and caribou are two names for the same species called Rangifer tarandus, with reindeer generally referring to the domesticated variety that pull sleds. Credit: Stockxpert.

From Live Science:

Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen were no doubt keeping an eye on the recent climate conference in Copenhagen. Reindeer numbers have dropped nearly 60 percent in the last three decades due to climate change and habitat disturbance caused by humans, a study earlier this year found.

The decline of reindeer is a hot topic to more than just Santa and millions of children around the world.

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Why Your Boss Is Incompetent

It's not their fault that they are incompetent (Image: David Seed/Taxi/Getty)

From New Scientist:

IN THIS season of goodwill, spare a thought for that much-maligned bunch, the men and women at the top of the management tree. Yes, the murky machinations of the banking bosses might have needlessly plunged millions into penury. Yes, the actions of our political leaders might seem to be informed more by dubious wheeler-dealing than by Socratic wisdom. And yes, the high-ups in your own company might well be the self-important time-wasters you've always held them for.

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Happiest States Revealed By New Research

The Happiest States

1. Louisiana
2. Hawaii
3. Florida
4. Tennessee
5. Arizona
6. Mississippi
7. Montana
8. South Carolina
9. Alabama
10. Maine

From Live Science:

Ever wondered if you'd be happier in sunny Florida or snow-covered Minnesota? New research on state-level happiness could answer that question.

Florida and two other sunshine states made it to the Top 5, while Minnesota doesn't show up until number 26 on the list of happiest states. In addition to rating the smile factor of U.S. states, the research also proved for the first time that a person's self-reported happiness matches up with objective measures of well-being.

Essentially, if an individual says they're happy, they are.

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Scientists Find Formula For Beautiful Face

Actress Jessica Alba Photo: GETTY

From The Telegraph:

Beauty is not so much in the eye of the beholder as in the measurements between a woman’s eyes, mouth and ears, scientists claim.

Researchers have calculated the ratios of the “perfect” face and claim that celebrities including Jessica Alba, Liz Hurley and Shania Twain have the magic formula.

While being labelled average is rarely regarded as a compliment, they also found that the “golden ratio” matched dimensions of an average woman’s face.

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Geeks Drive Girls Out of Computer Science

From Live Science:

The stereotype of computer scientists as geeks who memorize Star Trek lines and never leave the lab may be driving women away from the field, a new study suggests.

And women can be turned off by just the physical environment, say, of a computer-science classroom or office that's strewn with objects considered "masculine geeky," such as video games and science-fiction stuff.

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Aid Agencies 'Must Use New Tools'

Photo: Ushahidi is a free and open-source information-sharing platform

From The BBC:

The "crowd-sourced" data that comes from victims of natural disasters and conflicts is now a crucial part in disaster management, says a new report.

The UN Foundation/Vodafone Foundation Partnership report outlines examples of new technologies that mitigate conflicts and save lives worldwide.

A report author said it reveals that aid agencies "fail to take advantage" of new tools available.

It says a number of challenges remain to maximise the tools' potential.

The partnership is a $30m, 5-year plan that joins the humanitarian arms of each group, with a focus on the technological aspects of aid.

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First-Born Children Are More Successful But Less Trusting

From The Telegraph:

First-born children are more likely to achieve greatness but at the cost of being less co-operative and less trusting than their younger siblings.

Research suggests that first borns are generally smarter and more likely to become leaders compared to their younger brothers and sisters.

However this appears to make them more cynical and less likely to trust others or co-operate with them, according to research.

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