Stay-at-home dads

In the animal kingdom, as we know it, only 5-10% of species have stay-at-home dads. The scientists say the arrangement only works in a monogamy society. A recent study published in the journal Animal Behaviour has identified bat-eared fox as yet another such species - the women go off to work while the men stay home with the kids. Since these foxes eat insects, only females can process the insects into a food suitable for their young: milk. The male spend all of their time with their babies, they know having young with several mothers and trying to split time between defending all of the litters may end up with fewer offspring than investing everything in a single litter.

I'd give my right arm for a trim waist

Nearly 50% of 4,000 people surveyed by Yale researchers say they'd rather give up a year of their life than be fat. 5% of respondents said they'd rather lose a limb than be overweight. ( one way to shed those extra pounds, I think). Between 15% and 30% of respondents said they'd prefer to walk away from their marriage, give up their ability to have children, be depressed or be alcoholic than be overweight. Of the respondents, 56% were overweight, obese or very obese.

The leak investigation

A new survey of over 16,500 kids between ages 5 - 19 found that 3% of 19-year-old guys and 2% of 19-year-old girls still wet the bed. So the numbers are pretty small. However, of the teenage bed-wetters, almost 50% wet the bed every night. The leak investigation also found that nearly 1/3 of male bed-wetters between 11 to 19 also experienced daytime incontinence.

source: Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Women react fast to erotic images too

It is a general believe that men are more aroused by erotic images than women, but according to a recent study, it turned out, women have responses as strong as those seen in men. Erotic images elicited women neuron firing within 160 milliseconds—about 20% faster than occurred with any of the other pictures.

How to choose your on-line screen name ?

A new study out of the University of Maryland shows that female usernames in a chatroom receive 25 times more threatening or sexual private messages than male or neutral usernames. The obviously female screen names in the study were subjected to 163 malicious messages per day. The harassment ranged from the relatively benign ("feeling horny?") to thoroughly unsavory. The authors advise parents to tell their kids to create gender-ambiguous screen names.

What is the No.1 killer of Americans ?

For decades, heart disease has been the nation's No.1 killer. In recently years, according to the American Cancer Society's annual statistical report, cancer has taken its place for Americans 85 and younger.

1/3 of all cancers are related to smoking, and 1/3 are related to obesity, poor diets and lack of exercise are factors that also contribute to heart disease.

Half of entrepreneurship is caused by genetics

A group of researcher compared rates of entrepreneurship between and among more than 1,200 pairs of identical and fraternal twins in the U.K and conclude that nearly half—48%—of an individual's propensity to become self-employed is genetic.

Road rage = intermittent explosive disorder

People think road rage is bad behavior and that you just need an attitude adjustment, but what they don't know is that there's a biology and cognitive science to this. Doctors now have another name for it - intermittent explosive disorder. Road rage, temper outbursts that involve throwing or breaking objects and even spousal abuse can sometimes be attributed to the disorder. According to a recent study, about 5% - 7% of the nationally representative sample had had the disorder, which would equal up to 16 million Americans. That is higher than better-known mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Source: Archives of General Psychiatry, June, 2006.

Minority entrepreneurs launched more new business than the national average

According to a series of recent surveys released by the U.S. Census Bureau, between 1997 and 2002, the total number of U.S. businesses grew by 10%. However, during the same time period, Asian-owned firms increased by 24%, Hispanic-owned businesses by 31%, and African-American-owned firms spiked 45%.

When asked why do these minority entrepreneurs want to start a business, the response are (in that order):

1) control over their destiny;

2) the opportunity to put into practice the experience and education that they've gained;

3) secure their finances;

4) contribute to the community.

Canadians healthier than Americans

Remember the study comes a month ago showing that middle-aged, white Americans are much sicker than their counterparts in England ?

Now you can add Canadians to the list of foreigners who are healthier than Americans. Americans are 42% more likely than Canadians to have diabetes, 32% more likely to have high blood pressure, and 12% more likely to have arthritis, Harvard Medical School researchers found.

Prevalence of diabetes in U.S. population

9.3% of the US adults population have diabetes. 1/3 proportion of adult Americans with diabetes who don'y know they have the disease.
Source link

How can you tell if a marriage is headed for divorce ?

Let the couple discussing a conflict.

Studies demonstrate that happily married couples made 5 positive remarks for every 1 negative remark when they discussing conflict. In contrast, couples headed for divorce offered 0.8 positive remarks for every 1 negative remarks.

Source: Reader's Digest, June, 2006.

Americans' body size

In 1994, the average adult male have weight of 181 pounds and waist size of 37.5", and average adult female have weight of 153 pounds and waist size of 34.9".

In 2002 ( just 8 years later), the average adult male have weight of 190 pounds and waist size of 39", and average adult female have weight of 163 pounds and waist size of 36.5".

Source: Business 2.0, June 2006.

Women outnumber men on campus

According to recent Federal statistics, the U.S. population is 51% female. The number of women enrolled in undergraduate classes has grown more than 2-times as fast as it has for men. Women out number men on campus by at least 2 million, Women now account for about 50% the enrollment in professional programs such as law, medicine and optometry. That is up from 22% a generation ago.

Authors among us

Dan Brown, the author of "The Da Vinci Code", made 30 million dollars last year alone.
JK Rowling, the author of "Harry Potter", is richer than Queen.
No wonder, 81% of Americans say they want to write a book.

Three-person groups best for problem-solving

What is the optimum group size for logic-based problem solving?

It seems 3-person groups work best. That’s according to Patrick Laughlin and colleagues who tested 760 students on a series of 'letters-to-numbers' logic problems. For each of problems, the performance of students working alone was compared with the performance of a 2-, 3-, 4-and 5-person group working on the same problem.

The 2-person groups didn’t tend to perform any better than the best of 2 students who were working alone on the same problem. However, the 3, 4 and 5-person groups consistently outperformed the best of 3, 4 or 5 individuals working alone on the same task. The groups solved the problem more quickly and used more sophisticated equations.

However, the 4- and 5-person groups were no better than the 3-person groups, suggesting a team of three is the optimum group size for logic-based problem solving. “If groups of three perform as well as groups of larger size, it is obviously a more efficient use of human and logistic resources to use 3-person groups”, the researchers concluded.

Source: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 644-651.