In This Issue

7.      Interpersonal Intelligence is the ability to understand the feelings and desires of others and to respond appropriately.    

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  Experiments conducted at the University of Georgia suggest that spices and herbs are potent inhibitors of tissue damage and inflammation caused by high levels of blood sugar.
     Researchers at the University of Georgia tested 24 common spices and herbs and found that they contain high levels of phenols (antioxidant- rich compounds). Phenols have he ability to prevent tissue damage caused by ageing and diabetes.
    The researchers found a strong and direct correlation between the phenol content of common spices and herbs and their ability to inhibit the formation of AGE (Advanced Glycation End products that cause tissue damage in ageing and diabetes).
     Controlling AGE compounds can also decrease the risk of cardiovascular damage associated with ageing and diabetes, according to Diane Hartle, associate professor in the UGA College of Pharmacy. She explained that high blood sugar accelerates cardiovascular diseases because AGE compounds form cholesterol plaques in the walls of blood vessels.
     Because spices and herbs are relatively inexpensive, it’s a great way to get a lot of antioxidant power into your diet, according to James Hargrove, associate professor of food and nutrition in the UGA College of Family and Consumer Sciences.
     Hargrove pointed out that since humans have been consuming herbs and spices for thousands of years, they come without the risk of possible side effects that accompany medications. Spices such as cloves and cinnamon had phenol levels of 30% and 18% by dry weight, whereas herbs such as oregano and sage had 8% and 6% phenol by dry weight. For comparison, blueberries which are widely touted for their antioxidant capability, contain only 5% phenol by dry weight. 

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Trustworthy or Fearsome? How to find out?

    Psychologists Alexander Todorov and Nikolass Oostehof of Princeton University searched for a way to quantify and define exactly, what it is about each person’s face that conveys  a sense that they can be trusted or feared.
     “Humans seem to be wired to look to faces to understand the person’s intentions.” People are always asking themselves, “Does this person have good or bad intentions?” said Todorov. He found that people make split-second judgments of faces on two major aspects – whether the person can be approached or avoided and whether the person is weak or strong.
     The researchers asked a group of volunteers to look at 300 faces and rate them for trustworthiness, dominance and threat. Common features of both trustworthiness and dominance emerged. A trustworthy face has a U-shaped mouth and eyes that form an almost surprised look. An untrustworthy face is an angry one with the edges of the mouth curled down and eyebrows pointing down at the centre. The least dominating face is one resembling a baby’s with a larger distance between the eyes and the eyebrows than other faces. A threatening face can be obtained by averaging an untrustworthy and a dominant face.
     Though people have little control over their facial features, they have control over their facial expressions. And facial expressions can convey messages whether they could be trusted or not.

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Why low-income people buy more lottery tickets?

   It’s a known fact that low-income people spend a larger percentage of their income on lottery tickets compared to other segments of the society. A study by Carnegie Mellon University sheds light on the reasons why low-income people willingly spend on a product that provides poor returns or no returns.
     “Some poor people see playing the lottery as their best opportunity for improving their financial situation, albeit wrongly so,” said the study’s lead author Emily Haisley, a doctoral student at Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business. The hope of getting out of poverty, encourages people to continue to buy tickets, even though their chances of stumbling upon a life-changing windfall are nearly impossibly slim and buying lottery tickets in fact exacerbates the very poverty, that purchasers are hoping to escape.
     The researchers influenced the study participants’ perception of their income – or lack thereof – by having them complete a survey that included an item on their annual income. The group made to feel poor was asked to provide its income on a scale that began at ‘less than 100,000’ and went upward in 100,000 increments, ensuring that most respondents would be in the lowest income category. The group made to feel subjectively wealthier was asked to report income on a scale that began with ‘less than 10,000’ and increased in 10,000 increments, leading most respondents to be in a middle or upper income category. The researchers found that the group made to feel poor purchased twice the number of lottery tickets, compared to the group made to feel wealthier.
     The researchers noted that lotteries set off a vicious cycle that not only exploits low-income people’s desire to escape poverty but also directly prevents them from improving upon their financial situation.
     “State lotteries are popular revenue sources that are unlikely to go away soon,” said George Loewenstein, a study co-author and professor at Carnegie Mellon. However, it is possible to implement measures that can actually benefit low-income, lottery players and lead to fairer outcomes, according to Loewenstein.

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Driving and Dialling don’t mix

  The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that drivers who use mobile phones while driving are four times more likely to get into serious accidents. This is due to the fact that drivers become so absorbed in their conversations that it reduces their ability to concentrate on driving.
     Mixing mobile phones and motoring is a deadly cocktail. But why is that safety is compromised when we talk while driving? The answer lies inside our brain.
     Psychologists at the University of Kansas found that the part of the brain that controls vision becomes less active while having a conversation.
    “When we talk and do some other task, it’s very clear to us that our brain is not fully doing both processes at the same time,” says Dr. Paul Atchley, a cognitive psychologist at the University of Kansas. “Even though their eyes are open, they are missing things that are in the visual world that might be critical for them, for example, a car coming into an intersection,” says Dr.Atchley.
     Experiments conducted at the University of Kansas proved that when you are engaged in a verbal task, you are less aware of incoming visual cues as you have a limited spatial attention window. It is this reason that hands-free phones don’t lower the risk of having accidents.

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High oil price results in major drop in traffic deaths

       Recent date reveals that traffic- deaths has plummeted my 18% in April, 2008 in the United States. If this trend continues, the 2008 annual figure would drop to under 40,000 for the first time since 1961, according to Michael Sivak, head of the Human Factors Division at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute.
         Rising fuel prices, resulting in less driving, is certainly a reason for the decline in traffic deaths. But the real reason for the decline could be a variety of factors including a major shift in driving behaviour, according to Sivak. He identifies the following factors as reasons behind the decline.  

1.      Reduction in the total distance driven invariably leads to less vehicles on the road, which translates to less fatalities o the road.

2.      Reduction in driving on rural roads, leads to more than proportionate reduction in fatalities, as driving on rural roads is riskier than driving on urban roads.

3.      People with less income such as teenagers and retired people, who have higher crash rates have drastically reduced their driving distance.

4.      Motorists have reduced their driving speeds, as they know that driving slower results in less consumption of fuel and more monetary savings.   

     It appears that the increased cost of fuel has finally begun to influence driver behaviour both in terms of the amount and type of driving according to Sivak. One of the indirect benefits of high fuel price is the reduction in emitted CO2, in addition to reduction in road fatalities.

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