News

EXAMS AND YOUR HAIR

Emotional or physical stress can make it seem as if you're losing hair. "During times of stress, the hair cycle shuts down and stops growing," says Benjamin Yu, a dermatologist and hair-loss researcher at the University of California, San Diego. It's usually not a permanent loss, he adds. "We sometimes see it in college kids around exam time, but they have a higher capacity to regrow hair than older adults."

Source: The San Diego Union-Tribune

EXAMS AND THE SENSITIVE

Sensitive children gain better exam results, according to researchers at the University of Central Lancashire in England. Skills in "emotional intelligence" can make the difference between a B grade and an A among teenagers with the same IQ levels, their study found. Among the more than 600 pupils ages 11 to 12 tested, those with high emotional intelligence went on to score higher in SATs and GCSEs than those with the same IQ but a weaker grasp of emotions. The researchers believe that emotional intelligence allows pupils to manage stress more easily and understand the long-term consequences of doing well at school.

Source: The Daily Telegraph

AS SHARP AS A TEACHER?

"Your risk of dementia decreases by 34 per cent," reports Men's Health magazine (British edition), "if your job requires you to mingle," according to a study in the American Journal of Epidemiology. "Surprisingly, teachers hold onto their marbles the longest, closely followed by nurses, doctors, farmers and office workers."

SO THAT'S THE PROBLEM

Five signs that you will never love your job:

It embarrasses you to tell people what you do.

You've been at the job for more than a year and you still feel like a total fraud.

You connect with no one.

You are overwhelmed with rage or anxiety on a daily basis.

The pay is lousy and you need the money.

Source: Psychology Today

BACTERIA ON HAND

A study at the University of Colorado found that women have a greater variety of bacteria on their hands than men do, Associated Press reports. And everybody has more types of bacteria than researchers expected to find. Scientists are not sure why women harbour a greater variety of bacteria than men, but it may have something to do with the acidity of the skin; men generally have more acidic skin than women, said Rob Knight, a biochemist. The study, led by Noah Fierer, a professor in Colorado's department of ecology and evolutionary biology, appears in the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

PEEK-A-BOO

"The newest computer vision technology can't literally see through your sweater and slacks, but it can determine the shape of your unclad body. Brown University computer scientists have developed software that takes ordinary images of people dressed in street clothes and digitally peels away the layers to determine their 3-D body shape," Carolyn Johnson writes in The Boston Globe. "The software originated in efforts to solve [a] low-tech challenge: fighting crime at the corner store. In partnership with Rhode Island State Police, Brown computer scientist Michael Black developed tools to figure out a person's basic physical attributes from a grainy surveillance video. ... [Scientists] were able to predict gender accurately 94 per cent of the time and their calculations closely matched people's actual body shape. But it's not foolproof - a trench coat tripped them up."

SLEEPY SYNDROMES

It's thought that about 5 per cent of people in the United States have seasonal affective disorder, says Michael Terman, director of the Center for Light Treatment and Biological Rhythms at Columbia University Medical Center in New York. An additional 10 to 15 per cent have milder versions of SAD symptoms, including low mood, low energy, oversleeping and overeating, he says. "Terman believes there is yet another group," USA Today reports, "with what he calls SANS: seasonal atypical neurovegetative syndrome. 'These people suffer no depression whatsoever,' he says, but they have all the other symptoms, including diet-busting cravings for high-carb comfort foods. ... If you are among those folks, your winter blahs may already be starting."

"Many teenagers like to lie in bed and eat to excess," BBC Knowledge magazine reports, "but nothing like those who have the rare and mysterious Kleine-Levin syndrome. Sufferers can spend up to 20 hours a

day in bed, getting up only to eat, and display an unhealthy sexual appetite. The condition mainly affects adolescent males."

THOUGHT DU JOUR

"We can only pay our debt to the past by putting the future in debt to us."

- John Buchan,

Lord Tweedsmuir