News

Smile, darn ya, smile

"Amid simmering political tensions, a fierce post-election crackdown and a depressed economy, reasons to be cheerful are hardly in abundant supply in Iran," Robert Tait writes for The Guardian. "Now Tehran city council has found an antidote ... the good old belly laugh. It is starting laughing clubs in an effort to reach out to people 'who have lost the power of laughter,' according to the Tehran-e Emrooz newspaper, which is linked to the city's mayor, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf. ... Clubs have been established in two cultural centres normally used for more high-minded pursuits such as concerts, further education classes and poetry readings. Eventually, the council hopes to expand the events to pensioners' groups, health centres and even prisons."

Mileage millionaires

"[Gary] Leff is a millionaire. A frequent-flier-mile millionaire, that is," CNN.com reports. "He estimates that he's accumulated seven million frequent-flier miles across different programs over his lifetime, thanks to his love of travel, lots of airline-affiliated credit-card purchases and careful monitoring of mile promotions. 'It's nice to be able to know that I can get on virtually any airplane in the world without worrying about the money,' said Leff, 35, the chief financial officer for a university research centre, who lives in Arlington, Va. ... Hollywood is taking interest in multimillion-milers like Leff with the upcoming movie Up in the Air, which stars George Clooney as an extreme frequent flier on the cusp of reaching 10 million miles." For such people, it's a world of first-class upgrades, airport lounge attendants who know their names and access to luxury unimaginable for most air travellers.

All over the Earth

"An Indian man, Kashi Samaddar, has broken a world record by visiting all 194 countries on Earth in the shortest time ever," The Daily Telegraph reports. "The 55-year-old Indian businessman spent nearly £350,000 [$620-million] to achieve the record, which took him six years, 10 months and seven days." He started in the Netherlands in 2002, and finished in Kosovo this May, sometimes dodging bombs and bullets along the way. His Kabul hotel was blown apart an hour after he left, he went three days without food in East Timor - until he paid several hundred dollars for some bananas - and in Nauru his flight was cancelled eight times, keeping him there for a month and a half.

Unthinking teen mice?

"U.S. researchers say magnetic resonance imaging scans in mice show teen brains do differ from adult brains," United Press International reports. "Senior author Alexei Morozov of the National Institute of Mental Health said it may be of no surprise to human parents that one of the areas where the juvenile mouse brain structurally differs from the adult mouse brain is in the area having to do with emotions. 'Our work on the amygdala revealed that the neuronal pathways that carry sensory information to the amygdala directly, bypassing [the] cortex, are more plastic in the juvenile than in adult mice,' Morozov says in a statement. ... 'Emotional behaviours in adolescence are less precise and more irrational because they are driven more by subcortical than by cortical structures.' " The findings are published in the journal Biological Psychiatry.

The handsome guy wins

"Elite athletes distinguish themselves through hard work, grit and, most importantly, raw talent," Ewen Callaway writes for New Scientist. "However new research ... points to another trait of the most accomplished jocks: a handsome face. The better an American football player, the more attractive he is, concludes a team led by Justin Park at the University of Bristol, U.K. Park's team had women rate the attractiveness of National Football League quarterbacks: all were elite players, but the best were rated as more desirable. ... 'Athletic prowess may be a sexually selected trait that signals genetic quality,' Park says. So the same genetic factors that contribute to a handsome mug may also offer a slight competitive advantage to professional athletes."

Depression fighter

"Grandma doesn't spend much time online - but she would be better off if she did, researchers agree," Lamont Wood writes for LiveScience. "Some 92 per cent of Americans ages 18 to 29 are online (meaning they admit to using the Internet and e-mail at least occasionally), according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project. ... But for those 65 and older the rate falls off a cliff, to 42 per cent. But a recent study by the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal and Economic Public Policy Studies, a non-profit think tank in Washington, D.C., indicates that spending time online cuts the incidence of depression among senior citizens by at least 20 per cent. The results were based on surveys of 7,000 people age 55 and older who were retired and not working, but not living in nursing homes."

Thought du jour

"Modern travelling is not travelling at all; it is merely being sent to a place, and very little different from becoming a parcel."

- John Ruskin